Despite the rainy, cold weather and small crowd, Troy Walker entertained audiences for his

University of New Haven debut on Wednesday, November 30.

Walker, originally from Denver, Colo., began comedy as an undergraduate; at the time, he had a

political science degree but he didn’t know what he wanted to do. Comedy was the one thing he

was doing all the time.

He said, “It takes a while for you to realize that you can do it to the point where you’re like, this

could be my job. It takes a little while for that so I was like I’m going to have to figure

something out.”

He decided to apply to the University of Denver and he ended up getting a scholarship and chose

to go, where he took many law classes as an undergraduate.

“I don’t regret it at all,” he said. He did comedy the whole time and during that time stand up

was taking off. He had a day job, and at night he would do comedy. “If anyone is thinking or

dreaming about going to law school only go if you really want to be a lawyer. It’s hard but not as

bad as they make it seem. They retrain your brain and teach you more critically and logically

than anything before. It makes you a much better thinker and writer.”

He mentioned how law school is writer’s boot camp, “It for sure helped me because there are a

lot of similarities to how you write a joke. You have a premise and you need to turn it around in

your head to try and look at all the angles to see where the joke may be at. It’s the same thing as

crafting a legal argument.”

In 2007, he won the “New Faces” contest at his local comedy club in Denver (Comedy Works).

“It was the greatest thing in the world. It’s one of those things which is your first stepping stone

and when you are a new open micer that is the biggest thing in the city. You are going up against

all the open mic comics and the whole town; amateur and semi-pro. It’s like our own “Last

Comic Standing”, so winning that is a huge deal. Nine years later I’m like ‘oh that’s cool’, but it

was one of the coolest things to ever happen to me.”

Troy has gotten to work with some of his comedy idols. He considers people like Dave

Chappelle, Sean Patton, Matt Braunger, Bill Burr, Louis C.K., Roseanne, Sinbad, Rob Schneider,

Norm Macdonald, Jay Mohr, Tracy Morgan, Bobcat Goldthwait, Eddie Murphy and Mitch

Hedburg. Some people he has gotten to work with are Dave Chappelle, and Roseanne.

He said working with Dave Chappelle was awesome.

“Bill Burr is probably my favorite right now more than anyone I haven’t worked with.” (Comedy

Works gets a lot of big headliners so when you are new you can work with people like that.) “If

anyone wants to find a Mitch Hedburg album and listen to it he is hilarious!”

He watched all those people as a kid and was inspired.

“You watch those guys and I just always liked comedy and performing. I would always do plays

and I wanted to try it and once I did, I never stopped.”

When he was asked if Saturday Night Live (SNL) was his dream he responded, “It used to be”,

he said. He likes acting, he was a theatre major for a couple of years. “If I could rub a lamp and

ask a genie for something it would be to get to do a movie and I would be real specific,” he said

with a laugh.

When talking about the feeling of performing he discussed laughter and how the crowd can

effect a performance. “It’s a rush, it’s something you can’t describe because there’s so much that

goes into a joke. It starts as a thought, then you play with it and turn it around and work on it and

test it out. Once people laugh its vindicating a little bit but there’s no rush like it, especially in a

big crowd.”

Troy enjoyed his first time at U.N.H. “It was better than I expected for sure. There were more

people than I thought there would be and people were just having fun. Sometimes college crowds

can be tamped down and they are worried about things that could be offensive. I think sometimes

people can be tight like that and you guys were just fun.” He tried to relate to the crowd with

interacting, and making jokes out of his personal experiences.

He closed out with some advice, “I think anything that makes you a better writer helps you with

whatever you want to do. Also to enjoy college it’s a good time, you guys are lucky.”