By his own admission, Dave Odd didn’t make many people laugh 15 years ago as a shy, often picked-on student at Niles North High School. But, on Friday, Oct. 9, Odd will get another chance as he brings his stand-up comedy show to the Skokie Theatre.

The show, billed as a hometown stand-up showcase, features Odd—Niles North class of 1994—and five other local comedians: Mark Nabong, Niles West class of 1996; Seth Davis, Niles North class of 1997; Liza Treyger, Niles North class of 2005; David Cosby, New Trier class of 2009; and Skokie resident Chris Kostro.

The idea for the show began with Odd, who said he wanted to perform in Skokie for quite some time.

“I always wanted to do a show in my hometown,” Odd said. “I started to realize there’s a lot of comedians from the north suburbs, west suburbs, so I thought it would be a cool idea to do hometown comedy shows.”

Odd’s road to comedy began when he quit taking classes at Oakton Community College to try his luck as a screenwriter. It wasn’t long, though, before he abandoned that goal in favor of touring the country performing stand-up comedy. In addition to stand-up, Odd has produced comedy shows since 2001 and, for the past two years, has run the Edge Comedy Club at The Chicago Center for the Performing Arts, 777 N. Green St.

The club acts as a breeding ground for new comics. Each Wednesday, local comedic hopefuls test their material at the club’s open-mic night. For those seeking to refine their acts, Odd teaches comedy classes at the club. The classes offer tips on everything from reading an audience to getting booked for shows.

“Edge Comedy is one of the best ways for starting comics, because comedy’s kind of cliquish in the city,” Kostro said. “Odd really gives people a chance.”

Kostro, a Brookfield native, studied acting at the University of Illinois and won roles in various local commercials before deciding to try comedy. He attended a few classes at Chicago’s Improv Olympics, went to a few open-mic nights, but didn’t have much luck in comedy until he found the Edge Comedy Club.

“Now I’m starting to get other showcases and other venues only because [Odd] gave me a chance,” he said.

Nabong had a different way of describing Odd’s assistance in helping local comics develop.

“[Odd] is the perfect high school girlfriend for a comedian,” he said. “You can ‘date’ him for a little while and work out all your emotional issues before moving on.”

Nabong has worked with Odd for two years. Like Odd, Nabong described himself as a shy kid growing up in Morton Grove.

“You’re going to find, with most comedians, we all have kind of the same origin story,” he said. “In the military, they have what are called force multipliers, so if you’re on high ground, it’s a force multiplier. If you’re like an awkward kid or an ethnic kid or a smelly kid, being funny is like your force multiplier. It’s how you make yourself stand out without having to compete on grounds you can’t compete on.”

Nabong said he started to use comedy to get the attention of female classmates.

“I came from a small school—I graduated 8th grade in a class of 22 people,” he said. “Niles West was the biggest place I’d ever seen. My freshman year was the first time I’d been around a lot of girls who didn’t all have direct memories of me pooping my pants when I was in 2nd grade … I wasn’t going to be a sports star or a Don Juan, so it was comedy for me.”

Nabong started performing comedy on stage while attending graduate school in Michigan. He said his first jokes were not received well by the audience.

“I could summarize it as the kind of jokes that work when you’re sitting around a table and everyone’s having a beer, but do not work at all on stage. So I went into stand-up hiding for a bit,” he said.

Davis, a newcomer to stand-up, also went into hiding after his first performance. The Skokie native attended the University of Iowa after high school but eventually transferred to DePaul University, where he received a degree in elementary education.

Davis said he took a year off from stand-up after his first performance, which he said went poorly.

“It was almost like watching myself from outside my body,” he said. “I was thinking while I was talking. But a month ago, I had to do it again because I’m constantly writing and I want to do it so bad.”

Constant writing is what brought David Cosby to the stand-up arena. Born in Evanston and raised in Glenview, Cosby described himself as a class clown who would constantly write down funny ideas as they came to him. For his senior project, which at New Trier is the equivalent of a work-study program, Cosby spent a summer interning with Odd, helping him set up shows like the Skokie hometown show. In between booking shows, Cosby received tips from Odd, who let Cosby take the club’s comedy class for free.

Now in his freshman year at Illinois State University, Cosby said he is finding plenty of new material in college.

“My roommate is full of material,” Cosby said. “My whole floor, in fact, is pretty good.”

The Edge Comedy Club’s Hometown Stand-ups Show will take place at 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 9 at the Skokie Theatre, 7924 N. Lincoln Ave., Skokie. Tickets are $15 in advance, $20 at the door. For more information or to purchase tickets, call 847-677-7761 or go to www.skokietheatre.org.

For more information about the Edge Comedy Club, go to www.edgecomedyclub.com.

—Jonathan Bullington, Triblocal.com reporter