by CHRIS BARRY

Name: Eric Amber

Age: 31

Occupation: Comedian/Theatre impresario

Bio: Born to travelling carnival workers, this heapin' hunk of hilarity spent the first 10 years of his life on the road living out of a tractor trailer, only starting school in Grade 4. "Sure, I was a little behind everyone else, with terrible social skills, but I could really count. My father had me counting quarters [earned at the carnival] very early on." Eventually settling in the notoriously badass "slums" of Calgary, Alberta, young Eric found himself enticed by the performing arts largely as an alternative to the life of crime the bulk of his friends were pursuing. Developing his considerable talent with the highly regarded Loose Moose theatre company, he spent most of the 1990s travelling the world doing street theatre, improv and stand-up comedy with his troupe the Three Canadians. But as life on the road grew tiresome, and recognizing that a return to Alberta might well be a fate worse than death, Eric decided to come to Montreal where an abandoned, burned out building on Ste-Catherine E., still owned by his family, was now his for the taking. Today, after three-and-a-half years of renovating the dump pretty well all on his lonesome, 264 Ste-Catherine E. is the home of Théâtre Ste-Catherine, Montreal's newest and fabbest ever performing arts space. "I spent every penny I ever made fixing this place up. I speak French, I love this town!"

Is he at all aware that it's a rare occasion indeed when English theatre and actual paying audiences come together in Montreal? "I guess I'm naïve enough to just take the leap. Yeah, I'm from Alberta, but that doesn't mean we're doing English theatre exclusively. Nah, I want the space to be multi-purpose. Hey, I've got [punk rock band] CPC Gangbangs in here December 10; we're doing vaudeville, comedy - I'm open to all sorts of different things."

One "different" thing he's hard at work on: A comedy version of A Christmas Carol, which will be running at Théâtre Ste-Catherine from December 14-23.

On why so much stand-up comedy is so impossibly terrible: "Because these people just try too hard to be funny, and that's never funny. It's the same reason why Canadian cinema suffers, too many people trying too hard to be interesting."

Something he's just done: Developed a sitcom for those legendary purveyors of cutting edge comedy, the CBC.

One way to check out Théâtre Ste-Catherine without paying anything: By going to Eric's 100 per cent free improv workshops every Sunday at 5 p.m.

Does he ever have to tell people at his workshops that perhaps comedy isn't their thing, and in fact, they are so unfunny that if they're not careful CTV might start looking to recruit them to work on Corner Gas? "No, you certainly don't want to crush anyone."

Last book read: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig.

Fave TV shows: Fawlty Towers, The Young Ones, WKRP in Cincinnati.

Words of wisdom: "Be positive, accept, and be humble."

Comments? dimwit@openface.ca