Comedian Kelsey Cook to perform at Hancher for ‘The Happy Hour Tour’

It takes considerable confidence to be a comedian. It takes guts to stand up in front of an audience to deliver personal material, and it helps if a humorist can be a fearless competitor, which describes Kelsey Cook.

Playing sports on an elite level and delivering comedy are often mutually exclusive. There are exceptions. Venerable clean comic Brian Regan played college football. Cook excelled as a high school athlete.

"I love competing, and I still do that with foosball," Cook said. "I used to play high school basketball and volleyball ... I love going up against anybody. I competed in the Hall of Fame Foosball tournament in Las Vegas. I won a few matches, and I lost a few playing against the best players in the country."

Cook has impressed performing alongside some of the finest comics in the country. Jim Norton ("Straw Dogs," “Water for Elephants") is such a fan that he tabbed Cook to tour with him. Cook is a strong headliner who appears ready to take a step into another echelon courtesy of her relatable humor. Cook is at her best when riffing about relationships.

Cook has a Midwestern vibe even though she hails from Spokane, Washington. The Lilac City is in the Pacific Northwest but would fit right in with Iowa. While Cook was growing up in Spokane, she was headed in a similar direction as the aforementioned Regan, who was an accounting major, until his football coach suggested a move to theater.

The dynamic Cook was a math major at Washington State University before transferring to communications.

"I love math, but I was super unhappy as a math major in my junior year," Cook said while calling from Spokane. "I saw what math classes I had to take just to teach, and it wasn't very appealing."

It could have been a very different story for Cook if she didn't opt for comedy over the corporate or conventional world. Not many math majors appear on “The Tonight Show” or have comedy specials on Hulu like Cook. "Mark Your Territory," Cook's latest special, was released on Hulu in February. Cook riffs on heartbreak and how she picked up the pieces after a divorce.

Cook switched gears in college and never looked back.

"I discovered what I was meant to do with my life," Cook said. "I couldn't be happier."

Cook is such a confident comic that she killed while performing in her living room in 2021 when some comedians delivered stand-up during lockdown. Cook used a cat tree as a mic stand and knocked it out of the park while not having an audience to play off, which is difficult.

"That was so exciting," Cook said.

But perhaps Cook's skills shouldn't be so surprising since much in life is genetic. Cook's father, Chris Cook, is a trumpet player with the Spokane Symphony and Spokane's former poet laureate.

"It's fortunate that my dad is a full-time musician and pursued his passion for a living so he understands me," Cook said.

Chris has supported his daughter's choice from the start, which isn't easy since the path to success on the stand-up circuit is narrow.

"I see how parents are afraid of their young daughter hitting the road performing in some weird places like a one night show in a bar somewhere in North Dakota," Cook said. "This can be a very scary life. It's not stable. There are no guarantees. But I'm not playing those strange places in North Dakota anymore."

Cook has graduated from the dimly lit, grungy dives to legitimate venues, such as Hancher Auditorium where Cook will perform two shows Thursday, Oct. 23.

It's not easy to get on to Cook's level, but the tenacity that propels her in foosball has helped her get ahead in the cutthroat world of comedy.

"If I weren't that way, I wouldn't have gotten this far," Cook said. "Hey, it's paid off. This is the way you have to be if you want to get anywhere in this business."