ASU graduate helps bring local talent to ‘Last Comic Standing’

Tempe should be proud. Not only has NBC picked the Tempe Improv as its first outside-Hollywood stop on its search for the funniest unknown comedian in the United States — aka the fourth season of the series “Last Comic Standing” — but one of the show’s talent scouts, Ross Mark, is an Arizona State University graduate.

Mark, the stepson of Improv comedy club chain creator Bud Friedman, says that he “found the location for the Tempe Improv, and I actually worked at the Tempe Improv also. . . . When I was in school, I told my stepdad, ‘Hey, a good place for a comic club would be Tempe, Arizona.’. . . Six months later, there was a club there and it was all ready to go.”

Now, he’s excited to return.

“The comedy scene in Arizona . . . all I hear about is how much better it’s getting,” Mark says.

And he knows comedy. In tandem with fellow talent executive Bob Read, who also works on “Last Comic Standing,” Mark has booked comedians to appear on NBC’s “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” for the past four years.

He says that working there is “the pinnacle of comedy. . . . It’s exciting, but it’s also a big honor.”

After working the first two seasons of “Last Comic Standing,” Mark and Read are returning to the talent scout positions for the show’s fourth run after a third-season absence.

“That’s where the network went wrong,” Mark says. “They were so excited to do season three so quickly, they didn’t have a search — they just said, ‘OK, we’ll just put season one against season two, put it on the fall schedule, and hopefully the ratings will stay the same.’ Well, it didn’t.”

Mark and Read began watching public auditions for “Last Comic Standing” last week in Los Angeles, and the search for the country’s top unknown comedian will continue through Austin, Texas; Chicago; New York and Miami, Fla.

Comedians are invited to “bring their best three minutes” to an audition for the show 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday at the Tempe Improv. Comics are also able to submit audition tapes online at NBC.com, where one comedian will be chosen by online voters to join the winners found in the nationwide trek. The first episode of “Last Comic Standing” will consist of the 10 Tempe Improv audition finalists performing at the club. It’s scheduled to air this summer.

Although Mark acknowledges that encountering a few bad comics along the way compels him and Read to be “pretty honest,” he says that “we’re not there to rip people apart — we’re there to find America’s next big sitcom star.”