On Friday night, a PROK comedian took an entire audience outside with him to protest poor treatment from a club and performed the rest of the show in a nearby park.

Lo-Ball (The Local Ballard Comedy Show) had been a staple of the Seattle comedy scene for the past two years, bringing in big crowds to Mr. Spot’s Chai House in Ballard to see a mix of amateur and professional comedians try out new material. Produced by the People’s Republic of Komedy (who will be hosting their own stage at Bumbershoot this year) the show had been featured in the Seattle Times, The Seattle Weekly, The Stranger and Seattle Magazine.

Six months ago, however, a new booker was brought into the Chai House who clearly had no love for comedy. Shows were being booked at odd times or suddenly canceled at the last moment. Soon the crowds, who never knew when to show up anymore, stopped coming. Last Friday, two hours before the show, the Chai House sent a MySpace message to Paul Merrill, the producer of Lo-Ball, informing him that they no longer wanted comedy at their shop.

After two years of bringing packed houses to the Chai House every Friday night for no compensation (the show was always free and all-ages), Lo-Ball was history.

Instead of going out with a whimper, however, Merrill decided to show the Chai House what they’d be missing. At the start of the show, he asked everyone in the audience who had come to see comedy to stand-up. All of the 20-30 people in the crowd stood up. He then announced that they’d be moving the show outside. The entire crowd then followed Merrill outside to nearby Bergen Place Park, where they preceded to put on a comedy show to a loyal (and shivering) audience.

Over the course of the show, the crowd grew as curious passersby stopped to enjoy the free entertainment. After the comedians finished, Merrill offered to buy everyone a drink—provided it wasn’t at the Chai House.

Seattle’s most popular comedy show has a new home, and it looks a lot like the old one.

Less than a year after leaving their original venue in the lower level of the Capitol Hill Arts Center (CHAC), Laff Hole, the critically acclaimed weekly comedy revue produced by the Peoples Republic of Komedy (PROK), begins a return engagement May7th. Only this time, they’ll be in the spacious upstairs theater.

“It’s big,” says PROK member Paul Merrill of the new space. “Three years ago we were doing shows in front of twelve people at a bar, and now we’re putting on shows in a 200-seat theater. It’s pretty amazing.”

Laff Hole has had near-capacity crowds at Chop Suey since August, but the limited seating and rock club elements forced PROK to look elsewhere.

“The performers at Chop Suey had to struggle with loud, drunken chit-chat at the bar,” says comedian Aziza Diaz, one of the producers of Laff Hole. “The theater style seating will hopefully bring the attention of even the very most soused of our guests back to the stage.”

Diaz isn’t the only one looking forward to the new venue.

“The way CHAC is set up, the audience is looking down at the performer, rather than up like at Chop Suey,” explains Travis Vogt, a local comedian and filmmaker. “It makes you feel like you’re standing in front of a tidal wave of (hopefully) laughing people.”

The inaugural show, which will be filmed for the Seattle Channel, will include some of Seattle’s best young comedians, including Derek Sheen and PROK founding member Kevin Hyder.