Corkscrew Comedy Festival Pulls Out the Stoppers
Husband-and-wife duo Anna Vocino and Loren Tarquinio talk their differences out on stage (photo by Joanna Degeneres)
BY STEVEN LIBOWITZ | Montecito Journal
Anna Vocino and Loren Tarquinio have lived in the Santa Ynez Valley since just before the pandemic, when the formerly L.A.-based power comedy-writing-producing married couple turned their “getaway escape patch” into their full-time home. More than five years later the married partners are joining with two other couples with entertainment and/or winemaking backgrounds to produce the Corkscrew Comedy Festival, a three-day joke-filled weekend spread out over three different venues that they hope will turn into an annual event.
Vocino is a cookbook author and voiceover specialist who was the first woman to voice promos for a network with NBC in 2019. Tarquinio’s credits include writing for Jimmy Kimmel Live! and serving as writer-producer promoting the Super Bowl for Fox that won an Emmy. He performed comedy separately for more than 15 years before deciding to join Vocino seven years ago for a dual act about marriage.
“Whenever I’d hear a male comic talking about something like getting back on stage three days after having a baby, I’d be thinking, ‘Of course you did. But I would like to hear what your wife has to say about it,’” explained Vocino. “I thought, why not do that in real time?”
The twist on an old format of talking about your domestic partner proved a success.
“We both had a lot of jokes about each other, so it was about being more efficient to go on stage together and make it more of a dialogue thing,” Tarquinio said. “People really liked it.”
So did the comics, who discovered mining their own long-term relationship and gently skewering each other on stage beneficial for their marriage.
“We’re not afraid to make fun of ourselves,” Tarquinio said. “It’s mostly me who does dumb things, but we’re okay to poke fun at each other in a good way. It’s kind of therapeutic.”
Wine and other elixir therapies will go hand-in-hand with the stand-up routines at the three gigs that make up the initial Corkscrew Comedy Festival this weekend, including Friday night at the Maverick Saloon in Santa Ynez, Saturday evening at Brander Vineyard in Los Olivos, and Sunday afternoon at 27 Vines on Refugio Road in Santa Ynez. Sixteen comedians covering a wide swath of styles – drawn from among the couple’s colleagues and many others, mostly from the L.A. area – will perform over the three days, with Vocino and Tarquinio doing their mostly marriage thing as Saturday’s openers.
Proceeds benefit the Santa Ynez Valley Humane Society, who will also bring along almost two dozen adoptable animals for Sunday’s event.
Visit https://corkscrewcomedy.com for details, the lineup, comic bios and tickets
