Zack Toczynski

Washington, D.C., is known for cultivating some of the sharpest talents in comedy: Dave Chappelle, Wanda Sykes and Lewis Black are prime examples. To stand out in that scene, you have to have something special going for you.

When Zack Toczynski started doing comedy in Washington, D.C., in 2003, he raised eyebrows as an outspoken and outrageously funny gay comic who was also Polish, Catholic and a card-carrying Republican.

When you carry baggage that heavy, you have to be funny.

Since then, Toczynski has backed off of his support of Republicans.

“I think I started to realize that I wasn’t white enough, fat enough or racist enough to be part of the party anymore,” he said. “So I had to kind of get off the bus and leave. I got to a point where you’re in a party that uses gay people to win elections and they’re kicking you around left and right in the public. Then at a fundraiser, they stick their hand out like, ‘Hey, can you donate to us?’ So if they’re going to dig gay people behind closed doors, you have to do it in public too. They’re not doing that, so [they] don’t get my vote. That’s how it goes.”

Toczynski used to wear his Republican stripes onstage in his earlier days but now he doesn’t even mention them in his act.

“Any kind of stage time I give to the GOP is free promotion and they don’t really deserve it at this point,” he said. “So even if it’s negative, any publicity is going to be publicity in general. So I just cut anything dealing with Republicans out of my act out of spite. I’m not a big fan anymore. I don’t think they’ve lived up to their end of the bargain of being a big-tent party. They’re a small tent and the tent gets smaller every year.”

Toczynski is set to pitch his comedy tent July 13 at Rainbow Mountain Resort, where he’s become a perennial favorite.

“It’s my third time playing there,” he said. “About two-and-a-half years ago, they invited me in the dead of winter and it was a fun little crowd. I came back last summer and they invited me back this summer.”

The show is billed as “Zack Toczynski in his Undies,” but he doesn’t want people to get the wrong idea (or their hopes up).

“The person that’s organizing the show has taken a liking to me,” he explained. “They’re trying to be very creative in the sense of assuming that I’m playing along with their ‘Underwear Weekend,’ which I’m not. But if it sells tickets, I’d do it. I’ve done more for less. I think it’s funny.”

Even if the democratic process eventually dictates that he perform in his skivvies, Toczynski is looking forward to entertaining the people of Rainbow Mountain.

“These folks are real local,” he said of the audience. “They came from quite a bit away in the Poconos. It’s a mixture of people. It’s mainly gay people, obviously. But you get a lot of straight people and couples. It’s a little older. It’s interesting the kind of folks that you get there. They tend to be smaller shows but they’re a fun crowd and they come there because they are ready to laugh. They like a little bit of camp and pop culture. Political jokes don’t work as well but then again, they only work in D.C.”

Toczynski explained that, with audiences in the nation’s capital, the heightened political awareness can come at a steep price.

“Sometimes when you play the smaller towns with gay people, a lot of times the center of their world revolves around drag queens or a campy type of atmosphere,” he said. “It’s a little more laid-back, silly and fun. They don’t take themselves as seriously as people from D.C. do. People in D.C. tend to be more uptight. You can be really, really smart onstage and they will get it, but as soon as you get a little blue with D.C. people, they give you a little bit of a groan. I don’t get groans with the [Rainbow Mountain] people.”

Toczynski performs at 8 p.m. July 13 at Rainbow Mountain Resort, 210 Mount Nebo Road, East Stroudsburg. For more information, see www.zackthecomic.com or call (570) 223-8484.