Friend a Day – Kelvin Hatle

Photo by Bob Alberti

I met Kelvin during the early years of CONvergence when he was performing as a member of Soylent Theater.

Kelvin is a very quiet person when he is hanging out in a group of people.  He’s a lot more likely to listen to a conversation at a party than to join in with one.  You really need to spend some one on one time with him to have any real chance to know him.

He is a gifted improviser, which comes as a surprise if you know him only as the guy who is quiet at parties.  When he gets on stage for an improv, he becomes a different person.  Which is sort of the point, I guess.

Over the last few years, he has taken to producing one man shows at the Minnesota Fringe.  So far, each one has been a little bit better than the last.  He’s really grown as a writer and a performer through those solo shows.

I’d put him in everything I wrote if I could.  He always finds a way to make what I do funnier than it was on the page.

He’s also very good at trivia.  He worked with us on the GPS team trivia contest and he had the ability to write questions that were both challenging and interesting.  When he moved on from the contest, we lost one of our best writers.

When he joined the cast of Vilification Tennis, he brought an entirely different personality to the stage.  His dry delivery and his clever writing take a little while to catch on with the audience at times but with a little time to warm up, he gets them on his side.

There are several performers in the Twin Cities of whom I never tire.  Kelvin is one of them.  I will cheerfully go to anything in which he takes part because I know he will always be a lot of fun to watch.

I look forward to many more opportunities to work with Kelvin because he makes everyone around him look better.