The Boston comedy community rallies for one of their own

Boston Globe

10-04-2025

Months later, Dorval, 50, is optimistic. Chemo and radiation have destroyed the tumor. He suffered a setback when a procedure to harvest his stem cells for an auto stem cell transplant, which helps bones heal after chemo, didn't yield enough for an effective treatment. He was hoping to be working his way back to the stage over the summer, but that has been pushed back to the fall at the earliest.
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In the meantime, he's resting, watching the new 'Matlock,' and enjoying playing games with his wife and son. And he has felt well enough to record new episodes of the 'Total Dad Movies' podcast, which he hosts with his friends Tooky Kavanagh and Dave Rabinow. 'This is the longest I've gone without performing in my life, I think, since I was a child,' he said. 'So that's a little outlet that's creative.'
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Dorval has made an impression on a few generations of comedians in Boston, both with his gentle but pointed stand-up and his congenial personality. So when he needed help, it wasn't hard to get people on board. Kavanagh started a GoFundMe campaign to help make up for Dorval's lost work, which has quadrupled its original $5,000 goal. She was also part of a benefit for Dorval in February at The Comedy Studio.
Kavanagh met Dorval in 2017 when she was just starting to pursue stand-up seriously, and he helped point her in the right direction. 'Mike is just genuinely the kindest, most genuine person ever,' she said. 'He gave me incredible advice with starting out. I do credit him a lot with me sticking to writing and tightening jokes.'
Paula Murphy, who has worked with Dorval on shows behind the scenes for a couple of decades, put together a benefit show happening April 14 at Laugh Boston featuring Kavanagh,
He remembers a particular gig they both played at a club on Cape Cod. In the audience was a woman who was clearly alone and wearing a plastic tiara. Dorval felt compelled to address her. 'I believe the joke was, 'Are you celebrating something, or are you authentic, plastic royalty?'' In Gondelman's memory, Dorval weaved his material around her story, finally summing up her story at the end of his set. 'He goes, 'Of course, tale is old as time. Boy marries girl. Boy leaves girl for girl's brother, and those two fellas move to Oklahoma together.' [It] truly crushed. And I think about it all the time.'
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Dan Boulger, who was just starting out when he met Dorval in 2003 (and was also at the Studio benefit), was impressed with how he could command an audience. It's a skill that has become more en vogue lately, but not one Dorval tends to show off. 'Mike was the only guy I ever saw really do crowd work when I started,' said Boulger. 'Because that was not the style then, and then it
became
comedy. Now, if he was Instagramming all that stuff that he was doing, he would have had like ten clips a week.'
It speaks well of Dorval's range as a performer that he can get laughs from adults at a comedy club as easily as he can entertain children as The Bubble Man. Brian Kiley, who started out in Boston in the '80s comedy boom, used to take his kids to see Dorval and Jan Davidson do an act at the Children's Museum. He says running into Dorval outside of those shows felt like meeting a celebrity. 'He's [the] kind of guy that exudes that sort of positivity,' he said. 'There just isn't a malicious bone in his body, and that's why he was so good with kids. I'm sure that appeal comes across in his acting and it certainly comes across in his stand-up.'
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Dorval performing as the Bubble Man.
Kirsten Sims
Dorval does have insurance through his wife, but there are still a lot of hoops to jump through to access the benefits he needs. And there are some unexpected side effects of the cancer, like the neuropathy that has left his hands partially numb and keeps him from performing as The Bubble Man. His doctors are hopeful it will go away in a few months, but that's not definite. 'That is not something I expected,' he said. 'When I found out that I had cancer in my nose, that I might not be able to pick stuff up anymore — that was not a fear. And so, yeah, just dealing with that, you don't totally know when everything gets back to normal.'
Dorval is set to start the stem cell therapy process again the week before the show at Laugh Boston, and says there is a slim chance he might attend if his doctors say his white blood cell count is high enough, and he's feeling good enough. But he's not counting on it. A modest soul, he also feels strange about promoting a show on social media when he's the person it's helping. 'I just don't know what the proper etiquette is,' he said. 'There's a part of me that feels really weird going like, 'Hey, come to this thing that directly benefits me.''
He wants to acknowledge the work that Murphy is doing, and ultimately, he knows people will get their money's worth from this lineup. 'It's an amazing show,' he said. 'I mean, these are fantastic comics, so I don't feel at all guilty about people going to this, because it's going to be the one of the best nights of comedy they're ever going to go to.'
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BOSTON COMEDY'S MIKE DORVAL BENEFIT
At Laugh Boston, 425 Summer St., Boston, April 14 at 7 p.m. Tickets $40. 617-725-2844,