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Comedian Gallagher gets his money from North Versailles promoter | TribLIVE.com
Allegheny

Comedian Gallagher gets his money from North Versailles promoter

Carl Prine
Carl Prine | Tuesday, April 15, 2014 11:21 p.m

Unlike the watermelons he smashes, comedian Gallagher has been made whole by a North Versailles promoter.

CEE Presents promoter Chase Ebaugh has sent a $10,000 check to comic Leo Gallagher’s Oregon-based manager for a March 29 gig at the State Theatre in Uniontown, ending a payment dispute that first became public in an April 7 story in the Tribune-Review .

Gallagher claimed that Ebaugh, 22, of North Versailles stiffed him on his performance fee of $10,000 for his stand-up comedy routine. Smashing watermelons with his Sledge-O-Matic would have cost $5,000 more, so that wasn’t part of the agreement for the show before about half the theater’s 1,404 capacity.

Ebaugh said emails show he never had a formal contract with Gallagher, 67, for the appearance. He said that he was trying to hash out a deal that would recoup $2,500 he lost the previous year when Gallagher suffered a heart attack — one of four in recent years — and forced him to cancel his Uniontown stop.

“I paid the full $10,000. I put the ball in his court, as far as compensating me for losing $2,500,” Ebaugh told the Tribune-Review.

“I did it because of my respect for Gallagher.”

The comedian’s manager, Craig Marquardo, confirmed that Ebaugh’s check was received and cleared. He held out the possibility that Gallagher will return to Western Pennsylvania later, but not Uniontown. In an email to the Trib, Marquardo criticized Ebaugh for only doing the right thing after the negative attention from the Trib story and the threat of a lawsuit from Gallagher.

“His attempt to short Gallagher was purely out of greed and a lack of respect for the artist,” Marquardo said.

Ebaugh remains liable for a nearly $44,000 Allegheny County Common Pleas judgment recently filed against him following a show last year at Oakland’s Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall & Museum that was canceled by comic Bill Engvall.

Ebaugh says that he’s trying to work out a deal that would allow him to skim profits off upcoming musical promotions to pay back the lawsuit’s plaintiff, online ticket retailer Showclix, Inc.

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