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Comedy Scene Adapts To Killer Virus with Killer Shows

July 23, 2020/in Diversions, header, Performing Arts /by Melissa Surach

We almost gave up hope for live comedy. For example, Jersey City Comedy Festival, the most prestigious comedy event in town all year, is going to be virtually broadcast via Zoom this August. It kind of sucks all the air out of the glamour. In the words of one of the participants (who wishes to remain anonymous), “It’s not like anything matters anyway.” However, with cautious baby steps, the few outdoor comedy shows that began in July, along with secret comedy open mics, are bringing hope and inspiration.

Last Friday I went to one of the first comedy shows in Jersey City in an alley by Journal Square. It was “The Extra! Extra!” show at Journal Square Lounge’s outdoor seating space. This alley wasn’t just for peeing in anymore.

Before Covid, Irv Hernandez hosted and produce this weekly show in the basement of the lounge. I mentioned to him that I liked the ambiance of the open-air space, with tents and stringed lights, better than the basement show. Hernandez lamented, “But the laughs sounded better in the basement,” referring to the booming echoes of laughter and applause that were signatures of the pre-Covid shows.

Hernandez was amazed at the turnout for the return of Extra!. He told the crowd, “I thought we’d get, like, 25-30 people, but we got, like, 60!”

JSQ Lounge Show Poster. Photo by Melissa Surach

Generally, everyone kept their social distance. The police showed up briefly to check on things. The sound went out a few times. Some comedians, like Tony Loud, performed in a mask. Some wore gloves. Many joked about getting sick from the microphone. Almost all mentioned that they were rusty as hell, despite getting consistent laughs and even the occasional encore. The lineup consisted of mostly standup. A highlight was musical comedian AJ Sherman teaming up with Steve Posten doing pun-driven alternative comedy.

I spoke with Frank Cupo, the owner of the lounge after the show. Born and raised in Greenville, he showed me some of his childhood photographs displayed on the walls of the lounge. “It’s the first night—the first busy night. I hope it continues!” He said, both humbled and beaming with gratitude. By Monday, he’d asked Irv Hernandez to resume the weekly Friday night shows that were so popular before. The next show is this Friday, 8:30 pm, free.

The week before, on July 11th, Alex Grubard and Ryan Rummel premiered the first outdoor performance of the Corgi Comedy Club. The club had been a monthly Saturday night staple at Jersey City’s distillery. This week’s show was held in a large patio (larger than an alley at least), with a roofed stage. They are currently taking it one show at a time, aiming for every other Saturday while the weather is warm.

For precautionary measures, tickets are limited to 50 people even though the patio could fit many more. All tickets are sold in advance, and parties are placed at least six feet apart. There is table service so people don’t move around. No one is allowed inside except to use the bathroom. And there’s free hand sanitizer everywhere because Corgi makes its own.

“I’d like to throw more shows in JC, but I’m not sure where are the most reasonable other places. I’m looking into it though, brainstorming,” Grubard said. “Rooftops, backyards, parking lots, people around the country are already thinking up all kinds of ways to perform for a live audience. Outdoor performing is very different. The intimacy of stand-up is kind of gone. It’s more like a really great vibe, like a beach bar in Cancun I imagine.”

While it might take great effort for some to imagine Jersey City as a beach bar in Cancun, you can experience it yourself at the next Corgi Comedy Club on Saturday, July 25 at 7 p.m. Tickets are available online via eventbrite for $20.

Another exciting aspect of the new normal for performers are semi-secret, invite-only mics. Mark Henely, who used to host Open Mic Awesome at SubCulture, has moved on to organizing mics at secret locations.

“As soon as I read that Governor Phil Murphy said that it was legal for 25 people to gather outside in New Jersey, I knew it was only a matter of time before I figured out a way to have an open mic again,” Henely said.

Open Field Open Mic. Photo by Mark Henely.

After talking with friends and comics to test the idea, to see if people would be interested in an outdoor mic at all or would be tentative due to safety and social distancing, Irv Hernandez suggested a park in a secret location, thus the concept: Open Field, Open Mic (although there would be no mic).

Henley developed a set of rules that made sense to him. “There would be no microphone and no physical contact between comics. I also told everyone to expect to wear masks the whole time,” he said.

The free mic is capped at 15 comics. He promotes it through a private Facebook event so the word doesn’t get out too much and the audience remains below 25 people.

So far, Henely’s hosted these mics roughly once a week on whichever day of the week is the least hot (his words). He said that in general, they’ve been incredibly fun, and people have been very supportive of one other.

“The one challenge is that sometimes other events in the park can derail the event. One time, before we could get started, an aerobics class showed up and started working out in the exact place we decided to do our mic. We ended up having to move locations, and performers had to perform with the class jumping up and down in the background.”

Henley doesn’t expect this to go on forever. Open Field, Open Mic isn’t meant to be an institution. And it’s not meant to be a regular thing. It’s meant to be a stop-gap between the quarantine and things opening up again,” he said. “We might take a few weeks off from doing another one and then maybe make it a once-every-few-weeks event.”

As the Black Death plague preceded the Renaissance, perhaps we’ll look back on this period of Covid comedy as the beginning of a new golden age of comedy,The Covid Age. As Grubard says, “It’s still fun, and people laughed and enjoyed themselves. I think like many eras of standup, this is just another thing that will be around. It has validity and appeal, so outdoor shows will likely be prevalent for a few years. Same with Zoom shows. There are positives to these kinds of shows other than being an alternative to indoor entertainment so not everyone will pack it in once we can all squish like sardines inside again.”

Other shows to look out for: 902 Brewing (8/15), O’Leary’s Publik House (8/8), Porta Lounge (TBD). Everything’s up in the air, just like viral particles.

Strip Clubs and Funerals: Ian Steffe Records a Comedy Hour at Headroom

March 12, 2020/in Diversions, header, Latest News, Performing Arts /by Melissa Surach

Last Thursday, March 5, local comedic storyteller Ian Steffé recorded a live album at Headroom Bar and Social. Steffé’s hour-long recorded set, humbly promoted as, “A Live Comedy Recording,” was a New Year’s resolution.

“It’s an hour of me doing my very best under the most ideal circumstances of the crowd which were and genuinely are my friends. The experience was really awesome, and I recommend to anyone that wants to try, they should do it.”

Ian Steffé Photo by Joshua Lay

Steffé is known for his long-form standup as well as for storytelling and is the co-host of the Wednesday mixed-mic show “Take a Compliment,” also at Headroom, a mid-sized event space that that has an industrial feel with dark drapes for an ambiance like a vampire lair.

Though mostly a jazz venue, Headroom also hosts comedy shows. The owner, Howard Brunner admits, “I love great comedy, and I love comedy clubs, preferably shows that slide into the wee hours in pitch-black rooms with cigarette smoke in the air. Of course you cannot allow that anymore.”

Diana Zini, Steffé’s co-host of “Take a Compliment,” gave a heart-warming introduction that  included the history of their friendship, meeting at the now-defunct FM Monday night mic, and visiting Headroom to eventually develop their own mic night there. “When Ian and I visited this space, Ian immediately had a vision for it.”

According to a press release sent by Diana Zini: “Ian Steffé was born in a small, idyllic town in Massachusetts and moved to Arizona at age 19. Around that time, he started doing standup, often opening for bands. Eventually finding his way back to the East Coast, Steffé had tried being an impressionist and a political comic until one night someone recorded him ranting outside of a club. That recording got him an invitation from Risk!, a storytelling podcast. ‘I realized one can’t plagiarize their own experience.’ And so his voice as a comedic storyteller was found.”

This event couldn’t have taken place without Zini. A soulful musician in her own right, “she helped so much to make this experience happen because of her almost annoying persistence. She believed in this and needled me and coached me in every step of this,” Steffé said.

Onstage, Zini talked about Steffé’s rough week. His father, who had been a beloved character in many of Steffé’s stories, had passed away the week before. Indeed, Steffé had just come back from the funeral in Arizona the previous day — but rather than cancel the show under the circumstances, the headliner dedicated this entertaining, yet heartrending show to his father.

The show opened with the funeral, as the comedian mused on the irony of grieving while organizing the event, which is essentially a party for other people. Later, Steffé invoked his late father who delivered the moral of the story in a bit about a trip to a strip club that involved blood. Be nicer to women, his dad urged.

Steffé’s set was consistently fun, and he held the audience’s attention for a full 40 minutes before going on to tell some shorter stories. At the end, the audience gave him a standing ovation.

Gene D. Plumber, photo by Melissa Surach

Opening acts included Gene Turonis, a veteran Hoboken artist whose stage name is “Gene D. Plumber.” He sang several tunes including a love song about when his wife said, “I wish I never married you.” Plumber was followed by the musical comedian Angela Sharp. She began her set with a song about watching pornography and (referring to the sexual reference) “edging.”

The show was recorded though Steffé doesn’t know what he’s going to do with the recording yet. “I think that’s going to take time to figure out whether or not I’m even selling it or sending it to festivals. I’m so in the dark about this stuff because I’ve only cared about writing jokes and not where it’s going. I feel like a goob.” For now, the raconteur is going back to Arizona to keep his mom company.

Steffé does know what the final product will be called. It will be called “A Lot” because, as he explains, “I feel like that’s an insult I’ve gotten since middle school. Bosses teachers, exes. All of them called me ‘a lot,’ and at this point I’m wearing it with pride.”

“This is the first time in my life where I have this much content. And I feel polished. I want to see where this can go.”

Angela Sharp, photo by Melissa Surach

Header: Photo by Melissa Surach

Comedy Shows You Could See Right Now in Jersey City

November 6, 2019/in Diversions, header, Latest News, Performing Arts /by Melissa Surach

Until recently, this sad town of Jersey City was a comedy desert, or perhaps more aptly, a comedy death trap. One was hard pressed to find a comedy show in town. There was no brand-name comedy club (although Rascal’s on the Hudson endured a brief, tortured stint downtown in the mid aughts). The Jersey City Comedy Festival* lasted just two years — 2013 and 2014 — produced by Art House but was for the most part spread out in a vast web of stageless bar and gallery shows throughout town. My own show, “BabyHole,” lasted three years from 2007 to 2010 but never had the same venue for long due to shifting entertainment ordinances. Part real show, part dive bar rock show, part open mic, sometimes an illegal warehouse show, it died mainly because no one appreciates anything until it’s gone.

Happily, things have been brightening a bit this past year.

“Show Us Your Bits” comedy productions by Angela Sharp ran for 14 months at McGinley Square Pub starting in July 2018, during which time it became a veritable institution. The bi-weekly Saturday afternoon mics drew comedians from all over New Jersey as did late night Monday mics and pop-ups throughout the week. It abruptly ended in September, some would say prematurely.

The highly successful “Porno! Comedy Show,” a monthly summer series with an open bar, sold out consistently this past summer. It culminated in the “Porno! Comedy Sextival,” which featured over 40 comedians all day and night packed into the back room of this tiny, antique pub.

And Rich Kiamco’s “The Laugh Tour,” which has semi-consistently been running with Art House Productions at various locations since 2010, sprouted the Sixth Borough Comedy Festival in 2018.

As Jersey City is steadily overcoming the stigma of being a venue-barren town, comedy is re-emerging. Now you can’t even throw a rock without hitting a decent show or someone who calls oneself a comedian; you can see comedy almost every night of the week (at times you can even see six shows in one night, most of them free); you can attempt to be a comedian at one of the many free mics around town; and sometimes you can go out to dinner and not even realize you’re at a comedy show.

*The first Jersey City Comedy Festival ran from 2013-2014. The Sixth Borough Comedy Festival will be renamed Jersey City Comedy Festival for the 2020 run. We will post more about that soon.

Regularly Scheduled Comedy Shows

Below is a list of regularly scheduled comedy shows. Always call the venue to confirm beforehand (for instance, three shows that had been on this list were cancelled just prior to publication). Appreciate these shows while you can, and support these poor, talented, hardworking people.

“Are You Entertained Wild Out Wednesday Comedy Show” – This monthly show combines comedy with other forms of art, such as music, poetry, and (occasionally) magic, to give you the sense of a mini concert. Hosted by Sharief Johnson.
$10
Bright Side Tavern (141 Bright Street)
Last Wednesday of the month, 8 p.m.

“Corgi Comedy Club” – Stand-up that’s always classy at this semi-regular show at Corgi, Jersey City’s only distillery. A tour of the distillery is included. Hosted by Alex Grubard and Ryan Rummel.
$20 online
Corgi Spirits (1 Distillery Way)
Next show: 12/7, 7:30 p.m
https://www.corgispirits.com

“CrockPot” – They’re all good at this free and absurd stand-up show with a seemingly endless lineup every month. The show is in the basement of a vegetarian restaurant and bar called Pet Shop (that used to be a pet shop). It’s reminiscent of Uncle Joe’s circa 2004. Hosted by Alex Grubard, Nate Marshall, Lemaire Lee, and Tyler Rothrock.
Free!
Pet Shop (193 Newark Avenue)
The second Wednesday of every month, 8 p.m.
https://www.facebook.com/crockpotcomedy

“Culture Vultures” –This upbeat stand-up show strives to book comics from under-represented communities. It’s at a retro music venue filled with pop art. Hosted by Ariel Leaty and Gordon Baker-Bone.
$15, $10 online
FM (340 3rd Street)
Usually the third Wednesday of the month, 8 p.m.
Next shows: 11/20, and 12/18
https://www.facebook.com/culturevulturescomedy

“The Extra Extra Comedy Show!” – This is a free stand-up show in the basement of Journal Square Lounge every Friday alternating between open mics and curated shows. Always a good time, always high energy, always a great crowd. Hosted by Irv Hernandez.
Free!
Journal Square Lounge (50 Journal Square Plaza)
Open Mic every second and fourth Friday, 8:30 p.m.

Prathaviraj Purohit does stand up on FM’s stage during the Friggin’ Fabulous Open Mic.  Photo by Melissa Surach.

“Funny Tikka Masala” – A spicy stand-up comedy show. Jersey City is lucky to be home to America’s first stand-up show in Hinglish (Hindi plus English).  Alternates between an open mic and a big show in which prizes, including cash, are given out. Hosted by Vinod Chhaproo & Prathaviraj Purohit.
$20, online; mics are $5
Dorrian’s Red Hand (555 Washington Boulevard)
Monthly, usually second or third Saturday, 8 p.m.
Next dates: November 16 (open mic), December 7 (big show)
https://www.facebook.com/FunnyTikkaMasala

“Laughs at the Lounge” – Semi-private shows at private residences. Hosted by Irv Hernandez. Are you intrigued?
Free!
Thursdays (usually), 7 p.m.
@irv03 for more information; limited invitations

“Riff Off the Cliff” – The most underground of all, this stand-up show is in an art gallery above a garage known as The Hive, which is filled with local art, antiques, and vintage clothes. It’s in Bergen Hill in the shadow of The Beacon. Hosted by Ryan Rummel, Scott Holt, and Nick Fierro. Music by DJ Blvck Truffle.
$15, BYO
Deep Space Gallery (77 Cornelison Avenue)
Usually the second Saturday of the month, 8:30 p.m.
One-year anniversary show on 11/9!
@rifffoffthecliff

“Smoke Break Comedy Show” – A fun, high-energy stand-up show with a great crowd in a hookah dive bar. Featuring raffles. Hosted by Alex Gardes.
Free!
Abbey’s Pub (409 Monmouth Street)
Every first and third Tuesday, 9 p.m.
https://www.smokebreakshow.com

“Stand-up Comedy Night at Bobby Dee’s” – A laid back, free, no-frills stand-up show at a no-frills neighborhood bar in the Heights. Hosted by Brandon Sager.
Free!
Bobby Dee’s (49 Beacon Avenue)
Every second and fourth Wednesday, 9 p.m.
https://www.facebook.com/bobbydeescomedy

“The Zack and Pat Show” – Don’t miss this stand-up show in a beloved art gallery bar, not just for the comedy bargain of a free show and the intriguing artwork but also to appreciate this Newark Avenue pioneering restaurant/gallery while it lasts. No one knows how much longer it will exist. Hosted by Zack Breheney and Pat Wadleigh.
Free!
LITM (140 Newark Avenue)
Monthly, usually second or third Sundays, 7 p.m.
https://www.facebook.com/ZackAndPatShow

Some Open Mics that are Good for Comedy

Photo by Melissa Surach

If you’d like to try stand-up yourself or just watch the struggle, there are plentiful regular open mics to hit. Here’s a list for starters:

Comedee at Bobby Dee’s – Hosted by Alex Grubard.
Bobby Dee’s (49 Beacon Ave)
Every 2nd and 4th Tuesday, sign up at 7 p.m.

Friggin’ Fabulous Open Mic Mondays  – An interdisciplinary mic that also features great local music. Hosted by musician Christopher Hoyle.
FM (430 3rd Street)
Mondays, sign up at 7 p.m.

The Late Night Mic at Abbey’s – Hosted by Irv Hernandez.
Abbey’s Pub (409 Monmouth)
Every 2nd and 4th Tuesday, sign up at 9:30 p.m.

Open Mic Awesome – Hosted by Mark Henely.
Subculture (260 Newark Avenue)
Every other Wednesday, sign up at 6 p.m.

Open Stage – An interdisciplinary mic. Hosted by musician Erika Bracy.
Bobby Dee’s (49 Beacon Ave)
Every 1st and 3rd Tuesday, sign up at 7:30 p.m.

Take a Compliment – An interdisciplinary mic with a full music stage including a grand piano. Hosted by Adrian Dannon, Ian Steffé, and Diana Zinni.
Head Room Bar and Social (150 Bay Street)
Wednesdays, sign up at 6:30.

Top Photo: A comedian entertains the crowd at Late Night Mic at Abbey’s. Photo by Irv Hernandez.

News Briefs

Hudson County Community College has been named the recipient of a one-year, $850,000 investment from the JPMorgan Chase. The investment will be utilized for a program the College developed to address the challenges of the economic crisis in Hudson County that were brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. The program is designed to provide lasting improvement in the County’s workforce ecosystem.

Mayor Steven Fulop and the Jersey City Economic Development Corporation (JCEDC) have launched the latest round of emergency funding to provide over $2.5 million in direct aid and support to Jersey City’s neediest residents, regardless of immigration status. The city will partner with  York Street, Women Rising, United Way, and Puertorriqueños Asociados for Community Organization (PACO). 

Darius Evans, age 45, of Jersey City was arrested  on Monday by The Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office in connection with the stabbing death of 39-year-old Tyrone Haskins early New Year’s morning. The charges include Murder and two counts of Possession of a Weapon for Unlawful Purposes.

Mayor Steven Fulop is joining forces with Uber to announce a new agreement that will expand residents’ access to COVID-19 vaccinations with free Uber rides to and from Jersey City vaccination sites. Phase 1B includes essential frontline workers and seniors 75 years old and over.

According to a report in the Jersey Journal, Jersey City received its first shipment of COVID-19 vaccines Monday and plans to begin vaccinating eligible residents later this week at the Mary McLeod Bethune Center.

The federal Paycheck Protection Program, which offers businesses loans that can be forgivable, reopened on January 11th. The revised program focuses first on underserved borrowers – minority- and women-owned businesses.

Jersey Art Exchange (JAX) has merged with Art House Productions effective January 2021 to help improve and expand arts education and opportunities for the Jersey City community. JAX Founder Jacqueline Arias will remain Director of the program at Art House.

Christmas trees will be collected citywide every Wednesday night throughout the month of January. Pickup resumes this Wednesday January 13th.

Keep abreast of Jersey City Covid-19 statistics here.

Governor Murphy has launched a “Covid Transparency Website” where New Jerseyans can track state expenditures related to Covid.  Go here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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