Born Standing Up: The Ann Arbor Comedy Scene

Heads up: As you might expect with a story about stand up comics, the language can get a bit blue. 

An hour before open mic night at the Ann Arbor Comedy Showcase, a pair of aspiring stand-up comedians huddle in the dark at the only two tables not illuminated in the club. The volume of their conversation occasionally overcomes a thumping funk track playing in the empty club.

 

More comics arrive, some sitting alone leafing through notebooks or reading hand-written sheets of paper by cellphone light. More bursts of laughter from those huddled together. Big guys, little guys, old and young. One 50-year old woman keeps to herself mostly, sitting in near pitch black. Customers start to arrive, small packs of women, comics' friends and significant others and a rough looking couple, the guy's shaved head and face covered in deep indigo tattoos. 

 

The comics will each get five minutes to make an impression in front of the motley Wednesday night crowd. Under a single hot spotlight, in front of an unrecognizable wooden skyline on the back of the stage, speaking into a dented microphone, it's 450 seconds of fun or terror. Or both.

 

 

"We're most interested in bringing in the stars of tomorrow," says Roger Feeny, co-founder of the Ann Arbor Showcase. "Clubs need to develop an outlet through open mic nights. I like to give comics an opportunity. I'll give them as much stage time as possible to help develop their talent. But they need to find any microphone they can and get on stage."

 

One after another the comics hit the stage for their five minutes, a red light signaling one minute left, a flashing red light signaling get the hell off the stage. Bits cover everything from Chia Pets to suicide, McDonald's to five full minutes on hunting. The comics are nervous, congenial, cocky, apologetic. 

 

"Let me tell you about the second time I picked up a prostitute."

 

"How do you just cut off an animal's head without it being weird?"

 

"You should never have sex at Olive Garden. When you're here, you're family."

 

The lights come up, obnoxiously outdated and high-volume music blares over the speakers and everyone files out, the comics lingering to pat backs, exchange notes and plot their next move.

 

Not everyone hitting the stage is looking to make a living from comedy. Andrew O'Neal and Mike Evitts are two local comedians with chops who MC and perform locally and at open mics at the Showcase, Joey's Comedy Club, Mark Ridley's Comedy Castle and pop-up open mics in restaurants, bars and anywhere else that will have them. Evitts helps organize open mics at Eastern Michigan and at other venues in Ypsilanti, helping aspiring comics get more stage time.

 

"It might seem like there are fewer opportunities now because there are fewer clubs booking weekends," Evitts says. "One open mic opens and another closes. In Ypsi, the Tower Inn used to do open mic, then Theo's (now Wurst Bar). Those kind of changes happen all the time."

 

"Comedy is a hobby for me, like golf," says O'Neal, president of O'Neal Construction Incorporated. "When I'm not doing comedy, I hate it and sometimes when I'm doing it, I hate it."

 

O'Neal is happy with his day job, MCing the occasional comedy night and getting on stage to showcase his material, while Evitts is more on the fence about his future intentions. He'll graduate with his Masters this year and has a choice to make - to pursue a doctorate, jump into the employment pool or make a full-fledged pursuit at comedy. For now, Evitts is leaning more towards the "real" world.

 

"I can always go back to comedy," Evitts says. "It's not time sensitive." 

 

 

Is it possible to live in Ann Arbor and pay the bills with comedy? O'Neal's first payday was $50 at a bar gig in Toledo. Evitts got $20 performing in a bowling alley somewhere in Ohio. Comedian Ricarlo Flanagan lost his job when he auditioned for the Montreal Just For Laughs Comedy Festival. 

 

Flanagan grew up in Cleveland, relocating to Michigan to earn his business degree in 2007 before moving to Ann Arbor for a job in 2009. 

 

Flanagan tried his first open mic at the Showcase, calling it his home club, before getting on stage nearly every day somewhere. He started performing at comedy festivals across the country, placing fourth in Atlanta at the Laughing Skull Comedy Festival which led to gigs across the country. Flanagan is getting by, but it's not sustainable.

 

"I'm fortunate," says Flanagan. "I'm getting by, making money from comedy. I rent a room and my bills are being paid. I don't have a girlfriend or kids, but I can't sustain this for years unless I move to a bigger market." 

 

With an album and DVD coming out this year, the clock is ticking. Flanagan is weighing a move to L.A. or New York City to take the next step in his career and truly take a shot at making comedy his career.

 

 

It's possible to grow up in Ann Arbor and make a living at comedy, but maybe not while in Ann Arbor. At a pre-Christmas show at Conor O'Neill's, what the evening's MC Andrew O'Neal calls "The annual Kosta comes home show", Michael Kosta hits the stage wearing skinny jeans a tasteful scarf and an expensive looking watch.

 

"I'm happy to disappoint strangers with my comedy," Kosta tells the crowd, "but when I see people who wrote me checks for my high school graduation it's a little harder." 

 

Kosta deviates from many of his regular bits for the local audience, riffing a lot more.

 

"Fuck you, Barton Hills. I drive a Honda Civic."

 

"I think Michigan is fatter than it's ever been. I landed in Detroit and there were 19 wheelchairs at the gate. These people are too fat to walk to baggage claim. Would you like dessert? Yes, Michigan!"

 

Kosta is 100% a product of Ann Arbor - a graduate of Angell Elementary, Greenhills and Huron High School. He played tennis at the University of Illinois before returning to coach tennis at the University of Michigan and tour as a professional tennis player. He dabbled in stand-up upon his returned, eventually moving to Los Angeles to blaze a trail for all to follow. 

 

"My first time on stage was at the Heidelberg at an open mic poetry slam comedy show," Kosta says the day after the first of what will be three sold-out shows. He was eventually on stage nearly every weekday leading to his first paying gig - $25 to perform at a bowling alley in Romulus.

 

"I bombed," Kosta says. "I would tell a joke and no one would laugh and then you'd hear all these pins fall and someone cheering. But I got paid to do comedy."

 

Appearances on Comedy Central's Live at Gotham and the HBO Comedy Festival led to more buzz and more gigs. Eventually he made the move to L.A.

 

"At the time I was making $30,000 coaching and I thought I could make $30,000 doing comedy," Kosta says. "I was wrong."

 

"L.A. didn't give a fuck about me," Kosta says. He had to learn a whole new scene, meet all new people and make all new contacts. Kosta tells the story of signing up for an open mic at a popular L.A. comedy club only to lose a spot on stage to a homeless man just there to use the bathroom.

 

"My sports background helped," Kosta says. "In tennis, you lose and you keep practicing. A comic's training is almost exclusively in front of people, while most everyone else gets to get better in private. It's nerve wracking. That's probably why so many comics drink."

 

And then Kosta appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He went from "my friend does comedy" to "my friend is a comedian" overnight. 

 

"I was doing jokes at a poetry slam and now Jay Leno is telling me I had a good set," says Kosta. 

 

Today, Kosta is a regular on The Tonight Show, Chelsea Lately and Attack of the Show, while also recording his own Comedy Central special. He regularly auditions, performs across the country and produces original content like the Sports Kosta Basement.

 

"They don't shoot TV shows in Ann Arbor and they don't shoot many movies here," says Kosta. "You can be a road comic and live in Ann Arbor, but it'll be hard. I once heard a saying, if you want to be a lumberjack you have to go to the forest. There are trees everywhere, but for me L.A. was where the trees I wanted to cut down were."

Richard Retyi is the social media manager at Ann Arbor digital marketing firm Fluency Media as well as a freelance writer for various publications. His musical credentials begin and end with dating a cellist in a local folk band for three months. You can follow him on Twitter at @RichRetyi or read his blog atRichRetyi.com.