R.O.F.L. Stand Up Comedy Showcase at Rapture
By Sage Tanguay
Sage Tanguay 00:02
The R.O.F.L. Stand Up Comedy Showcase will take place at Rapture on October 15th, starting at 7pm. For Arts This Week, we sat down with some of the event organizers and participants to learn more. The line up includes the following local comics: Wendy Lee, Tyler Rich, Amanda Fitz, Nathan Carlson, Abishek Kulkarni, Colby Knight, Spencer Boone, Clay Dickerson, Taylor Knight, and Danny (SCo) Daniel.
Jemar O’Neal 00:18
Hi, I’m Jemar O’Neal. I’m a stand up comedian, actor and one of the producers of the R.O.F.L. at Rapture. You’re gonna see 10 comedians, along with myself and the Tip Top Twins. That’s Denise and Mendy. It’s gonna be a fun time. We have DJ B-Easy. He’s gonna be doing like a pre-show at 7pm. I noticed that when you have a DJ, it takes a little bit of the pressure off, and it feels a lot more fun. We just really wanted this to stand out as a showcase rather than an open mic.
Mendy St. Ours 00:47
Hi, I’m Mendy St. Ours. I am one of the producers and hosts. Our producer who is not here with us today, Denise Stewart, we used to do a show that many listeners may remember called Bar Hoppers at Rapture, which were skits, and many of them were funny. Most of them were funny. So when we thought about doing this, we naturally went to Mike Rodi over at Rapture, because we knew he’s friendly to the arts and would be amenable to having us in there. There is a weekly open mic on Mondays at The Southern – you guys know Chris Allen around WTJU, he’s done so much for this scene. We would love to have this be monthly, just to have another place where comics can present their material, and again, to do it in a showcase format. It’s not necessarily 30 people at an open mic. Where people can feel like, wow, I’ve got something I’m really proud of. I’ve cultivated this. I have workshopped this. You get to have a mini five-minute special in a green room with snacks, right, with stage lights and a DJ and great sound. I want our comics to have that every once in a while.
Sage Tanguay 01:54
Could you tell me more about the Charlottesville comedy scene?
Jemar O’Neal 01:57
I sort of caught on to the scene out here in like, middle of 2023 and since then, I’ve just seen it like explode.
Spencer Boone 02:04
My name is Spencer Boone, and I’m one of the comedians performing on the R.O.F.L. show at Rapture. It’s not the biggest scene, but I will say I’ve traveled a little bit now, and I can tell you that there, there are better comics per number of people we have here, and they want it more. There’s not as many opportunities to perform. That’s why I’m happy that they’re putting on the show at Rapture is because there’s only so many pla ces for us to perform in town. When I was in Austin. I mean, Austin’s a very big city growing scene. There’s like 400 comics out there, right? And there’s like 40 open mics a week. And, you know, there’s so many more opportunities for you to get on stage. But what’s the quality of that stage time and where you put your time into it. Here, there’s quality stage time. It’s not as much, but they want it more. The comics here really want it. If anything, I just encourage anybody to go check out any local comedy show near you.
Abhishek Kulkarni 02:51
Hi, my name is Abhishek. I’m one of the comedians performing at R.O.F.L. rapture, and I’m a PhD student here at UVA. I started my PhD here at Darden just last fall. So I literally traveled to Charlottesville straight from India. And first week in, I just Googled, hey, like “Stand Up Comedy in Charlottesville,” and the southern showed up, and I was introduced to this whole community, and it’s a very welcoming community in general, like I never felt like I was an outsider trying to get in. Like, they were very much like, come in, like you’re part of the collective now, like there wasn’t any like pushback or anything like that. So that’s kind of encouraging as a newcomer to the country as well. And like it was almost like I found my people within the first week itself, and performing has been great, even the audience in Charlottesville, like, you don’t have to dumb stuff down which, which is very good. Like, it helps. Like, you can do a wide variety of humor here without necessarily, like, going to some sort of lowest common denominator, yeah.
Sage Tanguay 03:56
Do you have any advice for people interested in trying out stand up comedy?
Abhishek Kulkarni 04:00
I encourage everybody to just give it a shot at least once.
Spencer Boone 04:03
Comedy is pretty much all redemption arc . You don’t get good at comedy, and then you’re always good. You know, you have to fail at comedy to get good at comedy, and that’s the hardest thing for a lot of people. I think.
Sage Tanguay 04:14
Why is comedy so important to you?
Abhishek Kulkarni 04:17
Even as a child like seven, eight years old, the moment I did something or say something that made somebody laugh, that was a like, stronger achievement than any grades I got, or anything like that, that stuck with me. So through the years, making someone laugh was a very important skill to cultivate. A lot of my research at UVa as well, it revolves around the role of humor in sort of entrepreneurship and management, and so I’m also studying the phenomenon. But like, as a practitioner of comedy, it’s just been, like, very fulfilling.
Spencer Boone 04:46
My father’s very funny person, but I fell in love with comedy at a very young age. I used to stay up late as a child in elementary school to watch Dave Attell’s Insomniac. With stand up, it’s just a person with a microphone for them to be able to not only engage with an entire room full of people, but to keep them entertained. It was always fascinating to me. Growing up, I had a lot of health issues. You go through things as a child, you go through things as a young adult. And comedy is one of those things I always went back to as far as like something that gets me out of that there’s something very ethereal about making other people laugh and evoking emotions in other people, and it’s like, be able to share your points of view, or, like, weird thoughts, and convey them on- hey, I got weird thoughts. I mean, it just is.
Mendy St. Ours 05:28
I know, I love them.
Spencer Boone 05:28
But, you know, that’s just, that’s just how I approach it, though, is I’m doing something to benefit other people, but ultimately, I’m doing it for me.
Jemar O’Neal 05:35
I used to watch Def Comedy Jam as a little kid, all of that stuff back then, just sort of like set in my brain for like, years growing up. I became an actor. I went to NYCDA in New York, and one of my teachers, her name is Judith Searcy. She was actually a stand up comedian as well, and she sort of planted the bug in my head that, like, hey, people I know can actually do this. At the very least, what comedy has been for me is therapy. I used to get so mad and like, now when, whenever something makes me mad, the first thing I think about is what’s funny about this? Like, I can make a joke out of that, and it’s been, like, the healthiest thing for my life so far.
Mendy St. Ours 06:14
I also grew up with a really funny family, and we used humor a lot to get through stuff. I realized at some point that, like when we cry and when we laugh, our bodies are doing basically the same thing. Comedy has just helped me, like you said, Jemar, when you know, things get on my nerves or things get a little I mean, I think I’m at my funniest when I’m most sad. My goal is to have a night where everybody, the comedians and the audience included, walk out of there feeling better than they did when they walked in.
Sage Tanguay 06:47
Music begins at 7pm with the comedy showcase at 8pm on Tuesday, October 15th, at Rapture in downtown Charlottesville.
Arts This Week is supported by the UVA Arts Council and Piedmont Virginia Community College. PVCC Arts presents a rich array of dance music, theater and visual arts programming. Learn more at pvcc.edu
