Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: A waiter, a trucker and an actress walk into a bar…
It’s dark and stuffy in the basement of the Stress Factory, where this trio is among nearly 25 comics who will try their hand at coercing a few laughs out of a small crowd gathered for open-mic night. Among the mix tonight are folks young and old, male and female, of various races and backgrounds. Whether any of them will become household names in the months and years to come remains an unanswered question.
A comic performs at open-mic night at the Stress Factory in New Brunswick in July 2016. (Marisa Iati | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)
For many New Jerseyans who pay to see a show at the popular New Brunswick venue, comedy is a diversion, a chance to escape the grind of another work week.
For hundreds of comedians who work the open-mic circuit in hopes of earning coveted paid performance slots, though, it’s an important part of a very unusual work week.
Comedic hopefuls from the region hone their acts at open-mic nights, mostly in New York City, before advertising themselves for jobs at established clubs. Performing as a billed act at New Jersey’s comedy hot spots, like the Stress Factory or Bananas Comedy Club in Hasbrouck Heights, stands as a prize to be won through persistence and raw talent.
It’s a demanding system that turns the luckiest and most skilled up-and-comers into national acts, like famous Jersey natives Bill Maher, Jay Mohr and Richard Lewis.
Pittsburgh-raised comic Von Decarlo is one such hopeful. She dabbled in stand-up for years, before recently re-committing herself to the craft. She now spends many nights on stages across North Jersey and New York City as she works her way up the comedic ladder.
As a multiracial female comic, Decarlo brings all aspects of her identity to this very personal and raw art form. At the Stress Factory’s open-mic night last summer, she was testing material about race, dating younger men and raising a rebellious teenage daughter.
Weeks later, she’s on a different stage. A packed room claps enthusiastically as Decarlo takes the microphone at Bananas Comedy Club to warm up the crowd for well-known New York comic Goumba Johnny.
“I can tell by the applause that y’all don’t watch BET,” she riffs to the New Jersey crowd. “To be honest, people don’t identify me as a Black woman when they see me. Because I’m half Black, half white — which is just a fancy way of saying that I’m Black. Except, of course, here in New Jersey, New York area, where somehow being half Black and half white makes me Puerto Rican?”
And she’s off.
Three minutes to glory
“Making it” in stand-up requires going on stage night after night to practice the same material until the delivery is smooth and every joke lands. It also involves climbing, rung by rung, a well-established ladder.
Comics usually start out at open-mic nights, where audiences are mostly other green performers and more experienced comedians looking to test new material.
The Stress Factory’s open mics are “bringer” shows, which require comedians to bring paying guests with them in order to even get on the stage. Performers are called from a list of names at the bar, and each person gets three minutes.
When comics have nailed down at least 20 solid minutes of material, they might get to be a “host,” or the first act for a show. The next step up is being a “feature” act, which means a little more time on stage preparing the crowd for the “headliner,” the evening’s main event.
How much money comics net per show depends on how big of a draw they are. Hosts can make as little as $25 per set, while headliners can net several thousand dollars for a performance.
Comics find their way to paid performance slots in different ways, said Arlene Jamison, co-owner of Bananas Comedy Club. Some send videos of prior performances, while others are recommended by a fellow comedian or pitched by an agent.
Their paths are different, but Jamison said one thing binds them: They have to be funny. It’s a competitive industry, and mediocrity doesn’t lead to much success.
Pittsburgh-raised comic Von Decarlo is among hundreds of people using New Jersey’s comedy clubs to try to climb the stand-up ladder. (Courtesy photo)
Climbing the stand-up ladder is serious business for Decarlo, who said she approaches the craft with an athlete’s mentality.
“Stand-up comedy consumes my mind,” Decarlo said before her Bananas performance. “Every situation is a story. Every situation can be comedy. You have to write constantly.”
At the show, Decarlo weaves her way through a series of jokes that often draw raucous laughter — “If he didn’t want to get married, he could’ve just told me,” she says of her fiancee dying a month before their wedding. Other moments, however, fall flat.
It’s a mixed bag for her, but it’s just one performance. Tomorrow morning she’ll wake up, watch her set, look for ways to tighten it up, and catch up on current events she can work into her comedy. Most days, she’ll be back on stage that night.
Even still, it’s a long road to financial viability. Most comics you see at places like Bananas have day jobs, and Jamison estimates only 1 or 2 percent are ever able to make comedy a full-time profession.
“You are constantly fixing and writing, and fixing and writing,” said Decarlo, who is also an author and the manager of a company for the name and likeness of late comedian Patrice O’Neal. “I’m always looking at different angles. Is this the best way I can say this? Is this the shortest, quickest way I could say this?”
The comic glass ceiling
On stage, Decarlo confronts her lived experiences as a multiracial woman and employs them for humor. She does a bit about her “Black side” and her “white side” competing to determine how she disciplines her daughter, and she points out double stands that label women, but not men, “loose” for sleeping around.
Despite the success of many minority and female comics, like Gabriel Iglesias and Leslie Jones, stand-up is still largely populated by white male performers.
As a result, Decarlo stands out. Audiences sometime take in her appearance and decide they know what her perspective will be. She once said the word “cops” at a show and was greeted by immediate booing.
“Because I’m a Black woman, (they were) assuming a perspective, but … what was about to come out of my mouth was, ‘I don’t hate all cops,'” Decarlo said of the incident.
Khadijah Costley White, a Rutgers University media studies professor who teaches about humor, said it’s impossible for comics to escape the visible aspects of their identities. The most successful ones, she said, use those traits to point out power dynamics and inequalities.
“Even just the way you look affects the way that the audience accepts your humor, accepts your jokes, responds to them,” White said. “I think the strongest performers use it to play to their strengths.”
Vinnie Brand, a comic and the owner of the Stress Factory, and comic Dom Irrera pose for a photo at the New Brunswick-based club in 2014. (Courtesy of the Stress Factory)
The core of good comedy, in Decarlo’s eyes, is having a unique perspective — sharing stories from the comic’s lived experience. On stage, she talks about being a mom, her political views (“usually very shallow,” she says) and lying about her age.
Decarlo said mining her real life for comedy makes it hard for anyone to steal her material or accuse her of making easy, cheap jokes. Some of her set may be considered edgy or make a few audience members uncomfortable, she said, but it’s meant to be relatable and real.
“For stand-up, I think the beauty about it is you’re expected to be yourself,” Decarlo said. “Stand-up is you. There are some character stand-up comics where … they are completely putting on an act, and they do well with it. But the majority of stand-up comedians are being themselves or a version of themselves.”
Even with all that work, Decarlo warned, every comic will inevitably bomb sometimes. She said she’s constantly reminding herself that not every performance will be perfect and to push through the failures.
“If you get afraid of the silence, you won’t recover,” she said. “If something doesn’t work, don’t get afraid. Paint your picture, do your thing, the whole way through.”
There’s no blueprint for succeeding in stand-up. It’s a messy career path, one that twists and turns more than the average profession. Decarlo said when the stage lights are off and no cameras are rolling, pursuing comedy can be more arduous than glamorous.
“I think a lot of people still believe in the fantasy of, ‘I’ll just be discovered because I’m sitting here and I look pretty or something,'” she said. “I don’t know where that came from or who that worked for.”
She added, “You have to love the process of comedy more than your end goal.”
Marisa Iati may be reached at miati@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @Marisa_Iati or on Facebook here. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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