It’s Time To Laugh Again, Worcester

IT IS TIME TO LAUGH AGAIN, WORCESTER

JASON SAVIO

There is a lot to look forward to now that the pandemic is behind us, and a big part of that in Worcester is the city’s ever-growing comedy scene. The laughs in WooTown have been getting louder and louder in recent years, signaling a change from what it once was. Not long ago there wasn’t much of a comedy scene in the area, as many of today’s standup comedians will attest to, but times have changed.

Here’s a look at where the Worcester comedy scene has been, where it is, and where it can go from here.

BIG BROTHER

Standup comedians have options to showcase their talent in Worcester nowadays. Two of the biggest clubs in the area, the WooHaHa Comedy Club and the Comedy Attic upstairs at Park Grill & Spirits, both run by John Tobin, provide opportunity for young comedians, as well as a space for established performers.

But that wasn’t always the case. For a long period of time, comics had little choice but to travel to Boston to get work in.

“Boston had such a head start on Worcester just based on its history of the clubs there and the people, the quote-unquote players who came out of Boston,” Tobin says, referencing Lenny Clark, Bill Burr and a host of others. Even Worcester’s own Dennis Leary, likely the biggest comedic name to come out of the city to date, cut his teeth in the Boston scene, performing in clubs like Play It Again Sam’s.

Yet, there was always a rumbling in Worcester, albeit hard to hear sometimes in the deafening boom coming from nearby Beantown. A spat of places like Frank Foley’s Comedy Safari and a room at the old Aku-Aku Chinese restaurant gave local comics a chance to hone their craft.

More recently, Worcester’s Orlando Baxter, who now performs around the world and has appeared on Conan O’Brien’s show and B.E.T., spent much of his time in Boston until he started to host open mic shows at Three G’s Sports Bar and Frank Foley’s Comedy Safari. He got his start in comedy in 2005 and has seen a lot of growth in Worcester since.

“When I started, Worcester had no (comedy) scene, so I kinda had started a scene,” he says.

There was a stretch around 2010 that Baxter recalls when all there was available was the open mic at Three Gs and then Frank Foley’s Comedy Safari. “Those were the only rooms that were going on and that’s when guys like Josh Ramirez, Shaun Connolly, and Nick Chambers came around. Still, you had to go to Boston to get a lot of work,” Baxter says. There was, however, a slow movement beginning that Baxter saw firsthand at the open mics he was hosting, a shift that would give the underdog Worcester comedy scene a new life. A fresh crop of talent was emerging, many of whom would split their time between Boston and the growing scene in Worcester instead of committing all of their energy exclusively to the big city.

“Back in ’05 there was nothing going in Worcester at all, I mean not even a comedy club,” Baxter says about when he first started doing standup. “So it was cool, for me at least, to be a part of it when that scene started developing.”

NEW CLUBS AND NEW TALENT

The comedy scene in Worcester today is a far cry from what it was ten or fifteen years ago. Much of that has to do with one very busy and hands-on comedian.

You can’t have comedy in Worcester these days without Shaun Connolly. The spry Connolly, who hit his stride in 2010, has become a godfather of sorts in Worcester’s comedy scene in recent years, co-producing the annual WOOtenanny festival alongside Bryan O’Donnell, hosting The Sort of Late Show at Nick’s Bar, hosting Hot Dog! A Comedy Sideshow at George’s Coney Island, and getting involved in other projects like podcasting and recording his standup album. He has that Vito Corleone aura in that when you speak to him he talks highly of other comedians in town as if they’re family, and many other comedians mention him with similar respect and gratitude.

“Worcester is still growing, they’re still figuring it out,” he says. “But with John Tobin opening up the WooHaHa and bringing in legitimate touring headliners and taking over (the Comedy Attic) and letting more of the regional headliners and other comics get time in front of real crowds has definitely helped. Plus, I think what Bryan O’Donnell and I are doing with WOOtenanny, bringing a festival to the city and having comics from all

John Tobin produces and operates numerous comedy clubs in Boston, including Nick’s Comedy Stop and Laugh Boston, and has been in the business since the mid ‘90s. He opened the WooHaHa Comedy Club about three years ago and also runs the Comedy Attic upstairs at Park Grill & Spirits.

“We were looking around for a club (to open in Worcester) for the longest time and I love the city of Worcester,” says Tobin, who once ran the AkuAku’s comedy program. “I like the vibe of the city.”

Tobin says the idea of opening a new club in town gained traction when then-Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts Tim Murray, a friend of Tobin’s, had a request for him.

“Timmy came to Laugh Boston one night and said ‘I’d love to have some version of this in Worcester,’” Tobin says.

Since then, Tobin has helped get the spotlight on some of Worcester’s finest young comedians.

“The comics (in Worcester) kind of create a scene if there’s not one, and it sprouted up a group of young talent, Jimmy Cash being a prime example,” says Tobin. “He’s a fantastic young comedian. We’re putting him on all kinds of shows and people are raving about him.”

Jimmy Cash, who is a janitor at a Worcester public school when he’s not on stage, has caught fire as of late, taking advantage of his day job to help propel his standup career. He regularly posts TikTok videos highlighting the funny nuances of his job, and has also began “Janitors in the Wild,” a video series where he interviews other janitors.

“I have kind of a niche area where I do a lot of janitor stuff because I’ve been a janitor for almost 17 years, so I consider myself an expert in the janitorial field. I have a lot to offer in that realm,” he says with a laugh, noting that TikTok is a “creative outlet for me to have fun and do something silly.” It is funny, no pun intended, to hear the upstart Cash talk about his start in the Worcester comedy scene, having begun at the tail end of its relative dry spell. He wasn’t immune to it, but he didn’t have to deal with it as long as others like Baxter.

“It was tough when I started here. Apparently there was a lull in Worcester comedy,” says Cash. “There had been stuff going on before I started, but I happened to start when there wasn’t much going on here at the time, so I started mostly going to open mics in Boston, and while I was doing that some shows and open mics started popping up in Worcester again. Which was exciting for me because I didn’t have to go to Boston every night.” Cash makes sure to credit those who have helped him gain momentum, including comedian Eric Taylor and Shaun Connolly.

“I could go on and on about who was there to help me, but those were the ones that pop into mind,” he says. “And of course you can’t mention Worcester without Orlando Baxter.”

ORLANDO BAXTER AND WHAT TO LOOK FORWARD TO

Arguably the most popular comedian out of Worcester today is Orlando Baxter. After having hosted open mics in Worcester, the former Claremont Academy and South High Community School teacher is now finding himself performing his standup routine around the world and on national television. opportunity to become way more conversational as far as my comedy style,” he says. “I’m very grateful for the experience. Instead of having to rely on Boston, I had my own thing going on and that really helped me develop.”

Baxter started his comedy career in the lean year of 2005, juggling both school teaching during the day and performing for an audience at night. “Sometimes I would drive from Worcester to go do a five minute spot in New York, drive back home and get up at six o’clock and go to work,” he says. “It paid off. This is all I do now.”

Baxter is a good example of what the Worcester comedy scene can create: hardworking, blue-collar comedians that can deliver simple, yet relatable, stories with a twist of humor. His experience teaching for 12 years provides a bastion of material, and he also makes sure to give it back to other educators, performing private shows for school teachers. “It’s my teacher appreciation show that I kind of do for schools,” he says. “They love it. I just did a big school fundraiser for South High a couple of months ago, so I still keep in touch when I’m in the city. I taught for a long time so I have a big soft spot for educators.”

While Orlando continues his upwards climb, Connolly and Cash are as well.

Connolly is preparing another edition of WOOtenanny in October this year as a 24-hour telethon streaming on Twitch with “a hybrid of live shows and strange content.” Cash says to keep an eye out online for more video content he’ll be producing. He’s also scheduled to perform at the WooHaHa in September and is joining the Boston Comedy Blowout show at the Melody Tent on Cape Cod in August. And of course both WooHaHa and the Comedy Attic have shows scheduled mostly every weekend, the latter recently bringing in Bobcat Goldthwait.

The Worcester comedy scene is clearly in the middle of a surge, giving audiences their choice of seeing local performers and nationally known names without having to travel to Boston.

“A lot of things are coming up,” says Connolly. “It’s going to be very exciting and proof that the city is growing even more.”

For more, visit: https://thewoohaha.com/ https://www.comedyattic.com/ https://wootenanny.com/ https://www.facebook.com/jimmycashrules https://orlandobaxter.com/