8 minute read
Laughing it Up
An Underground Comedy Scene Emerges, Creating Community While Fostering Local Stand-Up Talent
By Frank Etheridge
Nico Brooke is 29 years old and has about 650 stand-up performances under her belt.
She arrives at the number by counting at least 100 shows a year (minus quarantine) since she started hosting an open mic at age 21 in Auburn. A Lanett, Alabama native, Nico graduated from CSU with a communications degree in the school’s integrated-media program.
“The first time I ever performed comedy was at No Shame,” she says. “Then I waited about six months and went to a local open mic in Auburn, where I was living at the time. I was at a stage in my life where I did silly and impulsive things. I wound up running that open mic for two years.”
Nico’s inspiration?
“I do really enjoy getting people to laugh and help people forget about their problems for a little bit,” she says. Her boundless energy and enthusiasm manifests itself as a tireless commitment to her craft, and casts her as a gamechanger and scene-builder for comedy in Columbus.
“I see it on two levels,” Nico reasons as to why she keeps pressing on with her busy schedule working in news, booking shows, curating events, and emceeing stand-up comedy across the Chattahoochee Valley. “On one hand, I want to promote comedians and give them a space to elevate their craft. The other thing is the idea of planting seeds in people. This idea of something I say on stage could be either relatable to them — shine a light on something they’re going through — or unrelatable in a way that makes them open their eyes to a new perspective.”
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“Nico Brooke is a hero of mine,” admits James Etchison. A longtime regional favorite, the former TSYS employee is a prime example of the progress Nico facilitates. Etchison has progressed over the last decade from the Springer’s No Shame stage to the Big Apple, where he’s headed this month after winning a TikTok Live contest. He advanced past the first round from that good algorithm action, followed by the semifinals (judged by comedian Trevor Wallace), who awarded Etchison the grand prize of $5,000 and a spot in the New York Comedy Festival on November 9th.
“She’s so punk rock, so DIY,” James says of Nico. “And so dedicated to the community and the craft. She loves comedy even more than me.”
“Performing stand up — especially when connecting with a crowd you have brought to tears with the sweet, sweet release of laughter — “is like a drug,” he admits. “I love every second of it. It started as a way to encourage myself. I had low self-esteem and it was a way to prove myself in the world. Now? I love to just be in the moment.”
A fertile breeding ground for all types of talent, No Shame “used to be all we had when I got started,” he says. “Today, we have a chance to do comedy five nights a week. It’s unbelievable.”
James says the camaraderie he’s found among Columbus comedians “is one of my favorite things in the world.”
“We all have egos, no question, but we’re all here to help each other. I consider everyone in it a good friend and I’ve gotten close to a lot of them. I see them as teammates. It’s a tight, collaborative community here as opposed to a bigger city where it’s more cut-throat.”
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One exciting new chance for local comedians to ply their trade on a new night, at a new venue, is an open mic 7-9 p.m. every Tuesday at Scofflaw Brewing.
Hosted by the hilarious Mike Murphy, the Scofflaw open mic is a new endeavor “we hope will generate some good audiences and give us some leverage to do a showcase there,” Murphy says.
Comedy is a “very friendly” scene here that’s pure DIY, says Mike. “We have this mentality in our scene that nobody is going to do this for us, so we push and pull and work hard to put on shows together. That also means I am allowed to pick who I want in my show and how much to charge for tickets.”
“There’s not much to do here after 9 p.m.,” Mike says, but that allows the opportunity to “fill the void” and go late at night. “Columbus is a great market for stand-up comedy. We can have crowds that accept outspoken material. Sure we have morals, and strong values, and we’re also just good folks trying to have a good time.”
Another comic in the local scene, Charlie Guerrero says of the local standup scene, “It’s a great community with a lot of support that’s slowly growing and expanding into other markets like Auburn and Opelika.”
Guerrero points to Nico as well as other promoters such as David Byrne (DVB) and Jasper Crews (Crews Control Comedy), two great examples of this regional market expansion.
Proof of such increased collaboration is found at new downtown hot spots like Bytes & Brews on 12th Street, home to video games, cool vibes and fantastic food. Its second-floor venue, Level Up, is home to local and national stand-up talent most Saturday nights, with sources giving much praise to co-owner and operator Michael Woodham as a true champion of the scene.
“Michael has been such a wonder to work with,” Jasper says. “It’s business owners like him that are the reason comedy in Columbus will succeed. Soon, we’ll have reps in the area from touring comics asking about what’s going on here and when they can come here.”
Jasper admits nationally touring comedians “are weird about coming to this area,” but he has devoted enough of a network to “book them three or four nights” in the bistate region. Crowds in Columbus in particular are receptive to late-night comedy, and this newfound scene is poised to thrive thanks to new venues such as Bytes & Brews and other local entrepreneurial creatives, like Brain Cooke, who hosts shows and events in the back room of his Blue Canary Records shop on Broadway.
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Even with all the well-founded optimism about the state of stand up in Columbus, it doesn’t mean that pushing forward against all the odds with your unprofitable, stressful and demanding passion project isn’t, on some days at least, a struggle.
”It is a total gift to be able to do comedy,” says Nico, “But sometimes it feels like a curse.”
Nico’s impressive resume in journalism puts her in position to pick and choose jobs in bigger markets with better pay anywhere in the country. So she can — and likely will — leave her native Chattahoochee Valley to explore new horizons in the near future.
But long term?
There are ways in which the Columbus market needs to grow, but as it stands today, there are now “receptive crowds” providing for “a definite rise in prestige” for local comics, she says, and “an electric group with fantastic friendships with people I never would have been friends with without our shared craft.”
“Next year maybe I’ll move out west for a few years. But, most likely, I’ll come back here and keep fostering comedy in Columbus. Maybe it’s because I started back when I was 21 — before my frontal lobe was fully formed — but comedy is something that’s very ingrained in my brain. It’s something I will always do.”
Nico’s go-to source for staying up on the latest comedy happenings in the area? Why, The LocaL Events Calendar, of course.
