FEATURE
Laughter: Not a Finite Resource By Nicole Vulcan
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Between the exploding number of shows at the Hayden Homes Amphitheater this summer and the wealth of national talent showing up at smaller spaces like Volcanic Theatre Pub and the Midtown Ballroom, Central Oregon’s robust music scene is already well recognized—but another type of nightly entertainment is steadily gaining speed in the region, thanks in part to a crop of characters pushing the scene to new heights, under a different set of rules. The Source Weekly chatted with some of the producer/performers working to make Central Oregon’s comedy scene more inclusive, welcoming, and of course, funny.
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WWW.BENDSOURCE.COM / MAY 05, 2022 / BEND’S INDEPENDENT VOICE
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Bend’s comedy scene is blowing up. Meet some of the players changing the game and bringing the fun to every corner of the city
Katy Ipock hosts regular events featuring local and traveling comics at Craft Kitchen & Brewery, along with other events around Central Oregon and beyond.
Katy Ipock Anyone paying attention to the Central Oregon comedy scene in the last six years or so will recognize Katy Ipock as a key player—but not all that long ago, Ipock was entering the scene as a mom with a special needs son who needed a reason to get out of the house, she told the Source. When the scene tossed her around, Ipock endeavored to create her own through her company, Ipockolyptic Productions. Here’s her telling of the past and present and her role in the Central Oregon comedy scene. “I started in 2016. It was an open mic that was run by Bend Comedy, which is no longer producing shows that we can see. I spent the first year in comedy just doing open mics and saying yes to shows. And after a year I realized it’s something that I was really in love with and I wanted to take a little more seriously and that was about the time I got blacklisted from Bend Comedy because I was working with other people. And
Jessica Taylor Jessica Taylor started her performance career doing shows with Bend Burlesque, eventually moving into co-producing shows with Katy Ipock, and then forming her own production company, Tease Bang Boom Productions, which put on its first show at The Capitol last month, in addition to co-producing the weekly open mic Mondays at Silver Moon Brewing. She had this to say: “It’s been going really well with trying to do what I’m calling elevated comedy—where it’s just supportive. It’s a supportive scene… where we are supporting everybody in the scene and reaching them. I mean, Katie [Ipock] and I did shows on the same day on 4/20 and even promoted each other’s shows. And both shows sold out.
then a year later, I got blacklisted from the Central Oregon comedy scene because I wanted shows to be run differently than they were, and that’s when I started my own company—just so I would have a place to do comedy every month, or every week, and it turned into this beautiful platform that is helping so many people find their voice and is producing comedy in a way that I can feel good about it. “I currently have an open mic that I run every Wednesday at Craft Kitchen and Brewery. I also work very closely with Jessica Taylor who just started Tease Bang Boom Productions. We have an Open Mic that we run together on Mondays at Silver Moon. I have shows every Saturday at Craft Kitchen, and those are split between local showcases and out-of-town road comics. And then I have a monthly show in Redmond, and the occasional smattering of a show at The Capitol, every once in a while or a show at Silver Moon. I also work really closely with the company called PNW Comedy and they’ve started bringing in some great names. “One of the luxuries/blessings that I have is that I get to do those small rooms. And also I get to be what I call a training producer. So I take people from their very first open mics, get them ready to start doing paid shows, and then I’m able to recommend them to the bigger rooms and kind of help them get bigger gigs. People are always asking me, saying, ‘your shows are selling out, you should get to a bigger room.’ And I don’t want a bigger room. I love Craft’s the way it is. “As a comedy production company, I do my best to guarantee that all of my shows are free of racism, homophobia and transphobia. I think there’s so much mentality around stand-up comedy, it has to be free of any rules whatsoever. And it still is the bastion of free speech, and it is still the last place that people can really speak their minds, but I’m not comfortable letting somebody get on my microphone that’s going to use it to spread hate. “My main mentality is to try to be the person I wish I would have had in my first year in the comedy scene. And then, even now there’s still this tendency for there
“I still get nervous before I get up on stage, and now producing, I get nervous in anticipation that the audience and the comics have a positive experience. “I feel like burlesque, it’s such a body-positive and supportive scene that all of your insecurity goes out the door when you’re on stage and everybody is whooping and hollering at you, just because you’re up there. In comedy, people have expectations. Sometimes they come there just with their arms folded—like, make me laugh, and you’re also exposing a part of yourself that you might have suppressed. “I’m really hoping that instead of it being the frat boy, dick-pic mentality that has been here— my only experience has been with Central Oregon comedy, so I can’t speak for other scenes, but with this one specifically, it’s been kind of a boys’ club. Not as an attack on men—just more that anybody different than that vein, it has not been as welcoming as I would prefer.”
to be this territorial mindset, which makes no sense whatsoever. Bend has like 100,000 people in it. If I sell out my room and somebody else sells out, there’s still 99,800 people in Bend. My first goal with a new comic is to give them a place where they’re not dealing with that—they’re not having to hear about it, and that they are told that all stage time is good stage time because that is absolutely the truth, especially in your first years. You should get on a microphone as much as you can. The other part of that is to give the advice and direction that I wish I would have had. My first year was skewed to keep me from growing, and so I don’t do that with new comics. And then the third part of the trifecta is bringing in as many more experienced people as I can to also help teach and help us grow as a community. “Bend as a scene is enjoying a Renaissance of sorts. So for the longest time, there was this mentality within standup in Bend that there could only be one producer, one person putting on shows and anybody else was taking away. We’re starting to get more people that are taking leadership roles and putting shows together and putting on open mics and it’s creating a more diverse and rich local scene as a whole. “One person should not be responsible for deciding who should get to get up on a stage and who should get to do comedy and let that comedy should look like and that’s when I started encouraging people. “People have stepped up to the plate, and those people are creating shows that are different and have a different vibe and have a different view and there’s a little bit of comedy for everybody now. “I have road comics coming in and out all the time, and the talent we have in Bend is equal and honestly, sometimes surpasses—so it’s time for the comics and Bend to get out of the nest and start showing the rest of Oregon and the rest of the Pacific Northwest how good we are. “I think, as a community, we’re starting to learn that laughter is not a finite resource and we can support each other.”
Jessica Taylor, at bottom, poses with local comics from her 4/20 show at The Capitol, including, from left, Elijah Alaka, Paul Brian, Drake Lock, Tracy Rieder and Billy Brant.
