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LOL WITH IT: An open mic with Center City Comedy
"Comedy is about you becoming the best comedian you can be. To do that you have to be everywhere all the time, telling jokes."
LOL WITH IT: An open mic with Center City Comedy
Every Friday, Ryan Carey takes a look at who and what’s giving Philly the giggles…
In September of 2008, Philly stand-ups Chris Cotton and Conrad Roth met each other at the bar after the Wednesday Laff House open mic. Strangers, they tried to think of small-talk to pass the moments.
First thing that came out: “I wish there was somewhere else we could go to get on stage and work on our comedy.”
Cut to March 31, 2011, and the wildly popular Center City Comedy ‘open-mic showcase’ is packing in audiences to capacity every Thursday night at the Raven Lounge on Sansom. Started by Cotton and Roth out of necessity (for comedy as well as an ice-breaker), Center City Comedy has attracted and nurtured many young talents who have grown into skilled comics.
Cotton boasts about comics like Darrel Charles and James Hesky who got a lot of their stage time at CCC, and have since moved up in the local comedy scene to host at Helium.
“Some of the younger guys, this is the only place they’d come during the week. I’d tell them, they need to go to the other places too. Just coming here, I feel honored, but comedy is about you becoming the best comedian you can be. To do that you have to be everywhere all the time, telling jokes.”
Conrad has since moved on to San Francisco to work on his comedy career, and showcase host H. Foley has stepped up to help with the logistics.
“It’s gotten so packed we’ve had to do renovations in the room; for instance, we had to move the DJ booth. Raven owner John Hunter had to get the whole place soundproofed. There’s a TV bar downstairs now so the other comics can watch the show. It came out of necessity cuz we pack the show room with 50, 60 audience members every week.”
Since their enterprise took off, CCC (now a LLC) has branched out into sketch comedy production and college show booking. They’ve teamed up with film company Late Night Brewery, who shot their debut sketch, “Something Grazed My Foot.” LNB has since produced several shows with them such as “Down With the Ship” at the Walking Fish Theatre, and “Guy Walks Into A Bar” at the Shakespeare Theatre. They will also be taping “Live From the Raven Vol I” next weekend.
Foley credits the Thursday night extravaganza with a great deal of his professional development.
“There’s no question about it, I would not be the same comedian if I weren’t in Center City Comedy. When you’re hosting, obligated to run a room… when you’re working at that level it makes you wanna work harder and perform better. The education I got from Center City Comedy is second to none. That’s why we started doing this, we all had the same desire, we didn’t want to sit around and wait for someone to find us. Now we have the hottest open mike show on a Thursday night, and all that other stuff which would never have come about if we didn’t have the desire to start the room.”
Cotton says they owe a lot to Hunter for his support.
“As long as John Hunter owns the building, we’ll be there. I give a lot of credit to John for starting it; he give us the freedom to run it as our own baby. It’s like, this guy can’t be real, the support he gives us. He’s never been like, ‘I don’t think that’s gonna happen.’ And his support helps comedy in Philadelphia as a whole.”
There’s no question as to whether Foley and Cotton are serious about comedy. I, for one, am jealous of their commitment. Calling them in between my two day jobs, I interrupted them editing sketches at the Late Night Brewery studio.
Says Cotton, “We’ve been here for like five hours, trying to get some videos done on the Mac. This is all I do, I have no source of income other than comedy. And Foley works a job, but comedy is his career. Same for the other local comics who are part of the CCC family — Monroe Martin, Tom Cassidy… this is our career!”
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