COMEDY SCENE IN CITY OF ROSES IS FAR FROM LAUGHABLE.
“I’ve mostly dated polyamorous men,” deadpans Portland comic Barbara Holm at a recent gig. “I’m sorry, I said that wrong: I’ve lived in Portland for seven years.”
If anything, the IFC sketch comedy show “Portlandia” has proved America’s hipster hub can take a joke from out-of-towners. What’s less known is it can deliver one too.
In recent years, Portland’s seen a stand-up boom, with dozens of local comics cracking jokes each week. With a little planning, visitors can comedy-hop across the city, as the quantity of open mikes for performers, comedy showcases and improv shows, a handful of festivals, and a range of comedy classes are transforming PDX into a veritable incubator for budding comics. In all, the number of weekly events rivals greater Los Angeles, which is vastly larger.
That’s a serious amount of comedy.
“There’s alt-comedy, feminist comedy, more mainstream comedy,” Holm says. “There’s something for everybody.”
Five years ago Holm created the free “It’s Gonna Be Okay” showcase as a place to hear local and touring comics without worry of having to sit through bigoted or misogynist jokes.
“I grew up in Seattle,” she tells a giggly basement bar audience at Eastburn Taproom. “So all my flannels smell like tears.”
Another local fixture, Marcus Coleman — a comic who’s performed at Bridgetown Comedy Festival, Pickathon Music Festival and SF Sketchfest — can be seen doing stand-up any night of the week around town.
“The audiences are smart,” he says. “They’re always game to go down some weird path with us. They encourage and respond to originality.”
On Wednesdays, Coleman produces a stand-up show called “You’re Welcome” at Mississippi Pizza Pub, a cozy spot split into a pizza parlor and a lounge.
His co-host, Shain Brenden, also performs almost every night and can also be seen on NBC Sports Northwest’s show “Blazers Outsiders.” Originally from Memphis, he jokes that he “moved to Portland to study white people.”
“The best thing about comedy here is ample stage time no matter what experience level you are,” Coleman says.
Throughout the week local favorites, nationally touring comics and noobs (aspiring amateurs) can be seen at Helium Comedy Theater, which is one of a half-dozen Portland theaters dedicated entirely to laughs. Helium offers Stand-Up 101 classes and a weekly “Writer’s Bloc,” comedy happy hour that pairs budding comedians with more experienced mentors (for free) over drinks (not free). The theater’s Tuesday night “Off the Cuff ” open-mike show features more than 20 stand-up comics, each with three minutes to show their best.
You’ll also find similar show schedules and classes at long-standing ComedySportz in Nob Hill, Brody Theater downtown, and nonprofit Curious Comedy Theater in the northeast.
Open mikes aren’t for the fainthearted. They’re testing grounds. But if you don’t mind stomaching a groan over a joke misfire (or three), the rough-and-tumble “Tally Ho!” Saturday open-mike night is a popular spot for dozens of budding and veteran comics working out new jokes in short sets — generally to an encouraging audience filled with other comedians.
Brody Theater has occupied its current punky space downtown the past 10 years with shows throughout the month. It attracts a bro-heavy lineup for its free, twice-weekly open-mike nights.
“It’s a great time to be a performer,” says comedian Tom Johnson, who founded the Brody in the mid ’90s after leaving Chicago and touring internationally. “The per-capita mike time is so high.”
Neeraj Srinivasan, a first-generation Indian American comic from Boise, Idaho, got together with fellow comedians Jason Lamb and Julia Ramos to showcase people of color. They created “Minority Retort,” which can be found in theaters around Portland and the Pacific Northwest.
Comedy sometimes finds its way in unexpected places, too.
The Slide Inn Tavern, on a residential street in the southeast’s Buckman neighborhood, is a sit-down restaurant most of the week. But four years ago, chef-owner Eugen Bingham needed a night off on Sundays and turned to comedy. The current host of the restaurant’s well-established weekly showcase is James Barela, who is grateful for venues that pay. He says of the 60 to 70 active comics in town, “most aren’t making a full-time living,” and the best shows are always at venues that pay because it ensures the host “doesn’t book buddies or scrubs.”
Portland comedy fans might notice loose-knit packs of local and visiting comics migrating among venues on the same night. It’s common to see the same person bomb on one stage and then kill it at the lounge down the road on the same night.
“It’s called triple-dipping,” says comedian Jeremiah Coughlan. “Most of us book multiple places every night.”
Coughlan is an adept triple-dipper. He has toured the country and also hosts “For the Record,” a monthly show at Helium that films comics’ live gigs and packages them for internet deployment.
There’s a lot of material being broadcast elsewhere too. Coughlan says a high percentage of Mutiny Radio performers are from PDX. There’s also a weekly Sunday night show at Alberta Street Pub called “Control Yourself ” that features local and touring comics, and is podcast live.
Comic Caitlin Weierhauser, can regularly be seen around town, including at events such as the All Jane Festival and Lez Stand Up.
Busy throughout the week, Weierhauser also hosts a monthly comedy panel called “I, Anonymous” at the northeast side’s Curious Comedy Theater. The show, which is recorded and podcasted, takes anonymous online submissions and Weierhauser reads them aloud while she and a panel of comedians offer comments and suggestions to the submitter. Comedy ensues.
The drunkest crowd in town might be found in the genie-bottle basement lounge of McMenamin’s downtown Crystal Ballroom. Its fun latenight Saturday stand-up showcase is hosted and curated by John Washington and his “cohort” Brandon Lyons.
If beer-soaked antics aren’t enough, Portland comedy isn’t shy about getting a little help from cannabis (recreational marijuana was legalized in 2015). Canna in the City is a cannabis retailer that hosts “Hotbox Comedy,” with two weekly open mikes and a monthly stand-up showcase that covers thematic events such as “Tom Petty Memorial Breakfast.”
At the arty Funhouse Lounge, even the sober could become addled by a room that is floor-to-ceiling in clown art. But on second Saturdays, comics take on bigger stakes. “The Gateway Show” opens with a handful of jokes to test the crowd, then the comics disappear (to “consult” with the Green Goddess), eventually returning to to finish a more flavored set. Quick-witted host Erin Ingle who “always reeks of weed,” as she puts it, travels down from Seattle for this show and to triple-dip across town.
Funhouse also has other events throughout each week that seem just as psychedelically inspired (including a long-running fully costumed Star Trek-themed improv musical).
While cannabis is legal, visitors should remember to partake privately and get home responsibly. And don’t forget to tip your server.