ASPEN GOES SMALL TO KEEP COMEDY HERITAGE ALIVE
“SNL’s” Colin Jost on the joys of Aspen’s compact, light-headed festival
A lthough he was barely out of college when it ended in 2007, Colin Jost nails why the dearly departed U.S. Comedy Arts Festival could not survive in Aspen’s posh, high-altitude climes.
“Sometimes when a festival gets too big it becomes overwhelming,” said the 35-year-old stand-up and writer, who co-hosts “Saturday Night Live’s” Weekend Update, via email. “That said, I will be networking with powerful business people 100 percent of the time. Please have your business cards ready.”
He jests, but the HBO-sponsored U.S. Comedy Arts Festival truly was a victim of its own popularity and prestige, rivaling Montreal’s world-famous Just for Laughs festival in talent, but minus the space to grow — and plus the problematic winter weather and lack of hotel rooms that led to its demise after 13 years in the city.
However, Aspen has kept its comedy heritage alive with a succession of smaller events, first under the Rooftop Comedy banner and, now in its ninth year, as a program of the city’s historic Wheeler Opera House (which also hosted most of the HBO version’s marquee events).
The 2018 Aspen Laugh Festival, which returns to the 504-seat Wheeler through Feb. 24, features headliners and veteran comics including Jost, Paula Poundstone, Jeff Ross, Mike Birbiglia and stand-up-of-the-moment Tiffany Haddish, with smaller shows from improv icons The Second City and free “Après Comedy Hours” from former “SNL” cast member Jon Rudnitsky, and rising names Sarah Tiana, Megan Gailey and Benji Aflalo.
“We’re really lucky because we have the facility, and there are cool venues
in town partnering with us, like this new space called Silver City where the ‘Après Comedy Hours’ will be,” said Gena Buhler, executive director of the Wheeler. “We’re envisioning long-term trying to do some comedy cabins up on the mountain, just to encourage that fun sense of comedy popping up anywhere.”
Aspen’s Laugh Fest operates more like Austin, Texas’ Moontower Comedy Festival, in that its main reason for being is the backing of the city and its host venues.
This year’s $200,000 in artist fees and lodging, for example, is supported by a subsidy from Aspen’s real estate transfer tax fund — meaning about 85 percent of its funding comes from the city, which officially produces and runs the event.
“So we’re only chasing 15 percent earned revenue for all the programming that we do,” said Buhler, former theater director of Beaver Creek’s Vilar Performing Arts Center and, before that, a Broadway agent in New York City. “We have that luxury of being able to say, ‘We want to make this happen,’ and then having all these partners in town.”
That also helps make Laugh Fest feel like the community-oriented event it markets itself as being.
“The best festivals are like summer camps for comedians, where you get to see friends who you never see otherwise because everyone’s working all over the country,” said Jost, who first visited Aspen last summer for an Aspen Ideas Festival panel, with his Weekend Update co-host Michael Che.
“Stand-up starts out very communal when you’re doing open mics and breaking in at comedy clubs. Then as you progress and go on the road for shows, it becomes a lot more solitary. So when you get a chance to actually spend time with other comedians, it’s great and it reminds you why you got into comedy in the first place.”
The compact nature of the Laugh Fest — all taking place in walkable downtown Aspen, and costing between $40 and $75 for headlining shows — also encourages the sense of shoulder-to-shoulder camaraderie, where comics can be spotted at area bars and restaurants long after their sets have ended.
“I just saw Trevor Noah at Radio City Music Hall in New York with 5,000 other people,” Buhler said. “But to be able to see someone like Tiffany Haddish in a 500-seat theater, with comics usually coming into the lobby afterwards, is (rare). Our hotel partner is offering discounted lodging so you can come up and see a headlining show, and then spend the rest of the week seeing free comedy.”
Beyond rah-rah marketing for a city that’s not exactly hurting for a tourist-friendly reputation, the Laugh Fest also focuses comedic talent in a way that, as Jost so aptly puts it, makes it easy to track down and see the performers you want to see.
“At a smaller festival, you can see a show or two every night and feel like you really experienced the whole event,” he said. “One of the disadvantages of a smaller festival is that if someone’s trying to kill you, they can find you more easily.”