Local comedians will host and produce a new monthly comedy showcase at the Blue Moose.
By Brett Shaw
Shoulder to shoulder, eyes locked on center stage, the world becomes a little brighter as a man cracks one joke about pubic hair, and another about the dangers of racism.
With innovative ways of getting comedians and the community involved, a monthly standup showcase in Iowa City, Let’s Do This, aims to unite comedy lovers and performers a line.
The series’ first installment will open 8 p.m. Saturday at the Blue Moose Tap House, 211 Iowa Ave. On the last Saturday of each month, a fresh show with newly featured acts will perform at the same location.
With the audience gathered tightly around the upstairs stage of the Blue Moose, will create a companionable atmosphere throughout the intimate room. Bobby Condon and Lisa Peters will headline the first showcase. Condon, a Chicago comedian, has toured in various standup shows and has left a lasting impression with his unrepentant loudness. Peters, also from Chicago, possesses a dark humor exemplified by her monthly “Puppet Party”, a show in which puppets heckle standup comedians.
Travis Bails and Dante Powell will also perform. Bails regularly hosts at Penguin’s Comedy Club in Cedar Rapids and often opens up his personal hardships for the sake of entertainment. Powell, a touring comedian from Des Moines, specializes in risqué humor on topics from race to relationships.
Two men walk into a bar. They will host the showcase, and their names are Mike Lucas and Daniel Frana. The local comedians produced Let’s Do This after realizing Iowa City lacked a regular standup show that comedy lovers could congregate around.
Similar monthly standup events have emerged in Iowa City, but all eventually fizzled out because of inconvenient show times or inconsistent dates. Let’s Do This aims to maintain relevance through regularly scheduled shows that don’t interfere with people’s work or school lives.
With an increase in the number of new, young comedians in the area, Let’s Do This should push barriers and make comedy a more communal experience. Lucas said his favorite part of standup comedy is the relationship that he forms with audience members and fellow comedians. Let’s Do This hopes to embody this loving nature of local comedy through an interactive and welcoming show, encouraging the use of cellphones with social media.
“We want something that we can hook people into to see that this is what Iowa City comedy is,” Frana said. “We are doing something really cool here. Not just me and Mike but all of us.”
Let’s Do This further innovates through various contests offering a coveted slot in the show’s lineup. These contests provide an interactive way of recruiting comedians of varying experience while also promoting the showcase.
Powell won the January contest through a raffle among those who liked the show’s Facebook page. For next month’s show, interested comedians will design posters advertising Let’s Do This, which the public will then vote on.
“We are going to do something different every month to bring comedians and people in,” Frana said. “It’s a creative endeavor for us, and it’s also something new for the crowd and the comedians to look out for.”
