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For decades, open-mic shows all over the country have played a vital role in providing comics with live audiences that allow them to hone their chops while creating and experimenting with new material onstage. Austin’s comedy scene is no exception. Cap City Comedy Club and The Velveeta Room, the oldest and most well-known comedy venues in town, have long been an essential part of the local comic’s weekly routine. Yet even with the recent addition of ColdTowne Theater’s stand-up comedy open mic, sponsored by That Other Paper, the overall supply of local stage time still pales in comparison to bigger cities such as Dallas, New York, and Los Angeles.
“The problem is that there’s a need for more,” says Norman Wilkerson, a five-year comedy veteran formerly based in Washington D.C. and a member of The Unbookables, a loose collective of comics that boasts an impressive roster that includes Doug Stanhope, Tom Rhodes, Neil Hamburger, and Austin’s own Brendon Walsh. “Just personally, as a comedian, I need more because The Velveeta Room can’t have me feature or headline every week,” says Wilkerson. “But I need to be on stage 20 to 30 minutes a week to continue to develop if I’m not on the road or doing something else.”
To address his needs and those of a quickly burgeoning local comedy scene, Wilkerson teamed up with fellow comedian Avi Hartman in July to create The Austin Comedy Trainwreck, a series of monthly shows where local comics have at least 10 minutes apiece to perform or experiment with new material.
Hartman had already been booking comedy shows at Beerland before teaming up with Wilkerson. “At first, it really was so that I would have a gig,” Hartman admits matter-of-factly. “I knew I couldn’t do three minutes at the Velveeta Room forever, because I’m not that kind of comedian.” It was during this time that Wilkerson was also finding that the time constraints of Austin’s open mics were stifling his personal creativity and style, mostly because the three-minute spots were too short for his longer, narrative approach. “I can start writing material that’s shorter for the three minutes,” Wilkerson concedes, “but then I’m only writing for open mic when the whole point of the open mic is to prepare you for comedy – it’s to prepare you for 30 minutes, prepare you for the hour.”
Scarce stage opportunities and short set times are not the only limitations affecting local comics. According to Hartman and Wilkerson, most of the traditional comedy venues are unlikely to allow comics to delve into the bawdier and more risqué subject matter that might offend potential clientele.
“Comedy clubs have overhead,” Wilkerson explains. “They gotta put asses in seats, so they naturally tend to not get it too edgy. They want to broaden their audience – not make it smaller by getting edgy. Avi talks about his prostate and taking it in the ass, and I make fun of retarded people and midgets.” Make no mistake – Hartman and Wilkerson are not the only comedians affected by the sensibilities of the traditional comedy clubs. “There are other really good comics in town who can work at Cap City, who can work at Velveeta, but they got this whole other side to them that they also want to express and they need venues to express that, too.”
The solution: Book shows at non-traditional venues like bars and rock clubs – Beerland, Hole in the Wall, Scoot Inn, Nasty’s, and Homer’s Bar and Grill – that tend to provide crowds that are not easily offended. “That’s kind of what we’re providing – a place where people can express their darker side, or their crazier side, and they don’t have to worry about me or Avi coming up after the show and saying ‘Hey, you gotta tone it down for our audience.’ We’re not gonna do that.”
There is one rule, however, that Hartman tries to impress on the comedians who come out to play. “I tell people, ‘I want you to leave your road-tested shit behind and try to create onstage.’” And when comedians take the suggestion to heart, the effect is staggering. “When it works, it’s like the most immediate kind of surprising sort of confessional comedy you’re likely to see,” he says. “It’s extremely personal and weird and different and when it works, that’s fucking brilliant. When it fails, it’s a really good fucking train wreck – that’s why we called it that. I’ve seen comedians bomb, and it was the most fascinating show I’ve ever seen where I could not take my eyes off the fucking stage.”
This uncertainty and spontaneity is what differentiates a Trainwreck show from one at a traditional comedy venue where, according to Wilkerson, people can watch “someone who’s honed their act for 20 years and can get through it flawlessly, time after time after time. And if you go back to see that same comic the following year, you might hear 10 minutes of new material out of his hour set. You’ll laugh and you’ll have a good time, but it’s not the same experience as watching people get up on stage and create.”
As a result, the shows take on an almost sports arena-like atmosphere with the crowd taking stake in the performance onstage. “Even when we’re failing onstage, the crowds have already figured it out,” Hartman observes. “The crowds at our shows have figured out that what we’re doing is an experiment, in a way.”
In the few months that the Trainwreck has been in existence, comics have already recognized it as an untapped opportunity to reach a new audience that had not been catered to by the more traditional means. Most of their audience members are not regular comedy fans, or at least not the type to visit the comedy clubs.
“They’re just hanging out at their regular watering hole,” Wilkerson notes, “and then we come in on a Tuesday night and [they say] ‘we’ll stick around ’cause this is where we drink.’” So far, this unique approach has already generated a new and dedicated following by converting casual bar crowds into comedy fans. “The Hole generates its own crowd pretty reliably,” Hartman observes, “and a couple of them that remembered the show have asked, ‘Hey, are you playing this Tuesday?’ And they come back to the next show.”
Just goes to show that everyone loves a good wreck.
Full disclosure: The writer of this story has performed in an Austin Comedy Trainwreck show. That Other Paper is proud to be a strong supporter of the local comedy scene.
Comments
Oh so these are the guys responsible for stinking up Hole in the Wall. Just kidding, this is actually cool to have especially when your drinking with a group of people you don’t have alot to talk about with.
you should do this at qua. comedy on the sharks. feed unfunny people to the sharks! and only let barbies and dudes in shiny shirts in. can you imagine the hilarity????
long live the trainwreck.
PS: way to go on looking like some kind of gay middle aged couple that solves mysteries and deals coke in Miami.
If I’d known how those pictures were going to turn out, I would’ve broken the camera. And, incidentally, we ARE a gay, middle-aged couple who solves crime. And as for me, I use the coke to cut my laxative with, not the other way around.