Patrons seated for a late-night show at The Attic Comedy Club in Olde Towne East. Credit: Joel Ramirez
Laughter takes the stage this Friday at The Attic Comedy Club.
The venue, located on the second floor of 892 Oak St., will host its very first “Freestyle Friday” show, featuring five local comedians — Barack Lesnor, Brian Harris, Joel Good, Larry Danflows and Nef Johnson — and offering for the first time a buy-one-get-one deal on tickets for Ohio State students with a valid BuckID.
Joel Ramirez, director of social media and marketing at The Attic, said the promotion is one of the many ways the club hopes to build community by inviting students into the space.
“It’s important to The Attic to reach out to college students and young people that are fans of comedy, and in order to make that happen, if [students] buy a ticket to Freestyle Friday and present [their] Buck ID, [they’re] able to get a free plus-one,” Ramirez said.
Ramirez said though it is not a competition, a panel of judges will give feedback on the comedians’ quick wit and overall approach to their given topic with crowd work — a format of improvisational comedy in which a performer engages with the audience using more casual and impromptu jokes, according to the Comedians on the Loose website.
“It’s fully unscripted, but the audience gets to have a say. We’ll ask for suggestions, there will be a bucket of ideas and we will use those suggestions for our comics to do their unscripted sets,” Ramirez said. “This specific show is great because it will really showcase how unique our local comedy scene truly is.”
Ramirez said one of the club’s main goals in the new year is to continue opening the space up to Ohio State students, allowing both the club and its community to grow.
“We want to bring out young people, and college-aged people and young adults that are kind of finding their way in life. We want to provide this as an outlet that they can grow with,” Ramirez said. “They may come now as a college student, but 15 years down the line, they could still be coming once they’re married and they have children.”
The Attic — founded in December 2022 by owner and operator Bo Stenger and graced by the likes of big names such as Dave Chappelle and Mark Normand — celebrated its two-year anniversary last month, prompting more ideas on how to engage with a big part of the Columbus population, Stenger said.
“There are so many pieces, but I think it’s important to create a space for people of all ages to come and really just enjoy comedy as a community,” Stenger said.
As a former three-peat high school sophomore and outcast in the classroom, Stenger said he believes the importance of local comedy clubs can be attributed to the ways in which they provide an opportunity for misfits to hone their craft.
“I always say that the only thing I learned in school was how to tell jokes,” Stenger said. “Taking it even further than college students, I want to go deeper to high schools and elementary schools, and say to the administrators, ‘Give me all your problem kids and let’s give them something to do with the talent that they have.’ That’s all a comedy club is, but just for adults.”
Ramirez said the club highly encourages students to purchase tickets beforehand. For more information and to purchase tickets for upcoming shows, students can go to The Attic Comedy Club website and Instagram page.
