Comedy Fest Pops Up Across Milwaukee

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Photo via Milwaukee Comedy Festival

Milwaukee Comedy Festival

When it comes to comedy, Matt Kemple exudes a “more the merrier” attitude.

The founder and producer of Milwaukee Comedy Festival and the promotions company birthed from it, Milwaukee Comedy, LLC, isn’t content to only appreciate his own organization’s events. “The festival is not meant to be competing with all those other venues,” Kemple says of recent surge in comedy shows at new and established locations in recent months. “The Milwaukee Comedy Festival is a celebration of comedy in all forms. The more comedy happening at those venues, the better the comedy scene is for everyone.” 

This year’s smorgasbord of stand-up artistry occurs this year at various locations throughout its namesake city from Sunday Oct.3 to Sunday Oct. 10. Attendees of the fest’s early iterations over a decade ago may recall that solo acts weren’t prolific as other comedic forms back then. Those forms absence isn’t due to any disrespect for them on the part of Kemple and his Milwaukee Comedy cohorts. 

“The festival originally only had sketch and improv. Around the third year, stand-up was added. The main reason being, the comedy scene in Milwaukee fluctuates. Some years there is lots of sketch or improv in town, other years more stand up. 15 years ago, there was very little stand up in town, and over the years it has grown.” Other considerations for who makes the bill among the event’s bookings is the submissions Kemple and Milwaukee Comedy co-directors Kaitlin McCarthy and Greg Bach receive, and, as might be expected over the past 18 months or so, a certain spiky coronavirus. “This year and last there is very little sketch and improv only because of COVID. It’s difficult for a group of performers to socially distance on a small stage, for example.” 

Submissions Only

Its submission process is one aspect of Milwaukee Comedy Festival that lends it both uniqueness and integrity. Kemple explains, “Unfortunately some comedy festivals and shows are just a money grab, or an excuse to put their promoters and their friends on stage. 

“We have a strict policy against that. We only book featured performers based on submissions. Often we have comics we know reach out and ask to be on shows, but if they didn’t submit an application to perform, then they are not considered. Kaitlin and Greg are both comics and producers for the festival, but they don't perform on any of the festival shows because it would be a conflict of interest. Our job is to showcase great comedy, so just putting friends on stage doesn't make it the best show possible,” he clarifies. That sort of circumspection has doubtless aided in Milwaukee Comedy's festival becoming one of the longest-running events of its type anywhere. 

Effort to put together evenings of amusement wherein each act abets the others comes into play, too. As Kemple offers, “We spend a lot of time crafting each show so that it is unique and fun. A big part of booking the festival is making sure every show is different and diverse, features people from different cities, etc. To make a good comedy show it’s important that the comics’ style and sense of humor complement each other.” The headliners on the fest’s last three nights demonstrate how the that curatorial philosophy works on a night-to-night basis as well. 

“We have worked with Neil Hamburger several times in the past, always a really fun show, but not in the Fest, and Lara Beitz started her comedy career in Milwaukee but is now living in L.A. Myq Kaplan has never performed in Milwaukee, so it's exciting for us to have that opportunity,” Kemple enthuses. His excitement remains high when speaking of the overall variety in the 2021 fest. “There are about 40 different performers this year! Most comics will perform at least twice, once as their ‘main’ set in a four-person show, and then additional stage time on showcase style shows where six to eight comics will do about 10 minutes each.” 

That breadth of hilarity is far more expansive than Milwaukee Comedy Festival's humbler origins. Kemple readily acknowledges as much. “It’s an incredible feeling to create something that was going to be just a one-time thing, and see it turn into what the Milwaukee Comedy Festival has become! In many ways it has grown by leaps and bounds, far beyond what I could have hoped even five or 10 years ago. In other ways, there is so much more we want to accomplish and so many more funny people to work with.”

For more information, go to mkecomedyfest.com.

Here’s Milwaukee Comedy Festival headlining newbie and former philosophy major Myq Kaplan segueing from a recollection of an obstinate cafe customer to whom he once attended to a miniature ontological discourse ...