Courtesy of The Laughing Tap
Back in January, the Shepherd Express reported how the Laughing Tap had worked hard and opened to great excitement—a new stand up venue, filling a void in Milwaukee. And who better to run the show than Milwaukee Comedy, the group that organizes the annual Milwaukee Comedy Festival as well as other shows around the city?
Then the pandemic hit. The Laughing Tap, open just over three months, closed its doors like everywhere else. For four months, the stage sat mostly in silence, though they did use the space to record an occasional “Quaran-Teeny Tiny Comedy Show” web series to keep people laughing on their couches.
This past Friday saw local comedians—openers Ben Hofman and Carly Malison and headliner Justin Leon—onstage for a live audience for the first time since the Laughing Tap closed in March. The audience was sparse and spread out by pairs of chairs with small tables for drinks, attendance limited to about 20. The venue took all the precautions it could—mandatory masks, plenty of bottles of hand sanitizer, vigorous cleaning by the staff, and each comedian had their own separate, color-coded microphone. The strangest aspect, especially for the comedians, are the masks. It’s hard to read the room when you can’t tell if your audience is laughing or frowning bitterly at your jokes.
“Are you guys having fun? I can’t tell ‘cause everyone has masks on so you all just look like you hate me like this bitch,” Malison quipped during her set.
The comedians made the best of it. Ben Hoffman and Carly Malison riffed on quarantine life and troubles like dating during this unprecedented era.
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“My perspective on dating has totally changed. It used to be is he cute, is he nice, does he have a 401k? Now it’s like—can we survive an apocalypse?” Malison said to masked laughter. “Can we survive living in my 500 square foot studio apartment? Are you a hunter or a gatherer? I am neither, I need you to do both. I don’t even know where bread lives.”
Headliner Justin Leon did bits on the quarantine (“I’m so glad to be out, out and about. I was so ready to get out of the house—I probably would have took a gig doing ten minutes at a Klan rally. But I think the president probably books his own openers.”) as well as Tiger King, the Black Lives Matter movement, and his life as a dad, sharing a story of one of his kid’s friends snitching on her Instagram account. Putting his material aside, he riffed off the small group gathered at the show, finding out details about their work and love lives. It was funny stuff.
Leon (and the Laughing Tap) deserve a bigger audience to work with, and they’ll get it. This is the new normal for now. We miss the rooms filled with people and big laughs, but for now we’ll take what laughs we can get.
You can find more info on upcoming shows on the Laughing Tap website.
To read more stories by Tea Krulos, click here.
