ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
Q. What do you get when a journalist interviews a dozen comedians at the 16th annual Asheville Comedy Festival?
A. One total joke of an article.
I also had a dozen fascinating, honest, humorous, neurotic and vulnerable conversations with some of the brightest rising stars in the national comedy circuit.
The comedians I spoke with –– Tyrone Burston, Chris Cyr, Darryl Charles, Nick Deez, Britt Migs, Katie Novotny, Emily Paige, Elyssa Phillips, Viengsouk Phommachanh, Travis Stevenson, Elke Thoms and Mia Wilson –– were each selected to participate in ACF out of hundreds of other applicants.
Every comic at the festival, around 40 in total, performed a 10-minute set in front of a full Wortham Center for the Performing Arts auditorium. The performers were split between three nights, four showcases and one headliner, in this case, festival alum Tom Segura. During the day, comics bonded, learned and networked at several festival workshops before assembling in the green room for the show.
The one thing I heard repeatedly from this diverse group of comedians was the incredible reputation ACF has in the national comedy scene. As I got to know them and their senses of humor, that was something each was completely serious about. ACF is the premier comedy event for the Southeast.
After witnessing the ins and outs of what event founder Charlie Gerencer, talent producer Caitlin Barlow and the rest of their team accomplished, there is no kidding about that.
The following mini features are a look into comedian process, from festival preparation to joke writing to career decision-making, right down to the final deep breath or breathless moments before they step onto the ACF stage and the exultant reflective minutes after.
While the 16th ACF concluded on Saturday, Aug. 10, these comedians are just getting started.
Caitlin Barlow: The Producer
Barlow is not a comedian. She was clear about that.
“Comedy is one of those things where you do it one time and you will know that one time if it’s for you,” Barlow said. “I did it one time, and I knew in that moment it was not for me.”
What she does is coordinate up-and-coming ones.
“When I say up-and-coming, I don’t mean newer. These comedians have put in their 10,000 hours,” Barlow corrected. “Like they’re getting up there in the industry.”
Barlow and a panel of judges sorted through dozens of audition tapes to land on the 40 finalists and dozen interviewees that ultimately filled out the 16th ACF. The audition window opened in February and closed in May, and each tape was required to be eight to 10 minutes long, the length of an ACF set.
Every applicant was given a fair shot, and every applicant had to make a tape: even Segura, a famous headliner no stranger to ACF.
“No, f— yeah we made him audition,” Barlow laughed. “One hundred percent.”
However, Segura is an outlier. The mission of ACF is to elevate rising comedians to the level of comics like Segura, something the festival offers for free.
“Our goal is to connect comedians with industry and to prepare them to take that next step in their career,” Barlow said. “We give them the stage, we give them the advertising, networking, everything. The only thing they have to provide is the travel.”
Barlow emphasized that while their comics might make it look easy on stage, a career in comedy can be punishing.
“We put this on to help them progress in their career. That’s why we do this,” Barlow said. “Because comedy is such a hard business to get into, without these small fests it’s hard to get up to the level.”
According to Barlow, ACF altruism has been successful.
“I’ve got a whole list of people who have beyond flourished because of this festival,” Barlow said. “Who have made careers, solid careers where they support themselves and their families.”
That list included comics like Segura, Bert Kreischer, Kyle Kinane, Atsuko Okatsuka, Sam Jay and Rory Scovel.
Soon, it may include these comedians, too.
Tyrone Burston: The People Person
Burston has been performing stand-up for more than a decade, but in his view, being a stand-up guy is more important.
The comic moved from Hartford, Connecticut, to Charlotte, North Carolina, almost 20 years ago. While Burston makes his living by being funny, that decision was deadly serious.
“On the north end of Hartford is labeled ‘Homicide Hartford.’ A lot of my friends were murdered by gun violence or murderers because of it,” Burston told me. “It was just a really, really bad environment to grow up in, and I just didn’t think my kids would be able to withstand a kind of upbringing like that. I was lucky to get out by the skin of my teeth.”
Despite the gravity of Burston’s childhood experiences, he was nothing but warmth and levity talking about his family. In fact, his material often oscillates between family stories and poking fun at his childhood.
“Anything is up for grabs in my life, man,” Burston said.
The defining message of his stand-up, however, is love and gratitude.
“I’m thinking about opening up with telling the crowd what an honor it is to be a part of Asheville Comedy Fest,” Burston said in the week before the festival. “I can’t wait, man. I’m so excited.”
His excitement was infectious, for the crowd and for other comics.
Burston closed out his showcase group Friday night. When we spoke afterward, our interview was observed by a small group of smiling people backstage, patiently waiting for their turn to congratulate the comedian.
“I feel good, man,” Burston exulted. “I feel like I came, I saw, I conquered.”
The hearts of his audience, certainly.
Chris Cyr: The Rambler
There is another comedian named Chris Cyr out there. Seriously. Just search for his name on Instagram. According to Cyr, they have a sense of humor about it.
Despite that weird coincidence, Cyr is one-of-one at what he does: stand-up, a profession he has been in for 11 years.
While he is great at it now, it took the comic a little bit of time to hone his comedic style. His first open mic, for instance, was disastrous.
“It was supposed to be four minutes. I went six,” Cyr groaned. “I told one long, rambling story that maybe had a punchline in it at the end.”
Today, Cyr is much better with his comic timing. Rambling, however, is part of him.
“I embrace the fact that I can ramble sometimes. I’m more of a storytelling comedian, for sure,” Cyr said. “But I’ve learned how to put jokes throughout the story that can serve as individual jokes when the need arises.”
Cyr and his rambling joke mosaics are about all sorts of things. Like his parents, who were teenagers when they had him.
“That lends itself to stories and comedy that’s kinda universal,” Cyr laughed. “No matter who you are, race, religion, whatever, you can always relate to being too young to have the kid you have.”
Other times, his stories are observational.
“Some of it is just absurdist takes on the world,” Cyr said. “Like how I didn’t know a park ranger can write you a speeding ticket on the highway. How surprised I was to find that out.”
No matter how much they ramble, Cyr and his stories are funny.
Darryl Charles: The Engineer
Charles has been a comedian for 14 years. He started as an engineer.
“I went to school for engineering, and then got a job, and then decided that, um, I’d look for other ways to find joy. Comedy was just one of them,” Charles said. “My entire education was math-based, but I was a casual fan.”
That casual fandom turned into a career, and the STEM storyteller started to engineer jokes instead of industry.
Charles has not left science behind entirely, however. Take a recent topic he took to the stage.
“What have I been doing lately? You know, I, uh, sold some blood plasma,” Charles said. “As a full-time comedian, the hustle of trying to make money has been a nice little topic.”
Charles is the perfect representation of a comedian putting sweat, tears and blood plasma into their craft.
Nick Delorenzo: The Stretcher
Delorenzo, better known as Nick Deez, has an important pre-show ritual.
“As goofy as it is, I know I don’t do s— on stage, I stretch, I’ll bend over, touch my toes, I’ll crack my back, I’ll stretch as far as I can and then I’ll stand up and I’ll shake it off,” Delorenzo said. “And then, literally I’ll go, ‘Time to bomb.’”
Every single time Delorenzo has gone on stage for the last six and a half years, he has repeated this mantra to himself. He may not think it is a particularly healthy habit, or really even especially helpful, but reverse psychology has served him well this long.
“I’ve talked to somebody else, and they were like ‘You should probably stop doing that. That’s not a good idea.’ Why?” Delorenzo said. “The alternative is I go, like, ‘I’m gonna f—ing kill,’ and then if I go up and I don’t do that, I’m like ‘Oh. You suck.’”
Something about it must be working, because Delorenzo did not bomb. He killed. Maybe it was the other thing he does.
“My other thing is, even though 90% of the time now I don’t look at it, I always write down my set,” Delorenzo said. “Tonight, I’m probably gonna look at it, because I’m anxious.”
Delorenzo needn’t have been. His jokes murdered.
Britt Migs: The Daughter
Rockstars have roadies. Movie stars have paparazzi. Comedians have their moms.
That is, they do if you’re Britt Migs.
“I don’t wanna rat out my mom, but she’s actually going to be at the festival,” Migs said. “It’s just so funny. She loves Asheville, so when she heard I was doing it, she was like ‘Can I come?’ and I was like, ‘I guess that wouldn’t be weird.’”
Mother Migs wound up an integral part of her daughter’s set. One volley of jokes Migs shot into the Friday night crowd was about the difficulties of growing up with a “hot mom.” Migs would occasionally refer to her mom after a bit, creating a rapport between herself, the audience and her mother.
“She hates when I tell this one,” Migs laughed. The audience followed suit.
It was a heartwarming show of support, particularly given Migs’ journey to the stand-up stage, where she has performed for five years after coming up in the New York sketch comedy scene. After all, her mom was not always in favor of that career path.
“She was very much like, get a real job and do something real,” Migs said. “So, I kinda tried to get into comedy in this backdoor way where I went to school for TV production.”
That degree led Migs to a video production job with Cracked.com, the digital comedy magazine. It was the perfect combination of “real job” and comedy.
“I actually get to write and star in a lot of sketches for Cracked,” Migs said. “So, I still get to flex that muscle. But by trade, I guess, or what I’m doing every night is stand-up.
ACF was an exciting opportunity for Migs as a comedian on the come-up –– “This is actually my first theatre,” she told me –– but the trip to Asheville may have been even more thrilling for her mother.
“One thing about that lady, she loves a historic home. So, she was living loving today,” Migs said about her mom’s trip to The Biltmore Estate. “When I’m at one of the workshops, she’s getting a massage. She’s having the best time. She’s killing it.”
It must run in the family. Friday night, Migs was killing it, too.
Katie Novotny: The Tourist
Novotny liked to make sports analogies. Her comedy is athletic, bouncing from place to place and always on the move.
“I like knowing the place before I go,” Novotny said. She was checking out the Wortham Center a night early. “It doesn’t feel as like an away game.”
Novotny, based in Los Angeles but a Chicago native –– “I like to emphasize that I’m from Chicago, but I’m based in Los Angeles,” Novotny emphasized –– has been playing a lot of away games with her comedy this year.
“I had one in February in San Luis Obispo, which is like north of L.A., I had one in Austin in April, and then in May I was in Atlanta for Red Clay, and then Vail, and then Limestone in Bloomington, Indiana,” Novotny recollected. “Now I have this, and then I’m going to Big Pine in Arizona in September.”
The Los Angeles comedy scene is cut-throat. Touring the country, Novotny said, is one way to hone her craft, let alone get opportunities to be onstage.
“It’s hard to get stage time in L.A. unless you’re like super famous or have hundreds of thousands of followers,” Novotny said. “I was not getting enough stage time, and I want to grow. Something I’ve learned from other comics is that when you start out in smaller scenes, you just get more stage time. You just get the reps in.”
Despite booking festival after festival this year, Novotny was surprised to get ACF.
“I still feel like it’s gonna be a joke. Like, they’re gonna be like, ‘Oh. Sorry. We messed up,’” Novotny said. “What is it, like 500 seats at the performing arts center? I just never thought at the beginning of this year that would scare me.”
Scared or not, Novotny seemed confident when she stepped up to the ACF plate. To use a sports analogy of my own, with her ACF set, Novotny hit a home run.
Emily Paige: The Divorcée
Paige got divorced, but it’s funny, she promises.
The New Jersey comedian has only been performing stand-up for four years but has rapidly made a name for herself.
“I actually got started during the pandemic, which was pretty crazy,” Paige said. “I did a lot of Zoom shows, which helped me with networking. Then, once the world started opening back up, I started doing a lot of open mics and a lot of shows in New Jersey and New York. I’m pretty centrally located too to Philly, so kind of a prime location to get into a couple of the major cities and run material.”
Paige was given a lot of material to work with, too. A teacher by day, she had always told her students that working with them was closest she would ever come to performing stand-up, a lifelong dream of hers.
“What ended up happening is right before the pandemic, so in 2019, I had my daughter. She’s five and a half now. Then, right away, I went through a divorce. And then I moved back home with my parents when I sold my house, and then the pandemic hit,” Paige said. “Everything around me was ending, and I was like, ‘If I don’t do this now, I’m never going to do it.’”
Paige is doing it and doing it well. Many of her jokes, whether about dating, her daughter –– “I swear, she is so much funnier than I am,” Paige quipped –– or her divorce went over great with the ACF crowd.
“All of my material is about my life,” Paige said. “I can talk about stuff I’ve gone through, and I can make fun of myself, and for some reason people find that relatable.”
It is hilarious how much people relate to Paige and her story. After all, what was the reason behind her divorce, and a punchline of her set?
“Let’s just say he chose video games over his marriage. We’ll leave the rest a surprise.”
Her audience, a group of captivated comics in the Wortham green room, groaned, cheered and most of all, laughed.
Elyssa Phillips: The Hustler
Phillips and her comedy were bold, brassy and proud to be from New York. The comedian opened the first showcase of ACF on Thursday, August 8 with an energy-filled set.
Phillips lives and works in Los Angeles now, where she has performed stand-up for seven years. Stand-up, in addition to working as a theatre artistic director, performing sketch comedy and landing gigs as an actress, including an appearance this year on the HBO series “Hacks.” The comic stays busy.
“It does get tricky because it’s exhausting, and the hustle is exhausting. It’s not just the writing and it’s not just the performing,” Phillips said. “It’s a hustle to find shows, it’s a hustle to find good shows, it’s exhausting in ways where I feel like I make a lot of sacrifices.”
Watching Phillips perform, it would be hard to detect any exhaustion. The comedian filled the Wortham Center with her voice and the audience returned the favor with their laughter.
Even the way Phillips interviewed was passionate, like when she told me about how great ACF was at taking care of its comics, especially in comparison to other festivals the comic has performed in.
“That’s the way I feel about it,” she laughed. “I can’t help it.”
After Phillips finished her set, I learned firsthand that the hustle never stops.
Phillips had to leave the festival early unexpectedly. Her agent had called, and she was being given an unprecedented and unmissable career opportunity. The only problem? She needed to be back in Los Angeles the next morning.
Despite how much she wanted to stay for the rest of the fest, “I really can’t skip this,” she told me.
It was back to the hustle for the most energetic comedian at ACF.
Viengsouk Phommachanh: The Otolaryngologist
Phommachanh is a literal doctor. His day job is as an otolaryngologist, or a physician of the head and neck. However, his night job proves that laughter is the best medicine.
(I asked Phommachanh how many times he has heard that particular line. “It’s a cliche but it’s true,” he dryly replied.)
Phommachanh performs stand-up comedy, one of the most punishing and stressful gigs around, to relax from his other job, maybe the foremost punishing and stressful gig around.
“I cut back a little bit on my work as a physician because I was getting kind of burned out,” Phommachanh said. “It’s just so intense all the time. I started doing this as a break, and then this has taken on a life of its own. I’m trying to balance the two.”
According to the “comic doc,” as Phommachanh is affectionately known, comedy fuels the artistic side of his brain. If work as a physician is intensely grueling, life as a comic is incredibly engaging.
“It’s like a volcano of emotions,” Phommachanh said after his Friday night set. “It’s relief that you didn’t bomb. It’s euphoria that you have a good set. It’s thankfulness that we get to do this. It’s all that, all at once. It’s probably why we’re addicted to it. It’s a high.”
While Phommachanh might patch other people up as an otolaryngologist, performing stand-up takes care of his own well-being.
“The more I do comedy, the more whole I feel,” Phommachanh sighed. “The more relief and catharsis that helps me get over the stress.”
For the comic doc, laughter may not be the best medicine. Making others laugh is.
Travis Stevenson: The Tailor
Stevenson does not have a pre-show routine. That is not because the comic is cocky or rejecting superstition. He just has a lot of nerves.
“I get the nerves really bad with every show, it doesn’t matter if it’s a five-seat or a 500,” Stevenson admitted. “Being able to do a theater with this many people, it’s a rare occurrence at this stage for me. I don’t want to remember that and remember how stressed I was. I wanna remember the good parts. So, I’m trying to just have fun, stay present, stay in the moment.”
Stevenson finished telling me this and then laughed.
“Which isn’t working for me today, by the way.”
The comic has been performing for years, yet still feels this same tension, even though his material is often flexible.
Born and bred in Appalachia, Stevenson tells jokes about the opioid epidemic, picking a switch off the tree or strange things his family says. However, if he needs to, he can switch away from picking switches. He just has to listen first.
“It just depends on the audience,” Stevenson said. “Sometimes people want it to be pretty aggressive, so if you go out there with your regular vanilla material it’s like, no, these people want you to push the boundaries and be a little dangerous. So, I like to listen and see, and then I can adjust accordingly.”
That sort of adjustment skill comes from performing far and frequently.
“Like even international stuff,” Stevenson noted. “When you get put on the bigger shows, they want it to be squeaky church clean. So, I’ve had to adapt all my material to be clean. Then I’ve been on some of the rowdiest college shows too, so I know how to go really blue. It’s become a lot easier to tailor my sets to what I perceive the audience wants.”
Stevenson had performed in Asheville several times, but remarked it was usually a toss-up for what the mood of the audience would be. Either way, for his set at ACF, they seemed to love him. Afterward, his nerves were nowhere to be found.
“That was such a good crowd,” Stevenson crowed. “Hoo. I switched it up a few times.”
Stevenson and his comedy are nothing if not flexible.
Elke Thoms: The Writer
For Thoms, it seemed all her comedy came back to writing.
“I was always interested in writing, and always would write funny stuff growing up. I wanted to have that immediate feedback feeling,” Thoms said. “I took a stand-up class on a whim in college, and I really liked it, but it was really terrifying.”
Thoms would continue to flirt with the idea of performing stand-up, but only did it once every six months or so until a college instructor intervened.
“She pulled me aside and said ‘Hey, I think you are really good at this, you should consider taking more classes and continue to work on the craft.’ All of that,” Thoms said. “I feel like that was not a moment I had had in other aspects of my life up to then. I definitely was still searching for what my thing was, so to speak.”
That was the first time Thoms felt like she might have found it.
“I had had some writing stuff get recognized before and whatever, but it was still a really great feeling, and I think that moment really inspired me to keep going,” she said.
Her professor was not the last person to encourage Thoms for being funny. Her non-comedian friends will frequently stop her in conversation to tell her to write something down if they think it could be something, she said.
That supportive gesture is a habit Thoms taught them by accident.
“The writing process is so interesting for stand-up because I feel like a lot of times, for me, it starts with just a joke,” she explained. “Like if I said something funny in conversation naturally with a friend, I am that weirdo that will be like ‘Oh my god, I have to write that down,’ and will actually stop and write it down.”
The habit has created less laughs in conversation with her friends, but much more material for her sets onstage.
“Instead of laughing, they’ll be like ‘Write that down, write that down,’” she laughed.
If the ACF audience were Thom’s friends, they would be telling her to write everything in her set down. Instead, they laughed.
Mia Wilson: The Meditator
Wilson is calm. In a group of manic, hyper, funny people, the comedian was a quiet, solid presence. Where her peers might feel anxious about performing, Wilson feels completely at home.
“I like being onstage. It’s the best part of my day,” Wilson smiled. “I don’t have a ton of nerves around it.”
Her pre-show routine could be the key to how the comedian stays so serene.
“I meditate before shows,” Wilson said. “And I listen to, like, garbage music. Like Pitbull. It’s stuff that’s on my exercise mix that takes down anxiety. It’s definitely harder to be anxious when you’re listening to Mr. Worldwide.”
Wilson performed her set towards the end of the Friday night showcase. To hear the audience go, you would not have known it. Maybe thanks to Mr. Worldwide, maybe thanks to her own easygoing wit, her comedy had worldwide appeal in the Wortham Center auditorium.
More information about Asheville Comedy Festival can be found on the event website, www.ashevillecomedyfestival.com.