Limestone Comedy Fest brings celebrities

Laughs could be heard from all across downtown Bloomington this weekend as the first ever Limestone Comedy Festival took place June 6-8.

The Limestone Comedy Festival is a three-day, multi-venue comedy festival founded by Jared Thompson, owner of The Comedy Attic, and Mat Alano-Martin, a local comedian.

“Last year, I was on the road a lot and did quite a few comedy festivals when the idea came to me,” Alano-Martin said. “I could create my own comedy festival here in
Bloomington.”

He said that his experiences on the road and at different comedy festivals allowed him to develop his idea and join forces with Thompson.

“I took my idea to Jared, he liked it and we started really working on it in September of last year,” Alano-Martin said. “Nearly 10 months later, everything was happening.”

Over 50 comedians, roughly 40 from out of state, came to Bloomington to perform for an anticipated audience of up to 500 people. Comedians performed at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater as well as The Comedy Attic, The Back Door and Ivy Tech John Waldron Arts Center.

“We know this will be fun for the community,” Alano-Martin said. “There isn’t a lot that goes on during the summer so this will be
refreshing.”

Performances began Thursday night with headliner Tig Notaro along with Stewart Huff, John Roy, Jackie Kashian, Graham Elwood and many others. Notaro is most known for her performance on “The Sarah Silverman Show” as a lesbian police officer and was featured on “Comedy Central Presents.”

Friday night’s headliners were Maria Bamford, Geoff Tate and Al Jackson. Bamford was featured in the documentary series “The Comedians of Comedy” on Comedy Central and appeared on the latest season of “Arrested Development.”

“At Maria Bamford, my face and jaw hurt so bad from laughing. She was great,” comedy fan Jackson Cladwell said.

Saturday night’s headliners were Doug Benson and Pete Holmes. Benson, best known for his documentary about marijuana called “Super High Me,” as well as his appearances on “Comedy Central Presents,” “Best Week Ever,” and “Last Comic Standing.”

Benson’s show on Saturday was “The Doug Benson Movie Interruption,” in which he, along with Jackie Kashian, Graham Elwood and Geoff Tate, interrupted the Bloomington-centric “Breaking Away” with funny jokes and entertaining puns. The audience voted on what they wanted to see before arriving, but many were not surprised the Bloomington classic won.

“We are not here to mock this movie, we are here to make jokes while it’s playing,” Benson said before the show started.

Benson also admitted to never seeing the movie before and not preparing for it. He also made jokes before the movie about Bloomington residents being called “cutters.”

“Please, teenage girls listening to this podcast, do not cut yourselves,” Benson said. “Cutters aren’t what they used to be.”

One Benson fan, Katie Thompson, said she came to the show only because the title resembled Benson’s other show, “The Benson Interruption.”

“I love Doug Benson so very much,” Thompson said. “The show was awesome.”

Pete Holmes is known for the voices he provides to several different characters on Comedy Central’s cartoon “Ugly Americans” and his stand-up comedy act, which he has performed on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien.”

Holmes performed last Saturday night with special guest Benson as well as Josh Cocks, Brian Frange and Brad Wilhelm.

Holmes joked around about how easy it is to be a comedian, simply stating over and over again, “what you know about green eggs and ham?” as the audience rolled with laughter. Holmes also made jokes about his sex life and his awkward first encounters with “sexy texting.”

“Yes, I am going to use both words,” Holmes said. “Okay, I can save you five seconds, ‘sexting.’”

The Comedy Attic drew upon its nearly five years of business to create a significant array of headliners.

“The reason we were able to get so many great names in our first year is because the Comedy Attic has established an amazing reputation in the comedy world and the industry itself,” Alano-Martin said. “That is one of the many reasons we knew it would work.”

The festival offered tickets for shows ranging from $10 to $30 a piece or offered festival badges for two days for $50 and three-day badges for $75. The festival also offered the VIP Limestone Badge for $125, which sold out before the end of the weekend.

“It was important to us to make this as affordable as possible for comedy fans,” Alano-Martin said. “We offer the badges for big comedy fans who are willing to commit themselves to the festival for the entire weekend. We really want to take care of those people.”

At the conclusion of the last comedy show Saturday night, Thompson and Alano-Martin joined Holmes on stage, thanking everyone for coming.

“We hope this will become an annual event and since we have been so welcomed already by the community, I’m pretty confident we will,” Alano-Martin said.