The 7th Annual Bloomington Comedy Festival began with 40 hopeful stand-up comedians competing for the audience’s paper ballot vote.
After nine weeks of competition, six remain to compete in the semifinals at 8 p.m. Wednesday at the Comedy Attic.
One semifinalist, Bob Nugent, said the audience exposure is valuable for comedians, regardless of results.
“If you’re funny, then there’s nothing better than a sold-out audience every week to do your best jokes in front of,” Nugent said.
The lineup also includes Doug Drury, Stephanie Lochbihler, David Britton, Mo Mitchell and Jordan Mather-Licht. Only three will progress to the finals Wednesday, Aug. 28.
Bob Nugent
A three-time contender in the Bloomington Comedy Festival, Nugent said he started his career in comedy after fellow competitor and longtime friend Britton entered the business.
“Comedy was always something we wanted to try, but there really wasn’t an outlet for that,” he said.
The Comedy Attic gave them that outlet, Nugent said, and he started performing shortly after he moved back to Bloomington.
When writing, Nugent said he is the captain of his own “insanity-imagination ship.” He writes jokes in a longform style.
“I like being a bully; it’s fun for me,” he said. “I’m not, like, pushing kids down at the playground or anything. I like taking jabs at people, and I think that’s one of my favorite parts of comedy — being a dick, it’s funny.”
As a full-time nursing student at Ivy Tech Community College, Nugent said he is content with his comedy career so far.
Making people laugh is the goal, but his comedy is really for himself, Nugent said.
“If they laugh, that’s good, but this is all for me,” he said. “I’m a monster, but I’m my favorite kind of monster.”
Doug Drury
Drury performed his first stand-up set in a garage.
“My friends tricked me into doing it,” he said.
It was during his time as a graduate student at IU, he said, where he now works as a researcher in the biology department.
An open mic regular at the Comedy Attic and semifinalist in last year’s Festival, Drury said his comedy style is “slow and sad.”
His favorite part about stand-up comedy is the writing, he said.
“It’s pretty much a product of my incompatible interactions with the world around me,” he said.
Though he is unsure why the audience likes his material, he said he is glad they do.
“I think part of it is that they have no idea what’s going on,” he said.
Stephanie Lochbihler
Lochbihler said it is time for the first female winner of the Bloomington Comedy Festival.
As a graduate student studying social psychology, she hopes to pursue stand-up comedy as a full-time career someday.
Lochbihler who has been involved in theatrical performance since she was little, said she was always drawn to comic roles.
She said she specifically remembered everyone in her third grade class reciting what they wanted to be when they grew up.
“I said I wanted to be a comedian, and everyone laughed at me. And I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s the point.’”
Although making people laugh with her “edgy one-liners” gratifies her, Lochbihler said she has another reason for performing.
“I like attention — I mean, that’s the honest answer,” she said. “I like doing shit that’s weird. This is a weird hobby to have, and I like doing that. ... People who understand performing — (I) think we always skirt around the real reason, which is the attention.”
Lochbihler made it to the final round of the Festival last year, so she has high hopes for this year.
“I would really like a female to get it, regardless,” she said. “If it’s not me, it needs to be Mo. Need these ladies to get in there.”
David Britton
In the last 12 days, returning Festival champion Britton has done 16 shows.
He said he is currently performing and writing comedy full-time.
Britton started his comedy career with his first performance at the Living Room Lounge in Indianapolis before performing at the Comedy Attic’s open mic nights.
“It didn’t strike me as a thing a person could do, but turns out it is,” he said. “Turns out anyone can do it.”
Britton said he would describe his comedy style as amazing.
“Three words — magical, astounding and then just, you know, sexy,” he said. “It’s also intellectual. It’s inte-sexual.”
With a serious turn, Britton said, “As cheesy as it sounds, I like making people happy, and I like being in charge, so it combines two of my favorite things.”
Although it is difficult to keep the audience laughing through the entire set, Britton said that is his goal.
“Even if I’m doing five or 10 minutes, if I can make people laugh hard the whole time. ... every time I do that it’s like mission accomplished,” he said.
Mo Mitchell
Bloomington-born comedian Mitchell said she is “back for blood” this year at the Festival.
“I’m just kidding, I just really wanted to have some way to kind of quantifiably justify my pursuit of the arts,” she said. “I made it to the second round last year. I want to know that I got better.”
When Mitchell began pursuing comedy, she said she was under a lot of stress and pressure from people around her.
“Comedy has given me an outlet to relieve that,” she said.
Mitchell said she would like to take her passion for comedy to a bigger city, such as Chicago, Los Angeles or New York City.
Her style of comedy is bitter and witty, Mitchell said, with a laid-back cadence. When she performs, she likes to connect with the audience in small absurdities.
“There is something genuinely great about knowing that an observation that you have is an observation that a lot of people share,” she said. “The cool thing about comedy is that it exploits the mundane and, you know, shows the absurdity in it.”
Jordan Mather-Licht
Mather-Licht said his comedy is mainly a “child’s view of the world.”
This year is his third time competing in the Festival.
“All the shows are always sold out and really fun,” he said. “I’ll tell jokes anywhere, all the time if I can.”
Mather-Licht first tried his hand at comedy at Cracker’s Comedy Club in Indianapolis.
“When it’s going well, it’s kind of the best feeling,” he said. “These shows where it’s that full and it’s a full room of laughter is the best feeling.”
Currently a driver for Uber, Mather-Licht said he is soon moving to New York to pursue stand-up comedy.
“I’d like to be able to pay all my bills with comedy,” he said. “Hopefully I can just tell jokes forever until I’m dead.”
