Stand-Up Comedy becomes official

Tom Harrits '05 does it because he's addicted. Adam Ruben '01 said he needs approval. Pat Cunningham '05 had to find a new creative outlet after a traumatic Shakespearean run-in with a sequined codpiece.

Whatever their reasons, Princetonians are flocking to join Princeton Stand-Up Comedy and hear what this group of 14 jokesters has to say about the world. Princeton Stand-Up Comedy was this year given official university support nearly two years after its founding.

"The response was so phenomenal," Harrits said of Princeton Stand-Up's standing-room only shows last year at Campus Club, Theatre~Intime, the D-Bar at the Graduate College and the Wilson Black Box Theater. "We decided to just go for it and make it an official group."

Harrits, the group's president and a recognizable comedic personality in the improvisational comedy group Quipfire!, looks forward to more funding and performance opportunities for the undergraduates, graduate students and alumni who are involved.

Plans for the future include appearances at Richardson Auditorium and using the new funding to bring big-name comedians — Colin Quinn and Dennis Leary are just two of the names currently being tossed around — to campus to work with students on honing their acts.

Harrits said the group serves the community by providing a venue the University didn't have before. "It's another way for people on campus to get into comedic art forms," the veteran funnyman said.

"Triangle is a big time commitment and Quipfire! is a small cast," Harrits said. "This is a great group because it's so open to everybody. It's very different from musical comedy and very different from improv."

Princeton Stand-Up invites first-time performers as well as those more experienced to join the core group of performers during shows. Because of its informal auditions and the variety of talent on campus, the troupe has doubled in size since its first show in 2001.

Cunningham performed stand-up comedy for the first time last year and went with Princeton Stand-Up to perform at Three of Cups, a club in New York.

Cunningham, who is now treasurer for the group, was drawn to stand-up because of its thoughtful nature and the different challenge it offers in comparison to improv comedy.

"Stand-up comedy tends to offer a more reflective, studied approach in their jokes," Cunningham pointed out. "Not only does it tackle a different part of the brain, but it also flavors the comedy with a more satiric, sometimes more incisive edge, whether it be about George Bush, pocket lint or PUDS food. And our shows combine professional and those just starting out and that's really cool."

Princeton Stand-Up Comedy also offers a uniquely professional objective. An aim of the troupe is to prepare student performers for a career in comedy. The alumni connection is strong, and yes, Harrits says, there are Princetonian alumni who are funny and making a name for themselves on the stand-up circuit.

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Ruben, for example, who first tried stand-up comedy in contests at Princeton, now travels between New York and Baltimore performing at clubs. He also returns to Princeton from his graduate studies at Johns Hopkins to perform with the Stand-Up troupe.

"Most comedians who lounge around these open mic nights are in their mid-twenties, and now students exiting college will have just as much experience and material, if not more," Ruben said.

Ruben has developed a style he describes as "anxious and whiny," finding inspiration in George Carlin and Jerry Seinfeld. "I talk about driving, growing up Jewish, getting made fun of as a kid, old TV shows and cartoons, French class and the occasional penis joke," he said.

Ruben loves to test out new material on the Princeton stage, where audiences are large, loud and ready to laugh.

"Stand-up comedy is an aspect of theatre that Princeton had previously left untouched," he said. "I'm glad to see it thriving in a place where I know it can."