The Inside Joke
At Ohio University, the phrase “Laughter After Dark” is likely associated with a crowd of drunken fraternity brothers belting out the lyrics to *NSYNC’s “I Want You Back,” or to a raccoon-ish bar queen sprawled out in the middle of Court Street. Of course, this is wrong, and these weekend flashbacks incite amusement rather than true laughter.
“Partying and going to the bars is such a big part of OU that it’s kind of hard to even talk about alternatives,” said Reuben Bresler, a senior creative writing major and founding president of The OU Stand Up Comedy Club. “We are not trying to say ‘Hey, stay out of the bars, come see comedy,’ but if you are not in the bars why not come see comedy?”
Laughter After Dark is a comedy show put on by comedic organizations on campus in the Baker Center Front Room every Friday at midnight. The professional comedian aspect of the show was cancelled this year due to budget constraints, but the all-student resurrection of the program has kept crowds laughing since late Winter Quarter. Despite various groups practicing different brands of comedy — Black Sheep Inc.’s improvisational humor, Comedy For The Masses’ comedic skits and the OU Stand-Up Comedy Club’s individual acts — the comedy scene at OU is still virtually unknown.
“I think that it is a pretty well-kept secret that we have a lot of really good stand up comedians and a lot of good comedians in general,” Reuben said.
Senior Mike Reynolds, a playwriting major, is the senior adviser of Comedy For The Masses as well as the director of Black Sheep Inc., which performs $1 shows Thursday nights at 9 p.m. in Scripps 111. “There is a potential for comedy to do anything,” Mike said. “I go to shows, and I’ll just enjoy it, and I’ll laugh and it will be a good escape.”
At a Laughter After Dark show hosted by Comedy for the Masses, players performed on stage with the zeal of court jesters trying to keep their heads. “People are more afraid to speak in public than they are of dying,” said Reuben, of the nerves comedians must overcome.
Skits about death, sex, popular culture and political satire left the crowd ruminating in their seats. A good show is one where attendees “leave thinking about things and ways you can affect the environment you live in,” Mike said.
There are formulas to being funny, and much like, well … sort of like math and physics, there are classes to dissect and apply humor. “I think that most people regard education as a very serious enterprise and so it becomes deadening,” said Joan Connor, Professor of creative writing at OU who has taught comedy through fiction.
Comedians have the virtue of humor. They bend the line between comedy and tragedy so that life’s metallic barrel shoots water rather than bullets. If laughter is the best medicine, joke dealers on campus are selling weekly prescriptions for a few dollars a pop.
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