Rendezvous 2226 18th Street N.W. Wednesdays, 8-10 p.m. No cover fee $3 drink specials for those 21+
From the corner of Kalorama and 18th Street, Rendezvous Lounge looks quiet on Wednesday nights. But the door is open, inviting anyone off the streets up the narrow staircase and into a night of good laughs.
Last Wednesday, a lineup of 13 comedians spilled out jokes drawn from a wide range of subject matter, performance style and biographical backgrounds. It took only around 25 audience members to pack the small, dimly lit bar room. People moved stools and chairs around the sofa and scattered tables to find a clear view. Before the show, D.C. comedians Diana Saez and John McBride had grabbed some of them off the street in their usual pre-show recruitment of audience members.
"An audience is all we really want," McBride said.
Comedians need intimate settings like this open-mic night to experiment with their jokes and the general art of comedy, McBride and Saez said. This friendly atmosphere was obvious as comedians introduced their new ideas to their viewers and invited and played off of audience interaction.
"This is like an AA meeting," one of the comedians said during his performance.
Saez and McBride started the regular open-mic night in July, and since then they have devoted their Wednesday nights to organizing it. They see the open mic as a space for developing comedians like themselves to try out their jokes and gain the practice they see as key to the trade.
"The owners let us do whatever. A lot of places try to control the content," Saez said.
The diversity of subject matter attests to this freedom. For each show they book a few dependable regulars while also giving time to new people.
"Someone gave us a chance, so we try to do that, too," McBride said. "And we need the new ones. Some of them have tons of talent and have a lot of faith in them. ... There's tons of great comics in D.C. You just have to go out and find them."
Last Wednesday, these comedians brought topics to the floor spanning issues of politics, media coverage, race, sex, gender, jobs and lack thereof, college life, parents, marriage, children and aging, along with an array of the humorously bizarre: abortion lobbyists, Internet dating experiences, condoms for sale at truck stops and the origins of the phrase "the shit hit the fan."
The collage of views and experiences shared by the 13 comedians highlighted the District's colorful diversity. Some of the comedians last Wednesday were college students, and they stressed the value of this young pool of potential talent.
But Saez and McBride's openness to new comedians and material does not mean that anything goes, and they occasionally must refuse to let some performers back onto their lineups.
"I have no tolerance for misogynistic, hateful stuff - shock just for shock without being funny or having a reason for saying it," Saez said.
McBride agreed on this standard for what they want to support.
"You can be edgy and talk about anything if you can make it funny," McBride said. "But the way you say it can make it just not funny, and it's really uncomfortable."
Both relatively new to the scene, Saez and McBride juggle day jobs, with two or three shows a week, hosting and organizing the Wednesday open mic and the process of writing sets. It can get tiring.
"None of us have done this before. We're still trying this out, finding out how to do this," McBride said.
Admittedly, not every night is a success. Some nights the audiences are very small or unreceptive. As performers, they have to deal with the highs and lows that depend on factors of personal life and audience composition, but the good nights often make up for the bad ones.
"It's bi-polar central," Saez said.
But their love for stand-up comedy and the success of the open mic makes it worth it, they said.
Many of the comedians featured at the Rendezvous open mic discovered it through DCStandup.com. The website lists nearly all the open mic opportunities in the area. It also links to comedians' MySpace Web pages.
As Saez and McBride seek bigger audiences, more regulars and fresh material for comic acts, they emphasize that it is all a matter of getting the word out. They hope that more publicity will help continue the broad scope of their open mic, their tribute to the stand-up comedian's creative process.
