Making COMO Laugh!
Who are the local comedians tickling our collective funny bone?
Columbia has a vibrant comedy scene – a laugh factory, if you will – for local comedians. One place where laughter routinely escapes is Eastside Tavern on Tuesday nights, as part of The As Yet Unnamed Comedy Show. The show is an open mic, meaning it is free for any comic who wants to sign up.
Several locals have hosted the show over the years, including recent and current hosts Prim Stonebraker, Jacy Tate, Nick Gorges, and Xavier Arnold.
PRIM STONEBRAKER
Primula “Prim” Stonebraker is a senior MU student majoring in digital storytelling and she works at the escape room Breakout CoMo. She has been performing stand-up at Eastside Tavern since June 2024 but has been doing stand-up in general since she was a freshman at MU in October 2021.Stonebraker said that stand-up was the first type of comedy that she became involved in, adding sketch and improv quickly afterward.
However, her interest in writing stand-up goes back further than her college experience.
“I started writing stand-up when I was 11,” Stonebraker said. “Just because I was super obsessed with Jimmy Fallon. And I wanted to be the next Jimmy Fallon, or whatever. But I gave up after three months because I didn’t know how to do it. But I was always interested in comedy and SNL. So, I just came back to it when I joined college.”
Stonebraker said that she does comedy every day, whether it’s performing or rehearsing.
“There is never a single day with a break (from comedy) at this moment,” she said.
Along with stand-up, Stonebraker said that she has been involved with travel teams for improv, performing across the country and in front of hundreds of people. When Stonebraker graduates from MU, she plans on moving to Chicago with her friends and doing improv classes. If it goes well, she said that there will hopefully be scouts from Saturday Night Live and Comedy Central. There will also be larger venues for stand-up in Chicago.
Stonebraker said that she hopes comedy is something that will stick and she will eventually be paid to do it. But even if she had to do it for free, she said that comedy is her life’s goal.
“I think you should be putting in two times more effort in the stand-up you’re creating by yourself, than the stage time you’re getting to perform in front of other people,” Stonebraker said. “I think people say perform the most you can, but I say write the most that you can. And then start worrying about your voice and stage presence, after you have an archive of bits that would work no matter who says them.”
JACY TATE
Another host of The Yet To Be Named Comedy Show is Jacy Tate. She has been giving comedy a try for about eighteen months and has had hosting duties since July. Tate said that she enjoys hearing the comedians each week, hearing their new material, and seeing them progress. For people who have never performed before, she recommended writing their material down.
“Even if you are funny situationally, that does not mean that you can just get up there and just talk and people are gonna laugh,” she said. “Eastside is kind of unforgiving in that manner, as most open mics are. But it’s a lot of fun. Once you get up there, once you try it, and you are going to bomb at least once in your career, even the professional’s bomb, don’t avoid getting up there because of bombing. It’s part of it. I’ve bombed and I’m the funniest person that I know.”
XAVIER ARNOLD
Another co-host and stand-up comedian in Columbia is Xavier Arnold. He has been doing stand-up for almost three years. Arnold said that his plans for his comedy include creating “The Yet To Be Named Comedy” podcast to interview local comics.
Arnold said his style of comedy is silly, explaining that he is too young to have a “real perspective on the world.” He also said that learning to perform stand-up is challenging, but aspiring comics have to do open mics.
“Comedy can’t exist in a vacuum, you have to do the open mics,” he said. “Don’t give up if you bomb your first five, six times.”
Arnold advised aspiring comics to keep trying and to contribute to their local comedy scene, especially in a smaller community like Columbia.
“Put forth an effort,” he said. “Offer help, if it’s something you’re really passionate about. That’s how you get more stage time. Make other comics like you.”
NICK GORGES
Nick Gorges started hosting at Eastside Tavern in 2019 and has been performing comedy for thirteen years. As a co-host, Gorges had to deal with the show being impacted by the COVID-19 Pandemic, recalling crowds of ten people for a year straight.
For Gorges, his favorite part of performing stand-up is hanging out with other comedians. He said that the best hangouts occur when comedians travel to shows at unfamiliar locations, and then the show goes very badly.
“And then afterward, everyone is just hanging and commiserating,” Gorges said. “And those always end up being the most fun nights. Those are the nights of stand-up that I remember the most – the ones where after everybody bombs. We all have to go out and just do something to have fun.”
Gorges said that his least favorite part of stand-up involves the organization behind the scenes. He said that comedy shows can sometimes be “cliche-y” and “territorial” when interacting with a comedian from another scene, which is something he tries not to do as a host at Eastside.
“(The) Columbia comedy scene, I would say it punches above its weight,” Gorges said. “As far as what you would think the comedy scene in a town this size would be like. I find it’s better than other comedy scenes in other cities that are bigger.”
Besides hosts at Eastside Tavern, there are more comics in Columbia.
LISA POCKETS
Lisa Pockets is one of them and she has been performing comedy since she was 17. She said that it was her background in high school theatre that got her interested in performing stand-up.
For her writing process, Pockets said that she writes her “day-to-day stupid thoughts” into one long notes app on her phone, having comedy material that goes back to when she was 17. With her comedy, Pockets said that she likes to talk about sex and relationships. She describes her style as being “working blue,” which refers to a nasty, blue-collar sense of humor.
Pockets said that her favorite part of performing stand-up comedy is when she times everything perfectly and gets a big laugh. She said that her least favorite part is bombing and having beer cans thrown at her.
“If you do comedy for long enough, you’re going to have all manner of things thrown (at you),” she said.
DALTON EARL
Dalton Earl has been giving stand-up a try for eight months. He said that it’s “fun to be funny” and doing comedy is his dream.
“It’s one of those you either gotta start chasing your dreams or you’re gonna die working in the factory by the time you’re 40 type thing,” he said.
However, Earl said that he is still nervous when he performs.
“Every day, it feels like I’m having a stroke whenever I do this stuff,” he said.
TREVOR SMITH
Another veteran of local stand-up comedy in Columbia is Trevor Smith. He said that he started doing stand-up in 2014, getting into comedy after a friend had asked him.
“Funny enough, one of my friends was in comedy,” Smith said. “He told me that I was hilarious and that I should try stand-up. And I had also just gotten out of a mental hospital, and I was kind of needing a change. And so, I was like, ‘Oh, alright, I’ll do it’.”
Along with appearing at Eastside Tavern for open mic night, he is involved with two comedy shows in the area. Alongside Autumn Equinox, Smith co-hosts the Divine Comedy Show at Arch and Column Pub and the Blow-Me State Comedy Show in Ashland. He said that he used to co-host another comedy show, the Fretboard Coffee Comedy Jam at Fretboard Coffee.
Smith said that he is set to perform for the Pints and Punchlines at The Blue Note. He also hopes to start a Queer comedy show at the Blue Note and attract national headliner comedians.
After years of performing, he said that he didn’t stop becoming nervous while performing until last year. Before that, he said that he would get crippling anxiety, recalling fits of shaking and tunnel vision. But he said that the anxiety slowly went away.
“It basically took me six years, or more, to finally get to where I get up there and I’m not like dying of anxiety before I get up there and while I’m up there,” Smith said. “Like, every once in a while I’ll get ‘normal nervous,’ if that makes sense. But now, I’m just comfortable. I’ll talk to people (in the crowd) while I’m up there, and stuff like that.”
For his material, Smith said that he would sometimes come up with it the day off and other times come up with it a week in advance.
“It just kind of depends on how it comes to me,” he said. “Sometimes I’ll just go up on stage with nothing and see if I can create.”
Smith said that he tries to come to Eastside Tavern every week with new material. If it works at Eastside, he will then use it at other places.
“Typically, if it works at Eastside, it’s going to work at other places,” he said. “Because it’s a rough crowd here. Like, they’re very hard to make laugh because they are used to it. A lot of them are regulars. So, yeah, if something works here, I’ll usually take it to other places.”
Smith describes the local comedy scene as a tight-knit community for the most part, full of “really, really funny people that deserve to go further.” He said that Columbia just doesn’t have that many comedy venues and they have to make do with what they can.
“Write jokes, set up punchlines, and do it as many times as you can,” Smith said. “And that’s about it.”
ROB HARRIS
Robert “Rob” Harris III is another veteran of the Columbia scene, being involved with comedy for about a dozen years.
Harris said that his writing process is sporadic and that he is unable to just sit down and write jokes. Instead, ideas will come to him, and he will put a note into his phone, where it will stay until he knows what to do with it.
“And then sometimes, it will all come to me at once. I can sit down and write out a whole joke,” Harris said. “And sometimes these jokes have been in my phone for years. Like, I haven’t figured out what to do with them yet.”
Harris said he is trying to work on his “road tap,” material that he could take with him to other places, so he has been putting new material on the back burner. He said that he has some gigs booked and wants to put together a “little tour.”
In addition to performing stand-up, Harris is also a producer of the comedy show Pints and Punchlines, where comedians perform at the Blue Note in downtown Columbia. He said that he started the show ten years ago with his friend, Michael Yetman. It was originally a monthly show, but Harris changed it to every three months due to his stress in running the shows.
Harris said that he doesn’t like dealing with some of the “politics” that go along with stand-up, such as dealing with certain venues and certain comedians.
“A lot of comics’ egos can get out of control pretty quickly,” he said. “With just the smallest amount of success. Which is super annoying.”
Harris said that this can distract from what he is trying to do. While a lot of comics want to become famous and make money, he just wants to be funny. For him, being able to open for other comedians is a success.
“That’s what I hate about the most,” he said. “People who aren’t really in it for comedy.”
Harris said that he still feels anxious when he performs. But he said that bombing on stage is not a big deal, because people won’t have to remember it in a few days. He advises potential stand-up comedians to be prepared, get on stage a lot, and “trust the process.”
“Be prepared. Write your stuff down,” he said. “Going off the top of your head, especially when you first started doing it, is a terrible idea. And you just got to get on stage and tell jokes, there’s really no way to get good at it without doing it. You can practice in your living room all day long, but until you’re in front of a crowd of people, it’s just a different feeling… That’s really it. Be prepared and get on stage a lot. Trust the process. Which is a dumb thing to say, it’s what everybody says. But really, there’s nothing else that you can do.”