The Lowdown performs to small Collins crowd

The show must go on. Sometimes.

Before The Lowdown stand-up club took the stage Tuesday at the Collins Living-Learning Center, comedians expressed heavy doubts about performing for their scant
audience.

“If we get to 10 people, we do the show,” comic Tom Brady said.

“How about five?” regional touring act Ben Moore asked.

“Not four,” Brady replied.

Stand-up comedy, which regularly draws large audiences around Bloomington at venues like the Comedy Attic or the Indiana Memorial Union, sometimes experiences down nights.

Tuesday was one of those nights.

When The Lowdown was slated to take the stage at 8 p.m. Tuesday, five people were seated in the Collins coffeehouse.

Four of them were reading.

“We got a comedy show soon,” Moore mockingly said to the group. “Get ready to laugh, everybody.”

There was no reply.

Despite the low turnout the comedians waited for more audience members, extending their scheduled start time indefinitely. To pass the time, some made jokes about the flyers on the Collins LLC bulletin boards.

“How do you guys feel that this mask-making workshop will be better attended than this show?” host Josh Cocks said.

The comedians, who stood in a circle and paced around the hallway, reflected on past nights where limited audiences created memorable sets.

“Nobody came, but we still did the show for three super-drunk people who yelled at us the whole time,” Brady said of a recent trip to the Tin Roof bar in Cincinnati, trying to convince the group to continue with the evening’s show.

The longer the wait dragged on, the heavier the mood in the room became.

Jordan Mather-Licht, a freshman who recently started doing stand-up with The Lowdown, stood quietly and checked his phone for the time. One comedian stepped out for a cigarette. Another peered through their notebook of prepared comedy material one more time.

At 8:13 p.m., the comedians cleared their throats and entered the room. 

As Cocks grabbed the microphone in the silent room, he welcomed the humble audience by slowly dive-rolling across the stage and addressing the tense situation immediately.

“Everybody here is a comic, or studying or in the second row,” he said.

Some tense chuckles ensued.

Companions in times of laughter and silence, the entire group of comics scheduled to perform sat in silence to hear each other’s sets.

Cocks was trying out new material as well as jokes his brethren, who spend countless hours backstage with him, had heard to the point of memorization.

This is the reality of stand-up comedy.

The jokes ranged from Cocks’ 2:30 a.m. sobriety test in Cincinnati, to his obsession with fast food and his thoughts on “crazy people.”

After mid-energy delivery to a low-energy crowd, Cocks abruptly ended his set.

“So that’s all I’m gonna do,” he said with a smile on his face.

The audience of snarky comedians also scheduled to take the stage replied with a joke of their own. They met Cocks’ stoic set dismissal with a large round of applause, keeping him on the stage so he couldn’t leave, a tongue-in-cheek reply to the evening’s circumstances.

The second comedian, Karl Spaeth, wound up standing next to Cocks before the applause fully ended.

“Your next comedian is standing right next to me,” Cocks said. “Karl Spaeth.”

Though not quite an anomaly in the comedy world, the “off-night” happens regularly enough to keep comedians appreciative of large audiences when they do come.

“Even a bad open mic, if you try hard enough, will work out,” Moore said.

“If the stars align...and there’s no pressure to do well,” Brady added.