Stand-Up Comedy in Chicago

by Vince Vieceli, Bill Brady

Overview

Ten years after Chicago saw its first full-time comedy club open, the landscape was decidedly different. Stand-up comedy has exploded in the last couple of years, a club owner told the Chicago Tribune in 1985, that's the only way to describe it: exploded. It was truly a comedy boom, with as many as 16 clubs operating at once, and it lasted nearly a decade before fading, taking with it some of Chicago's oldest comedy stages, including the Comedy Cottage, Comedy Womb, and Who's on First. Still, stalwarts like Barrel of Laughs (south) and Zanies (north) persevered. That part of the story is known; overlooked is the fact there was a comedy boom, period. To hear the story, it is as if stand-up comedy innately morphed from a dated nightclub scene to what one Chicago Sun-Times writer called Chicago's atomic comedy blast.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781467111843
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	04/14/2014
Series:	Images of America Series
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Written by Vince Vieceli, a writer and former comedian, and Bill Brady, who has worked as comedian, host, and booker for nearly four decades, including a 33-year stretch as a club owner, Stand-Up Comedy in Chicago highlights the venues and individuals who established and cultivated stand-up in Chicago, thus making the boom even possible.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments 6

Introduction 7

1 Le Pub and the Comedy Cottage 11

2 The Comedy Womb 27

3 Bill Brady's Comedy Capers at the Barrel of Laughs 49

4 Zanies Comedy Club 71

5 Who's on 1st 93

6 The Funny Bone 105

7 The Comedy Boom and Collapse 113

8 All Jokes Aside 125