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Al’Lyah Rain King performing stand-up Thursday, Oct. 20 at the Underground Coffeehouse. // Photo by Jessie Mulrine
People cheered, laughed and clapped as each performer took a place on the coffeehouse stage. On Thursday, Oct. 20, Western’s Stand Up Comedy Klub hosted its bi-weekly comedy open mic night at the Underground Coffeehouse. Students pun away and retell personal, day-to-day thoughts and stories, fake or true, with a knack of good timing and delivery. Some veteran performers are junior Stefan Matuska and sophomore Al’Lyah Rain King. Both are a part of Western Stand Up Comedy Klub,  with Matuska as vice president. Matuska started performing his freshman year after watching his roommate perform at multiple open mic nights. “I was terrible at first,” Matuska said. Yet, now, this is the fourth open mic he has done this week. “I’ve always had a running list of jokes going dealing with daily life people’s reactions to me,” Rain King said. One night, Rain King saw that hardly anyone had signed up to perform and decided to go up.

“I was at a party one time. I lied and told somebody that I did stand up. Now I have to do stand up forever.”

Junior Jacob Curtis
Stand up comedy gives people a chance to work through their emotions, and it is cathartic to get on the stage and reflect on one’s self, Matuska said. Rain King uses mobility devices in her everyday life and as a topic in her comedy sets. “When I do more of my serious stuff in accordance to me using mobility devices, my friends will tell me afterwards that people in the audience will be like, ‘I don’t know whether to laugh at this. Am I allowed to laugh at this?’” Rain King said. That is something that always strikes Rain King; if the audience isn’t able to laugh she doesn’t know how to reach out and connect to them. Sophomore Julia Berkman started attending comedy open mic nights because it’s free entertainment and even if something is bad, it’s still good, she said. Berkman loves being incorporated into the acts and conversing with the comedians. “I like comedians, I can tell I like them if I want to have a conversation with them and I know that anything they say to me will be just as entertaining,” Berkman said. Berkman met one of her best friends at an open mic night, she said. Junior Jacob Curtis is another member of the club who performed his set under the stage lights. “I was at a party one time. I lied and told somebody that I did stand up,” Curtis said. “Now I have to do stand up forever.” Curtis has improved on performing stand up, being it’s a skill like anything else, he said. “One time, I mentioned a very specific anime that I had not watched, then an audience member asked me a very specific question about that very specific anime and I had to keep going and save face,” Curtis said, laughing at the memory. “It was awful.” Open mic alternates every other Thursday with the Stand up Comedy Klub meetings on Thursdays in between at Humanities room 108 at 7 p.m.

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