{one - joke town}
you’re great.’ ” They didn’t start dating for another year and a half, and now, she says, “we’re definitely trying to make each other laugh more than the average couple.” Buckholtz runs over to the parked
car and plops into the back seat. She says she’s been emboldened after watch- ing Nancherla’s performances, adding: “It feels like a huge relief just to do it. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s not like I want to. I need to.” That performance anxiety is nothing
new to Nancherla. Even now she says that before getting on stage she can be in a state in which, “I’m shaking, and I’ll have nausea, and I’ll be completely a wreck.” But, she counters, as they drive over the Key Bridge, “If I don’t do it, I get even more bummed.” By 10, they’re at the Drafthouse,
where the threesome join a handful of other comics milling around in the lobby. They have been asked not to enter the bar area and take up space from paying guests. Nancherla peers through the door-
way into the performance space, where the packed room is listening silently to the first comic. “I get nervous when it’s a big crowd and they look like they might be rowdy,” she says. Buckholtz looks thoughtfully at
Nancherla, a tiny figure wrapped in a multicolored scarf, sipping from a bot- tle of water. Buckholtz asks, “Are you worried
that they’ll hate you?” “Yes,” Nancherla says flatly. Yet when it’s her turn onstage, she
looks fearless as she grabs the micro- phone, to some welcoming applause. “Oh, the microphone’s taller than me,” she notes, dripping sarcasm. “That never happens.” She starts the set with a joke about the Olive Garden’s motto, “ ‘If you’re here, you’re family.’ So does that mean they never fully accept any of your choices?” The audience chuck- les. And then, “Do you think anyone has ever overdosed on chill pills?”
Washington, which once spawned such big comedic names as Wanda Sykes, Martin Lawrence and Dave Chappelle, has only one downtown venue devoted solely to comedy: the DC Improv. For
Below: Nacherla dining at home with her mother, Suchithra, and father, Ananth. Opposite page: Nacherla tries to compose herself before a comedy improv performance at the Source theater in the District.
stage time at a traditional comedy club — “a good room” as comedians put it — local comics have to travel to places such as the Baltimore Comedy Factory or the Funny Bone in Richmond. Washington comedian Matt Kazam,
42, says it’s an unfortunate situation for new comics, who “need to be around comedy clubs some in the beginning,” in the same way that minor league baseball players “can’t be playing on a basketball court instead of a baseball diamond. They’ve got to see how it’s done right.” In the mid-’80s, standup was fully —
some would say painfully — ubiquitous. Fans in Washington could take their pick of downtown clubs, including The Com- edy Cafe, the Comedy Stop and Garvin’s Comedy Club. The Improv arrived on Connecticut Avenue, a block from the Mayflower Hotel, in 1992, and quickly became a competitive powerhouse. In the following years, standup clubs lost some of their 1980s-era popularity. That early boom created a little bit of a bubble
that burst, says Andy Kline, 36, an es- tablished comic who lives in Arlington. “There were so many comedy clubs need- ing comedians to fill the shows that a lot of unqualified comics were getting work.” Too many unfunny shows led to a shrink- ing audience. And though the stronger clubs survived — in Washington that was the 285-seat Improv — many shut their doors. (There was also the rise of Com- edy Central, launched in 1989, offering an outlet for the better comedians, who then demanded higher pay from strug- gling clubs.) Now, says Kline, “the Improv is sort
of this brass ring where people mea- sure themselves by.” He features as the middle act at the club about once a year — no small accomplishment for a local comic. Simply featuring (working the 20 minute slot before the headliner) is a coup, and even emceeing is something to be proud of. Nancherla was chosen to emcee for headliner Christian Finnegan in May and for Dave Attell in October. A handful of comics, such as Kline
and Kazam, have built themselves a de- cent career while staying in the area, but staying in Washington usually involves a lot of out-of-town gigs to help pay the bills. One local star, Erin Jackson, 32, a Howard University graduate who had an appearance on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” a few years ago, has a solid enough reputation to perform at about 40 colleges a year, up the East Coast and as far away as Washington state, and is headlining at the DC Improv at the end of December. Allan Goodwin, 44, a software de-
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