On a humid day in mid-June, Seth Meyers addressed the Northwestern Class of 2016.
“I truly believe I would never have been on Saturday Night Live if it hadn’t been for my time at Northwestern,” he said. “When I performed in the Mee-Ow Show and people laughed, I thought I just might possibly be funny because these people are smart.”
Meyers’ words echo a common sentiment about the comedy scene at Northwestern as an incubator for success beyond the campus bubble.
Northwestern, just a short Uber ride from the comedy mecca of Chicago, can be ideal for those who want to test out their comedic chops. Comedy-related extracurriculars on campus serve more as comedic laboratories than merely laugh factories: they allow students to experiment and hone their finesse in all things funny. There is no one one way to get laughs, however, and it’s the divergent paths to comedic self-discovery that make Northwestern a unique place to pursue comedy.
School of Communication junior Jess Zeidman, the co-head writer of Northwestern Sketch Television (NSTV), explained how students at Northwestern look to make comedy that can exist outside of Evanston.
“People will laugh at a Northwestern joke at the Comedy Forum show in Harris Hall, but you can’t tell that joke at an open mic in Chicago,” she said. “No one’s gonna laugh about who you saw on Sheridan Road because no one cares. We as a community work hard to make comedy and theater and films that are so not like ‘this is a college thing.’”
Zeidman also said that the pre-professional atmosphere at Northwestern pushes students to make better comedy.
“Northwestern as a whole is careerist. Our clubs work that way too, which is sometimes really exclusive. That feels bad, for sure, but it also means that people work really hard, and the standard is really high,” Zeidman said. “When you leave this school, you have a body of work that is good because people are so pre-professional and on their shit about what’s on trend.”
By virtue of being admitted to an incredibly selective school, Northwestern students know a thing or two about grit. The tenacity that characterizes the student body also characterizes some aspects of the comedy scene. Ben Gauthier, a senior in the School of Communication and co-director of the short-form improv and sketch comedy group Mee-Ow, said that while the exclusivity of some on-campus groups can be demoralizing, it ultimately pushes people to be funnier.
“All these people are extremely driven and passionate and want to make the best stuff that they can,” he said. “They’ve helped me grow because I want to make people who I think are funny laugh. It’s so amazing being surrounded by funny people.”
Gauthier also cited a do-it-yourself attitude as an attribute that distinguishes Northwestern’s comedy scene from that of other schools.
“There are a ton more opportunities popping up,” Gauthier said. “People are done thinking that NSTV and Mee-Ow are the only things you can do with comedy on campus. People are like ‘we can create our own opportunities’ and it’s grown into real, awesome things.”
School of Communication senior Isabella Gerasole, who co-directs Mee-Ow and is on a Titanic Players improv team with Gauthier, also praised the ingenuity of Northwestern students.
“There has been this event called ‘Comedy Bedroom,’” she said. “And the first time we did it someone literally cleared a bed out of their bedroom and asked a bunch of people who considered themselves comedians to come and perform whatever they wanted. There are a lot of people taking that initiative. I think that sort of drive, coupled with the intelligence of the people who go here, is a recipe for success.”
Gerasole said working hard and getting the desired outcome is the most rewarding part about being involved with comedy groups on campus. “It feels like a spoonful of sugar,” she said.
While performing comedy on campus can be rewarding in itself, some students find that the experience gained from Northwestern comedy extracurriculars pays off in more professional circumstances.
Communication senior Sam Saulsbury described how the comedy writing skills he honed at Northwestern allowed him to become a contributor at Clickhole, a satirical website published by The Onion.
“I definitely would not be doing stuff with Clickhole if it weren’t for NSTV and Northwestern in general,” he said. “Being on student groups gives you the opportunity to practice. I was writing sketches on my own beforehand, NSTV was just a cool opportunity that helped me get there.”
For Sarah Sherman (Comm ‘15), Northwestern’s established comedy clubs often felt prohibitive.
“I entered school as an unformed swamp creature,” she said. “You don’t really have a voice or a point of view yet, you’re kind of fed through this machine that is geared towards ‘after school, you will move to New York or LA to pursue comedy jobs.’ But if you’re not interested in that, it’s really hard to find yourself if you enter the machine of comedy at Northwestern too quickly.”
Sherman, who acted for NSTV, coached a Titanic Players team, and did stand-up for Sit and Spin during her time at Northwestern, currently hosts her own comedy showcase Helltrap Nightmare in Chicago. In June, Chicago Reader named her the “best stand-up comic” of the year. Sherman said that meeting other funny people at Northwestern and finding a community was a loophole out of the institutionalized aspects of the school’s comedy scene.
“I met all my best friends who I thought were the funniest, and now those are my collaborators,” she said. “It helped me find people I wanted to work with.”
Sherman encourages Northwestern students interested in comedy to get out of the Evanston bubble and venture into Chicago.
“It’s an amazing place to be a freak and to find out who your freak is,” she said. “It wasn’t until I moved here that I was like ‘holy shit’ there is an amazing, expansive comedy community here that I wasn’t even aware of. You can experiment and do something awesome and then people actually care because it’s small enough that people actually see each other’s work.”
Ziwe Fumudoh (Comm’ 14) also emphasized the importance of taking advantage of Chicago’s comedy opportunities.
“You have IO and Second City at your fingertips,” she said. “You have internships at The Onion and Clickhole at your fingertips. It doesn’t have the professional pressure of New York City, and you’re much more encouraged to play and be weird.”
Fumudoh, who is a social writer at the online comedy distributor Above Average and a contributor at The Onion, created a creative outlet for herself outside of pre-existing clubs. “I was very fortunate to have gotten an internship at Comedy Central the summer going into senior year,” she said. “I learned so much and was like ‘I don’t have to ask anyone’s permission to do comedy, I can just do my own.’”
Fumudoh went on to start Purp magazine her senior year, which aimed to entertain the Northwestern community through a critical take of Northwestern purple or “purp” culture.
“If you’re not getting opportunities, you have to make them for yourself. Because Northwestern is such a great school, I was able to use another track to get into the comedy world, the professional track. There were so many opportunities for me to get immersed in the comedy scene and to work with adults in comedy that I didn’t feel closed off.”
Fumudoh, who tweets daily to over 9,000 followers, said Northwestern English professor Rachel Webster and the internet shaped her capacity to engage with people through comedy writing.
“She guided me into a love of language,” Fumudoh said of Webster. “And the Internet is such a beautiful, magical thing because it lets anyone put their comedy out into the world and have an audience.”
Fumudoh advises Northwestern students to break out on their own to maximize opportunities and to strive for authenticity.
“Don’t let anyone stop you from making things,” she said. “You have to just make things, and eventually you’ll get the opportunity to make more things. You can only fake being funny for so long, eventually you have to just be honest, and that’s what people appreciate the most. You just got to be yourself.”