Cedar Inn seats close to 60 who can see the platform stage set up in one corner of the room. The business is a bar/grill, offering comfort food. A cheeseburger runs $12 and a side salad for another buck, which is what I ordered. There are 5 TVs playing on mute, but they are turned off before the mic begins, as is any music playing in the room. They also have 3 pool tables, but during the mic, nobody played. Parking is in their lot. The mic is for standup only and has been going on just over a year. There are no language restrictions. Talent gets 5 minutes, the host, Taina, lights you at 4. The signup sheet has 15 slots, and it is first come first choice. Know that sometimes the room can have more than 15 comics, so it’s okay to come late, but I recommend coming early. At 7:12pm, a gentleman named Brian set the stage up. The backdrop is a blue curtain, but it may actually be black with blue lighting. A cordless mic and stand is placed on stage, and the lighting is very good, though I recommend not wearing a hat, lest it shades your eyes. I arrived first and took the third spot, driving 2 hours in traffic from Seattle. (The drive back was 1 hour.) Other talent started to arrive at 7:30, and by 7:50 we had 4 signups and 19 people in the room, including the bartender, Hillary. The room is somewhat informal, in that it starts 8-ish. The night I performed, we started at 8:30 with 13 signups and 35 people in the room. Additional talent came in later and we had closer to 18 performers in the end. I recognized a couple of talent I had seen earlier in my trip to Seattle. They also had made the long drive. Attendance stayed high in the first half of the mic, but by 9:20pm, I counted 20 present. That number dropped by 1 at 9:57pm, and the room ended at 10:15pm. Guys, this room is a find, worth driving the distance if you’re coming from Seattle, but Tacoma comedians will have a much shorter drive. The room was half talent and half civilians, looking for entertainment in this small community. The host kept the energy high, cracking a joke about each talent after they got off stage and keeping the momentum going. Playing to a room of non-comics is the best way to gauge how good your material is, though comedians were good about laughing when they heard something funny, too. (In L.A., comedians will nod and say, “Yeah, that’s funny.” But here, you hear the laughs.) I get that driving 2 hours to do 5 minutes seems like a lot, and it is, but it’s what you must do sometimes to test your material, performing for people who have not seen you before, so you know after doing the same set 8 or ten times which jokes mostly worked and which jokes need improving or should be dropped altogether. The people in Lacey look forward to Wednesday night comedy, and for that reason, this room is worth doing, no matter where you are coming from.
Cedar Inn seats close to 60 who can see the platform stage set up in one corner of the room. The business is a bar/grill, offering comfort food. A cheeseburger runs $12 and a side salad for another buck, which is what I ordered. There are 5 TVs playing on mute, but they are turned off before the mic begins, as is any music playing in the room. They also have 3 pool tables, but during the mic, nobody played. Parking is in their lot.
ReplyDeleteThe mic is for standup only and has been going on just over a year. There are no language restrictions. Talent gets 5 minutes, the host, Taina, lights you at 4. The signup sheet has 15 slots, and it is first come first choice. Know that sometimes the room can have more than 15 comics, so it’s okay to come late, but I recommend coming early. At 7:12pm, a gentleman named Brian set the stage up. The backdrop is a blue curtain, but it may actually be black with blue lighting. A cordless mic and stand is placed on stage, and the lighting is very good, though I recommend not wearing a hat, lest it shades your eyes.
I arrived first and took the third spot, driving 2 hours in traffic from Seattle. (The drive back was 1 hour.) Other talent started to arrive at 7:30, and by 7:50 we had 4 signups and 19 people in the room, including the bartender, Hillary. The room is somewhat informal, in that it starts 8-ish. The night I performed, we started at 8:30 with 13 signups and 35 people in the room. Additional talent came in later and we had closer to 18 performers in the end. I recognized a couple of talent I had seen earlier in my trip to Seattle. They also had made the long drive. Attendance stayed high in the first half of the mic, but by 9:20pm, I counted 20 present. That number dropped by 1 at 9:57pm, and the room ended at 10:15pm.
Guys, this room is a find, worth driving the distance if you’re coming from Seattle, but Tacoma comedians will have a much shorter drive. The room was half talent and half civilians, looking for entertainment in this small community. The host kept the energy high, cracking a joke about each talent after they got off stage and keeping the momentum going. Playing to a room of non-comics is the best way to gauge how good your material is, though comedians were good about laughing when they heard something funny, too. (In L.A., comedians will nod and say, “Yeah, that’s funny.” But here, you hear the laughs.)
I get that driving 2 hours to do 5 minutes seems like a lot, and it is, but it’s what you must do sometimes to test your material, performing for people who have not seen you before, so you know after doing the same set 8 or ten times which jokes mostly worked and which jokes need improving or should be dropped altogether. The people in Lacey look forward to Wednesday night comedy, and for that reason, this room is worth doing, no matter where you are coming from.