Mid-Michigan’s comedy hub is here

No joke, the Lansing comedy scene is full of fun, laughter and heart

The chairs come out a little before 9 p.m. at Mac’s Bar on Michigan Avenue. Scurrying around to set up the stage and sound system are Nicole Melnyk, Darius Kennedy and Rio Riojas, the current stewards of the venue’s long-running comedy open mic. All have day jobs. But Mac’s on Mondays is their labor of love.

“You can’t put a price on it, really,” Melnyk said. Melnyk, 36, is in hot pursuit of her own comedy aspirations and travels widely for gigs big and small. She recently performed at Zanies in Nashville, Tennessee. She feels strongly that Mac’s provides an outlet for comics of all skill levels to hone their talent.

“We make dreams come true,” she said, with only a little hyperbole.

Half an hour or so before showtime, a crew of aspiring stand-up comedians arrives to wait their turn to try out or practice their jokes. All have been selected from a large group of applicants — by Melnyk, Riojas and Kennedy — to go up on stage. If the trio is familiar with the applicant’s act, that can help, but it’s not a requirement. The group welcomes newcomers and will give pretty much anyone a chance, at least once.

“Lansing wants comedy,” Melnyk said.

Mac’s is one of two comedy opportunities for amateurs or even semi-pros on Mondays. Crunchy’s offers “The Weekly Crunch” an hour earlier, at 8 p.m., and many comics try to squeeze both into one night. The back-to-back Monday events help draw performers from the Grand Rapids and Detroit areas.

An invitation for performers goes out toward the end of the month for the upcoming month. It’s announced on Mac’s Facebook page and various Facebook comedy pages like Michigan Comics Network. The Weekly Crunch, run by Emilie Burkhart and Jay Eoff, both 23, takes submissions in the same way.

Lacking a dedicated comedy club, the trio at Mac’s said they believe the open mics do a lot to nourish Lansing’s growing comedy landscape.

“This scene, I feel we are just trying to water it,” Riojas said. “I want to do for Lansing what Eminem did for Detroit,” as well as provide a safe space for comics to grow.

“We are not competitive at all,” Melnyk said. “We all care. We’re all friends. We can’t afford to be mean. We all have unique voices and bring our voices to the stage.”

Kennedy, 44, moved to Lansing from Chicago four years ago in search of an affordable house and a place he could work while pursuing comedy.

“I was shocked there was no comedy club here, given that it’s the capital city,” he said.

In addition to the open mics, which are free to attend and unpaid for the comics, there are several locations with regular ticketed shows starting to pop up.

Kennedy and Riojas have formed a production company called Cornbread and Beans Ent., which holds shows at Buddies Pub in Okemos, featuring professional headliners.

Several other venues in the area host professional comedy shows and tours, including Grewal Hall and The Green Door.

At any given time, there are an estimated 12 to 30 aspiring comics in the Lansing area, depending on who you ask. Some come and go. Others have been mainstays for years.

Pat Sievert, 44, was one of the show runners for both Mac’s and Crunchy’s for many years.

He has since stepped back from the weekly routine of that and now helps run a monthly show at Ozone’s in Old Town on the last Thursday of the month alongside Nick Earl, another longtime member of the Lansing scene.

“It was a blessing, and a curse, to go up every week,” Sievert said of the weekly obligation to book and run two open mics. But he can’t shake his desire to perform and still chases mic time all over the state. He will be the opener for national act Gary Gulman at the Traverse City Comedy Fest later this month.

“If I get to keep experiencing more cool things from comedy,” he will be satisfied, he said.

Sievert began his comedy career in 2012 at an event at Lansing’s defunct Connxtions Comedy Club.

“It was something I’d wanted to do for a while, so I was looking for open mics to sign up for,” he said. “I started trying to get on anything I could.”

One of the side benefits of comedy has been making friends in the Lansing scene.

“When someone a few years ahead of me would tell me whether a joke worked or not, that was important early on,” he said. “Right now, I’m trying to keep writing things I’m proud of and perform at more places.”

An employee at Lansing Community College, Sievert said, “I’ll probably always have to have a day job. But I want to keep comedy as part of my life. I think that’s fine, for now.”

Sievert believes the comedy scene in Lansing is growing. “People are always trying to find a place to perform,” he said. “And what’s good about Lansing is that we’re about an hour away from Grand Rapids and Detroit, so we can get stage time and try out jokes in different places.”

On a recent Monday, a Haslett resident who goes by the name of Ryan G., 38, was awaiting his turn at the mic at Crunchy’s. He works from home, so one of his goals for comedy was to find some socialization. And it’s worked, he said, as he’s made friends and acquaintances in the year and a half he’s been at it.

“It’s mostly for fun,” he said as he worked on his notes for his set.

How did he get started? “I didn’t find Joe Rogan to be very funny,” he said. “So, I just wrote a few jokes about it.”

Burkhart got her start in an MSU comedy class.

She said The Weekly Crunch is a good entry point, though she also travels to other cities when she can, so she can compare them to the Lansing scene.

“It’s like shell shock going from here to the Ann Arbor comedy scene,” she said. In Lansing, there is much more of a community spirit, she noted, and it’s much more informal.

Her cohort Eoff, a recent biochemistry grad, has been dipping his toe into comedy for about a year. While he thinks it would be great if something akin to fame and fortune were an eventual outcome, he’s hedging his bets and is about to begin an accounting program.

Angelo Flores, 28, of Lansing, took the plunge into comedy for the first time in February at The Weekly Crunch.

“When I told that first joke and I got a laugh, I got addicted,” he said. “It’s just fun.”

A barber by profession, Flores grew to love comedy specials by watching them with his dad, who died when he was in his teens.

“It was a good way to settle the world up,” he said. After losing his mother last year, he decided he wanted to try standup, but he felt he wasn’t good at writing jokes.

His aunt, who has stepped in as a mother figure, gave him the advice that tipped him over.

“She said, ‘Tell your life.’” And Flores said he has found it therapeutic. He has since tried to find mic time at least once a week, and not  just in Lansing. He has traveled to open mics in Grand Rapids and Detroit, finding each one a learning experience.

“But Lansing isn’t just home,” he said. “I love Lansing and the support you get here. Lansing is very inspirational.”

Flores said he usually doesn’t have much prepared before he goes up. But he thinks about what he might talk about throughout the day.

“I tell this story related to my dad,” he said. “I say my dad was an urban retail associate. That’s a fancy way of saying he sold weed.” It gets a laugh, he enthused.

Starla Manchester was on hand to watch the show at Mac’s on a recent Monday. It has become a regular pastime for her, and she was greeted warmly by several comics as she arrived.

“They’ve become my friends,” she said. “I like that part of comedy.”

For Noor Hassan-Contreras, of Okemos, watching local comedy has been a longtime interest. It has come with an unexpected benefit, as she and Melnyk have recently become engaged. They met at Crunchy’s. But long before that relationship, she developed warm feelings for the comedy community.

“I was at Crunchy’s the night of the MSU shootings,” she said, referring to the night in February 2023 when a gunman entered two university buildings and killed three students. As a result of the lockdown, she said, she sheltered in place at the comedy venue.

“I was in Crunchy’s kitchen for five hours,” she said, along with the comics scheduled for that night. “The community in that kitchen was strong,” she continued. “I felt like I had people there.”

She praised the comedy scene. “They have a real community here,” she said. “Even on off nights, we clap. It’s a beautiful thing.”

The goals of the comics around town vary.

Some are hoping for a big break eventually, even the chance to move to Chicago or New York, for a taste of the larger amateur or even professional pies.

But in Lansing, as Melnyk says, there is enough “pie” for everyone to eat.

“We’ve got such a good scene,” Melnyk said. “You have to be in it for the love of it. Comedy’s not supposed to pay your bills. It’s art.”