Greensboro club tries something new, headliners announced for NC Comedy Fest

It’s one thing for comedy clubs to give local comedians stage time. It’s quite another to arrange for their sets to be professionally recorded free of charge.

That’s what The Idiot Box in Greensboro is doing this month. Every Friday night in December, two comics have their 30-minute sets recorded at the club, and those recordings are given to the comedian to use as they wish.

Idiot Box co-owner Jennie Stencel said she came up with the idea because she wanted something different for Friday shows at the club in December and because of the lack of video quality she sometimes saw when going through submissions for the upcoming North Carolina Comedy Festival in Greensboro.

“I’m getting a lot of videos,” Stencel said in a Monday afternoon phone interview. “The videos are hard to hear. They’re not well done. It’s from somebody’s phone or I’m getting a lot of messages like, ‘I don’t have a video, but I have references.’ It’s a common theme that they don’t have videos.

“I have people calling me all the time and they probably are funny, but I have no way of knowing. They’re like, ‘I’ve been all these places’ and I’m like, ‘So have I.’ That’s not enough. I want to help you, but I’ve got to see it.”

The Idiot Box partnered with Greensboro’s Entercainment Productions, which shoots and edits the videos — “making it fancy,” Stencel said. Once comics get their recorded sets, they can submit them to comedy festivals and send them to bookers at clubs.

As much as Stencel has helped foster the growth of North Carolina comedy, particularly the stellar group of Greensboro-area stand-ups, she wants the recorded sets to be a springboard that extends the comedians’ careers beyond the borders of the Tar Heel State.

“How do we get everybody to their next level, whatever their next level is?” Stencel asked. “Some people wanna be able to do five minutes. Some wanna feature. Some wanna headline. Some wanna go on tour and wanna be famous. The next step for some of these comics was having a solid 30-minute video to feature themselves for work.”

JD Etheridge is one of those comics. Etheridge, who was born in Washington, D.C., but has lived in North Carolina since he was a child, was the first area comic to have his half-hour recorded at the Idiot Box on Dec. 7 as part of two-man headline show with Eric Trundy.

Etheridge pointed out that getting 30 minutes of stage time is rare for most local comedians. Having half-hour sets recorded, edited and given to the artist for free is unheard of.

“I don’t think I stole the idea,” Stencel said. “I think it was mine.”

Etheridge, who is five years into his comedy career, said he was surprised by parts of the process but not by others.

“As soon as (Stencel) got the go-ahead to get the club open, she kind of hit the ground running with all her ideas,” Etheridge said, referring to the Idiot Box reopening at its North Greene Street location. "Just getting the opportunity to do it was a godsend.

“Jennie is real nice so it’s not really surprising, if that makes any kind of sense. If she can do something nice for you, she will.”

Etheridge and Trundy performed for a packed house, and Stencel’s hope is to have sold-out shows each Friday this month. The comedians help with that by promoting the shows and Etheridge wanted to have people who knew him and his comedy in the audience for his taping.

Judging from the crowd and its energy on Dec. 7, Etheridge got his wish.

“So far, they’ve been really fantastic,” Stencel said of the Friday shows.

Cabell Wilkinson and Lucas Gumbrecht were featured last Friday, and Dusty Cagle and Dejahzh Hedrick are up next this Friday. Maddie Wiener and Kenyon Adamcik round out this year’s recording schedule Dec. 28, but Stencel said she hopes to do another round of filming in “six to eight months.”

Stencel is eager to see the local comics grow whether they keep telling jokes in Greensboro or move on to Raleigh, Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles or elsewhere.

“Hopefully they wanna come back when they’re super successful and going everywhere,” Stencel said. “When they come back, I have them (when they’re) even better.

“Sending them to work other places is obviously not the best for me. I probably should have thought of that,” she joked.

Festival findings

North Carolina is home to several great comedy festivals every year and two headliners who have repeatedly performed in the state were recently announced as festival headliners.

Sean Patton, who headlined the fourth Cape Fear Comedy Festival in Wilmington in 2013, was the first headline act announced for this year’s North Carolina Comedy Festival, which takes place April 17-27 in Greensboro.

Patton has performed in Wilmington numerous times and called the Port City’s Dead Crow Comedy Room one of the 10 best clubs in the English-speaking world.

Stencel said other headliner announcements are coming soon.

Maria Bamford is coming back to Wilmington to headline this year’s Cape Fear festival, according to a post on the CFCC Facebook page. There’s a full circle component to the Bamford announcement considering she headlined the first Cape Fear Comedy Festival and is coming back to be the featured act at the 10th CFCC, which is scheduled for May 9-12.

Locals in the limelight

Last week, Bamford called on two Triangle comedians to open for her during southern stops on her tour.

Raleigh’s Shari Diaz and Durham’s Lauren Faber shared the stage with Bamford at the Orange Peel in Asheville and the Bijou Theatre in Knoxville, Tenn., respectively.

Bamford used Twitter to ask for opening acts at each show and after getting submissions from several comics, Bamford chose Diaz and Faber, who each were thrilled to perform with one of the most unique voices in comedy.