The state of Austin stand-up comedy: booming, controversial and drawing eyes nationwide

It's a Wednesday night and these Austinites want to laugh. They stood in a line. They surrendered their smartphones and smartwatches (stashed away in locked Yondr cases). They climbed stairs to the 100-capacity "Little Boy" stage, upstairs at Joe Rogan's Comedy Mothership club.

The club, which opened last year and also has a 250-seat "Fat Man" room downstairs, occupies the Sixth Street building that used to house Alamo Drafthouse Ritz. But once audience members come in, some of them seated at front-row tables where their knees touch the edge of the stage, the outside world feels very far away. It's not just the absence of cell phones, it's the thick velvet curtains, the shoulder-to-shoulder tiny table seating, and what's about to happen when the show starts.

The Black Pumas song on the sound system recedes, the lights dim, a voice booms, "Austin, Texas! Who's ready for a comedy show!"

The audience hoots and claps. Some of them are clearly Austin locals — they're dressed in their work or happy hour clothes — while others are defiantly shorts-and-tees. They arrive in clumps of three or four. Some of the audience members say they're visiting from out of town, like the handsy couple from New Jersey who whisper and touch each other all evening, or the middle-aged Joe Rogan podcast fan who says he's in town from Minnesota for a business meeting and wants a fun night out.

The first comic, who's well-known locally, is funny, discussing her past jobs and being engaged, but her material doesn't quite connect. Without malice, she lets the crowd know it could have gone better: "Y'all did me dirty tonight," she says before leaving the stage.

The second comic works up some absurdist impressions then tells a tacky joke about homeless people before using an offensive word referring to those with mental disabilities to describe his landlord. There are laughs for both bits.

But it's the third comedian, Jay Legend, who finally breaks through. With his quick, energetic delivery, he touches on the absurdity of online Captchas and makes a good case that in dating, the winner of a breakup should be determined by death. The audience eats it up. For the next two hours, they'll see nine more Austin comedians of varying skill and taste levels perform 10-to-15 minute sets while, in the back of the room, a timer displays their onstage time in glowing green numbers.

More: New York Times skewers 'bromakase' culture in Austin that Joe Rogan helped launch

Is it funny? Lots of it is, but some of the material might be shocking if you haven't been to a stand-up comedy show in a while. Racial epithets and slurs for gay and transsexual people are thrown around by multiple performers. There are jokes about "trans vaginas," abortions, Muslims, Blacks, Asians, little people, school shootings, George Floyd, Jews and rape, some of those within the same joke or routine.

But this Wednesday-night comedy showcase crowd doesn't appear to mind. Nobody gets up and leaves in protest. There's no heckling and only a few groans from the audience. No one rushes to social media to condemn the show (for one thing, all the phones are locked up).

Welcome to Austin's comedy scene circa 2024, when there may be more comedians living here than ever before and the limits of what can be said on stage have clearly come down, for better or for worse.

A brief history of Austin comedy

Austin has always had a handful of stand-up comedy venues where local comics could work their sets for locals and where touring comics from around the world could perform. Cap City Comedy Club was dominant in Austin for its 30-year run, before it closed in March 2000 during the pandemic. It reopened in August 2022 at The Domain and continues to host national acts and to drive the influential Funniest Person in Austin contest.

Over the years, other comedy clubs came and went, but in the time leading into the pandemic, the more established ones included ColdTowne Theater, Fallout Theater and The Velveeta Room, which has always been next door to Esther's Follies on Sixth Street.

For a long time, Austin's comedy scene consisted of improv and sketch performers and stand-up comics including Chris Cubas, Martha Kelly, Vanessa Gonzalez and Martin Urbano, as well as online-famous performers and studios who put out videos and shows on platforms such as YouTube and TikTok. They rode out fallow periods and comedy booms, like the one that happened in the mid-2010s, says Valerie Lopez, an actuary who in her spare time has been closely following and writing about the local comedy scene since 2012. Lopez hosts "Comedy Wham," a podcast in which she interviews local and touring comics.

Lopez says that the comedy scene in Austin had a sharp growth spurt that continues today during pandemic lockdown. You can thank Governor Greg Abbott for that, she says. "He basically led the political environment that made it possible for people to be aggressive in having clubs and performance spaces open."

In 2020, comics around the country were desperate to perform, but unable to get in front of live audiences. They resorted to shows on Zoom, outdoor shows at drive-in movie theaters, and other unconventional joke-delivery methods. But unlike in comedy strongholds such as Los Angeles and New York, Austin was opening up.

In early 2021, Rebecca Trent moved her New York comedy club and bar The Creek and the Cave to Austin in the space formerly known as Barracuda. Vulcan Gas Company became a comedy stop. And in California, a popular podcaster was telling listeners that Austin might be his new home.

"You had (Joe) Rogan talking to his gazillions of listeners and followers about how he's miserable in California," Lopez says. "He doesn't like paying taxes in California and wants to move to Texas, which has a much more appealing tax rate for a business owner. That was a siren call for a lot of followers of Rogan." Many of those followers included stand-up comics stymied by the pandemic. When Rogan announced he wanted to open a meritocracy-based comedy club in Austin, many made their move along with the "Joe Rogan Experience" podcaster.

"I think he's sold a bill of goods to young comics thinking, 'Oh this is going to be my straight shot to success,'" Lopez says.

A year ago, Rogan's club Comedy Mothership opened; since then, it's been consistently drawing stand-up and podcast fans downtown, selling multiple shows out every night. But it's also been the subject of disdain from some nationally known comedians including Marc Maron and Andy Kindler. The club has gotten caught up in the anti-woke culture wars and has a reputation among many as being a home for canceled "bro comics" including Shane Gillis, and other comedians who've courted controversy, such as Dave Chappelle, who performed at Mothership when it opened, and who's been a divisive figure among comedy fans for his ongoing jokes about trans communities.

The 'Kill Tony' effect

One of the comics who moved to Austin during this time was Casey Rocket, who was performing in Boise, Idaho, a small market for a comedian with big dreams. "It was not good," he says. "I heard that some exciting things were happening in Austin. So I drove down here on a whim. I didn't know anybody"

Rocket lived in his car, spending nights in a Wal-Mart parking lot in South Austin, for the first six months. He performed at local open-mic shows. "I didn't have a day job. I was just fully invested in doing stand up."

Rocket started gaining traction on the scene, winning fans and a local comedy contest. He got a job as a doorman at Comedy Mothership when it opened. Rocket's star rose considerably when he appeared multiple times on "Kill Tony", an incredibly popular live show and podcast hosted by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe that moved from Los Angeles to Austin and found a new home at the club.

"All kinds of really great comics come through Mothership," Rocket says, "it definitely changed my life, getting in front of people like that and doing 'Kill Tony.' It's just been getting more eyes on me."

"Kill Tony" in particular has become so popular among audiences and local comics that it is sold out for weeks in advance of Monday-night performances. YouTube clips of the show draw millions of viewers and the format — in which comics submit their name for a chance to perform a one-minute set for a panel of often-hostile judges — draws hundreds of comics vying for those spots for each performance. Its guests can be surprising: conservative commentator Tucker Carlson appeared in person as a panelist in April. And Hinchcliffe himself, who was a standout performer at the recent Netflix roast of Tom Brady, has been a divisive figure on the scene. In 2021, he faced a backlash over racial slurs he aimed at Asian stand-up comic Peng Dang. Even the Brady roast appearance drew criticism; jokes he made about Kim Kardashian were met with criticisms that the remarks were misogynistic. Despite this, Hinchcliffe's star keeps rising and he's become an influential and powerful figure on the comedy scene.

Local comics interviewed for this story had mixed reactions when asked about "Kill Tony" and Hinchcliffe. The show's popularity is drawing massive attention to Austin's comedy scene and giving opportunities to local comics to reach a huge audience and gain followers.

Juana Echeveste, a local comic from Victoria who performs under the stage name Juanita, said her experience on "Kill Tony" as a trans comic was surprisingly positive. At a special episode last year at Austin City Limits at the Moody Theater, Juanita says she "did a bunch of setup that led to nowhere" in front of 3,000 audience members and panelists including Rogan and comedian Tom Segura.

"Tony is very vicious, if you do poorly, he just murders you, like destroys you. But for some reason, he was super, super kind to me," Juanita says. When Juanita cracked a joke after her bad set, saying, "I've been sexually assaulted before and that was better," she got approval from Rogan, who told her, "That was funny, why didn't you do that?"

Juanita says she doesn't care about politics and appreciates no-holds-barred comedy. "The bro humor, or like old-school humor, is my sense of humor. I'm from Victoria, Texas, so I think I'm always getting in trouble for being politically incorrect," she says.

More: Glen Powell, Tom Ford and 15 more celebrities born in Austin that you may not have known

'After the pandemic, (the scene) just totally changed'

Not all local comics like the vibe. Carlton Charles Wilcoxson, who moved to Austin in 2015 from St. Louis, Missouri, for an internship and began performing the year after, says he's avoided Mothership and "Kill Tony" and doesn't participate in roasts of other comedians. "I'm not gonna say mean things to a new comic I'm unaware of," he says. "That doesn't feel like a fun exercise to me."

Wilcoxson says the influx of comics in Austin has led to an "oversaturation of just a white, CIS-male comic" and that he's not sure where the mean streak in comedy will lead. For now, though, he's sure about one thing: "I'm not doing 'Kill Tony' ever," Wilcoxson says.

Clara Blackstone, who started performing here 11 years ago, says the Austin comedy scene has shifted from alternative comedy to something broader and more mainstream. It's no longer weirdos and outsiders performing comedy, she says, but comics who traffic in homophobic and sexist material both onstage and offstage. "This was kind of my family for a long time. So when I saw what happened to the comedy scene after the pandemic, it just totally changed and it felt like this wasn't my comedy scene and it wasn't my family anymore."

That cultural shift, Blackstone says, is part of the reason she'll be moving to Philadelphia in July.

Comedy Mothership isn't the only new stage in town

Just a week after Comedy Mothership opened its doors, Rozco's Comedy debuted on East 7th Street in the building formerly occupied by Santa Cruz Theater, home to Aztlan Dance Company. Chris Orozco and Lorena Reyna, who previously worked at Cap City Comedy Club, opened the space with a mission to support up-and-coming comics.

Orozco sold his house to help finance the venue and the new space has a theatrical feel and a huge green room. They spoke to comics who were searching for more spaces to perform material and improve. "We decided to create a more intimate comedy room. We really do care about it as an art form and see the passion behind it," Orozco says.

Their clientele include date-night couples and 25-to-35-year-old Austin transplants with plenty of disposable income. Some are sober and don't want a two-drink-minimum experience at a comedy club that doubles as a bar. So far, the formula is working. The couple says the space has been successful, and they've been happy to see other clubs, including Sunset Strip and East Austin Comedy Club emerge to offer even more stage time for comics, many of whom bounce from club to club to get their reps in like gym rats toning muscle.

Audiences are filling those seats. Lopez and comics interviewed for the story all agreed that despite some of the cultural clashes, Austin has benefited from these enthusiastic audiences and the scene is diverse enough to encompass many styles of comedy, whether it's bro humor, personal stories, improv, prop comedy, podcast interviews or even puppetry. This year's Moontower Comedy Festival, which ran in April, had its biggest lineup ever with more than 150 shows. Cap City's Funniest Person in Austin contest now lasts months, with hundreds of comics vying for that title.

Comics moving to Austin, such as Rogan and Gillis, say they have no intention of leaving. Where the city used to be a launching pad for New York or Los Angeles, it's now being seen as a destination and home, even if it doesn't have the same sized industry for TV and film production.

"We are now the third coast of comedy," Lopez says. "People don't have to go to L.A. or New York anymore. We have almost everything we need to be on par with them." Lopez says that Rogan and his sphere of comics could help establish or draw some of the studio production muscle the city needs to level up.

"My plan has never been to go to New York or L.A.," says Lando Shepard, an Austin-bred comic who's been doing comedy for about eight years and who intends to stay put. "This is what I want to do in my retirement: make people laugh, have fun, enjoy the rest of my life, you know? They're not paying for that in New York or L.A."

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Joe Rogan, 'Kill Tony,' Rozco's and the new face of Austin comedy