About Guide to Standup Comedy in DC
Not sure what your first step should be? From where to go to how to perform, our guide has you covered.
The Traumedian
Rola Z., 50
@somearabwoman
Forced to flee the civil war in Lebanon as a child, Rola was inspired to get into comedy by the implosion of her marriage, the loss of her corporate-communications job, and the agony of seeing her home country endure one crisis after another. “I thought, ‘If I cannot change it, can I laugh about it?’ ” she says. “I wanted to perform pieces on important topics: displacement, war, loss—all this stuff. But make it funny.”
Today Rola, who lives in Northwest DC, performs and produces comedy shows, including a talk show/singles mixer called “Is Cupid Stupid?” and her marquee show, “Funny Arabs,” which features Arab American comedians. Through what she calls “traumedy”—using humor to process pain—Rola hopes her audiences learn something “beyond the superficial. I don’t just want someone to go home laughing and feeling good. I want someone to see things a different way. The best comedy helps me see the world differently.”
The Hobbyist
Pam Arluk, 55
@pamarluk_laughs
By day, Pam Arluk is a former FCC executive and a lawyer for NCTA–The Internet and Television Association. By night, the Arlington resident is a comic. “When you get those good laughs, it’s like a drug,” she says. “It’s intoxicating and exhilarating. You can be somebody else, a little bit.”
Arluk brings the perspective of someone in her fifties to open mics and shows that are largely populated by millennial and Gen Z voices. She used to joke about having “the only non-gifted child in Arlington,” and one of the first gags she ever wrote was about not receiving d–k pics during her dating days, “because who would do that in the ’90s? You’d have to get the film developed.”
While Arluk loves the challenge of writing jokes, she’s happy to keep comedy as a part-time hobby. “If I did it every night, I don’t think I would enjoy it,” she says. “Because it would become more like a job.”
The TikToker
Elizabeth Booker Houston, 33
@bookersquared @thedevilsopposingcounsel
A public-health lawyer at the FDA, Elizabeth Booker Houston previously modeled and worked as an actor, doing events for PBS wearing the “big, sweaty costumes” of characters from Super Why! and WordWorld. She always wanted to be a comedian—but even after she killed at a Nerd Nite comedy show in DC, that seemed like “a pipe dream.”
@lilnasx #duet with @bookersquared ♬ MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name) – Lil Nas X
Then the pandemic hit. Stuck at home in Silver Spring, she got on TikTok. A satirical video she made about the conservative meltdown over Lil Nas X blew up, even appearing on Entertainment Tonight. Lewis Black sent a complimentary DM. Margaret Cho followed her back. Houston has since become a regular at DC Comedy Clubhouse; meanwhile, she has 676,900 followers across two TikTok accounts and can earn $1,500 to $5,000 for sponsored posts.
“I’m a comedian,” Houston says. “I’m also a mom. It’s so much easier for me to be in my bedroom in my PJs and make a funny video in the next five minutes, post it, and let it go viral.”
The Dreamer
Mara Feiner, 24
@mnfeiner
When Mara Feiner saw her first show at the DC Improv, she knew she wanted to try standup—but when she later performed her first set at Bar Bao in Arlington, she was so nervous that she “blacked out” onstage and couldn’t recall what happened. Except for one detail: “I remember there being laughter.”
Since then, Feiner, who lives in Crystal City, has worked her way from open mics to paid shows. She performs on a near-nightly basis and produces an open mic of her own at Mattie & Eddie’s in Pentagon City. She jokes about her deep voice (“Does my look say, ‘Where’s my daddy?’ But my voice says, ‘I am daddy.’ ”) and notes that comedy has actually made it deeper. “I speak louder and more confidently,” she says. “It translated offstage as well.”
In early April, Feiner made the main stage at the DC Improv, four years after that fateful first show. It was, she says, “my full-circle moment.”
This article appears in the May 2023 issue of Washingtonian.
Jessica M. Goldstein is a contributing editor at Washingtonian. She has written for the Washington Post, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Vulture, and others.
