Improbable Comedy Serves Up Laughs in May and June
Improbable Comedy presents two LGBTQ-centered shows in Maryland's Montgomery County this June.
Next month, Improbable Comedy will present two LGBTQ-centered shows in Maryland’s Montgomery County, starting with a free “Pride in the Parks” show in Silver Spring featuring local queer comics in partnership with the MoCo Parks Department (6/8, Fairview Road Urban Park).
June will draw to a close with a “Pride Comedy Night” taking place in the outer suburb of Gaithersburg and featuring Dana Lollar — a.k.a. DLO — from Baltimore who was a finalist in Kevin Hart’s Hart of the City on Comedy Central; Michael Furr, the self-proclaimed “sweetheart of Baltimore comedy” with two stand-up specials on Amazon Prime, Straight Acting and I Didn’t Die; Camille Roberts, a New York-based comic whose style has been characterized as a “lesbian Andrew Garfield”; and Kenny Rooster, a D.C.-born, Baltimore-based queer comedian also known as drag act Dickolas Cage (6/30, the Art Barn, 311 Kent Square Rd., Gaithersburg; tickets are $20 to $22).
Improbable Comedy was launched just over 10 years ago by social worker Kim Levone to spotlight stand-up from more comedians in more areas of the region — well beyond the kind of jokes and joke-tellers one can see at comedy venues in D.C. and Northern Virginia.
Over the past decade, the organization has popped up everywhere from the Silver Spring Black Box Theatre to Joe’s Movement Emporium in Mt. Rainier to D.C.’s Union Stage. They’ve produced over 100 thematic or targeted shows featuring a diverse range of underrepresented comics, including women, BIPOC, and performers with disabilities, and ranging from the monthly Stand Up Silver Spring to the recurring immigrant showcase, “Comedy as a Second Language.”
“We enjoy incredible response to these niche shows from the communities they represent and from our audience,” Levone says. “When there is a single person of a particular background on a lineup, they can be pigeonholed into a particular label or experience. When you bring a number of people from that background, performers feel more relaxed and the audience can witness the diversity within the group.”
That will certainly be the case in mid-May, with a show in D.C.’s Takoma neighborhood spotlighting four Native-American comedians. The Originals: All Native Comedy features Jamar Hall, visiting from a Navajo reservation in the American Southwest; Shea Vassar, a New York City-based comic of Cherokee heritage; Ixchel Hernandez (Nahua and Guxgatan); and Gigi Modrich, a D.C.-area comic of Jicarilla Apache background who co-created the show, she says in a press release, to create “an opportunity for indigenous comedians to be our most authentic selves. We are hilarious, we defy stereotypes, we may not look like Hollywood portrayed us, and we are still here.” (5/17, Busboys & Poets Takoma, 235 Carroll St.; tickets are $18 to $22).
Meanwhile, next week offers another edition of the organization’s newest thematic production, Dog Lovers Comedy Show & Happy Hour, taking place at the Pike & Rose location of Bark Social, the dog-friendly semi-outdoor bar and pub. The lineup includes Winston Hodges, Suzanne Lambert, Angel Penn, and Elizabeth Booker Houston (5/10, Bark Social, 935 Prose St.; tickets are $20 to $25).
Visit www.improbablecomedy.com or call 301-804-0806.
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