At Strip Joker, Queer Comedians Bare All
Le Aboav photographed by Sarah Larson
The central concept of Strip Joker, a monthly comedy show in Chicago, is clear from its name: Performers disrobe over the course of their sets, sometimes as close to nudity as legally allowed. But the theme uniting the show’s array of comedians isn’t sex or even nudity — it’s vulnerability. Strip Joker makes room for underrepresented bodies as points of pride, not punchlines. At the August show, Brittani Ferguson recalled her closeted desperation to act on a high-school cheerleading teammate’s joke that the team should make out with each other, as she stripped from her letterman jacket and jeans down to black lace lingerie. “My therapist says I need to be more vulnerable,” she deadpanned. “And I want to get an A in therapy.”
Brittany Meyer started Strip Joker in February 2016, “a little bit out of necessity” they say, as a way to spotlight underrepresented comedians, in particular queer people and people of color. To really get its point across, the show displayed a custom sign from local manufacturer You Are Beautiful behind the stage in its original home at the Uptown Underground. (Though the sign was not on display at the show I attended, each audience member did receive a sticker of the brand’s motto at the door.)
Meyer and the show’s four other producers book comedians who already write material about their bodies. The stripping isn’t mandatory because “not everyone feels empowered by nudity,” Meyer says, but it’s available for comedians to augment their routines. At the August show, Adam Burke dismissed the old adage that personal grooming can make one’s junk appear larger while wearing only boxers, saying, “That’s what everyone wants in genitalia: an optical illusion. What is this, MC Escher?”
Strip Joker moved to its current home at Mary’s Attic after Uptown Underground closed last fall. The venue is located above Hamburger Mary’s, a diner staffed by drag queens, and it’s a cavernous room with Roman statues along the walls and armchairs and couches arranged in rows for seating. The show has become looser to match the mood of its new locale, amping up its inherent queerness. “It’s much more cozy, campy,” Meyer says. At the August show, producer Sunny Grissom’s boasting about their physique led to an impromptu push-up contest against three members of the audience, with drink tickets dispensed as a reward for all.
The producers refer to Strip Joker as a “brave space.” Some comedians have done sets about difficult topics like abortion and sexual assault. “We don’t want to shy away from these topics, just because it might be triggering for some,” Meyer explains. It’s distinct from the more familiar “safe space” concept, which the producers consider better suited for discussions than performances. (Furthermore, they too often see “safe space” deployed as a buzzword without any work to make a space safe.) “We want people to give us the credibility of, if we’re bringing anybody into this space who is going to be talking about this stuff, we want you to trust us that they’re going to be talking about it in a way that’s true for them, and they’re going to be on the right side of this,” Meyer says.
The sets at Strip Joker can sometimes approach performance art, including ones involving audience volunteers. “We’ve had beautiful butches tear people’s pants off, cut shirts in half, boy oh boy,” producer Spencer D. Blair adds.
The producers have also included poets and singers for variety’s sake, though these performers still stay “in the range of funny,” Meyer says. Chrissi Rose, who closed August’s show, showed off her powerful voice while mocking her music degree. She covered Adele’s “Someone Like You,” proclaiming that she hadn’t changed any of the song’s desperate, borderline obsessive lyrics. Rose was flabbergasted when someone in the front row wouldn’t sing along, claiming they didn’t know the lyrics. “Were you not emotionally woke in 2011?” she demanded. She performed in her first corset, which she said “does so much for my back tits.”
In a custom cribbed from drag shows, Strip Joker audiences are encouraged to cheer on the comedians with cash. A strong punchline or a tantalizing striptease is met by balled-up bills hurled from the back. That kind of support from the audience has had a positive impact on the comedians’ confidence. “I find myself taking my clothes off no matter what stage I’m on,” Aboav jokes.
More importantly, those crumpled bills are collected and donated to a different charity each month. The charity du jour in August was the Chicago Period Project, an organization that provides menstrual supplies to people experiencing homelessness and other hardships. Past charities include the National Network of Abortion Funds and Black & Pink, a LGBTQ+ focused prison abolition group. The producers credit Grissom’s background in community organizing with making their charity networking feel organic. “The room is about support,” Aboav says, “so it only makes sense that we would reach out to people doing good work and show them monetary support.”
Three years is a long time for an independent stand-up show to last, especially in Chicago’s crowded landscape. Between sets, Aboav asked a couple in the crowd how long they had been together, and they responded that the next day was their third anniversary. Excited, Aboav asked if the two were celebrating by coming to the show; they cheerfully responded, “Oh, we come here every month.”
The Strip Joker producers are thrilled at the progress the comedy scene has made during its run, pointing to the diversity of this year’s Just For Laughs Montreal lineup as an example. Still, they’re frustrated by straight bookers and promoters who want to capitalize on the queer community as a seemingly easy way to fill a venue. “The important thing to do is to create a space that is welcoming to LGBTQ people and queer people and people of color and all that, before you try to put people in the room,” Aboav says. “If you want to do a show like that, you need to show that you can be a champion for the group of people you want to come out.”
Blair added his frustration at being booked “like crazy” for Pride Month and not hearing from some bookers until the following June. “You have to find your community, and you have to put them onstage, and you have to find diversity in the art as well as in the acts,” he said.
Strip Joker has performed pop-up shows across the country, including ones in Columbus, Pittsburgh, Memphis, and Louisville. Informed by connections made at pop-ups and festivals, the producers have a laundry list of comedians they would like to host for future shows, including Patti Harrison, Jaboukie Young-White, and Dulcé Sloan. Blair dreams of hosting a hometown hero, John Mulaney. “He does a lot of self-deprecating stuff about his body and his looks,” he says. “I feel like if he took off his clothes and showed us his frail white man body, I think he would realize that he doesn’t have to go onstage and wear a suit every time.”
The August show was Aboav’s last Strip Joker, due to their recent move to New York City. As they returned to the stage to kick off the after party, they clutched their breasts, hands where nipple stickers had been earlier in the show. They were determined to go out with a bang, or at least a flash. Sensing the audience’s excitement, they asked expectantly, “No one’s going to call the cops, right?” The crowd cheered. Aboav moved their hands, revealing their nipples in the glare of the stage lights.
Originally published on Splitsider.