Sioux Falls comedy finds its voice through practice, patience, passion

By John Hult, for Pigeon605

A casual observer of Sioux Falls culture could be forgiven for thinking the city doesn’t support live comedy.

Comedy clubs have come and gone at a rapid clip over the past two decades, even as the city’s entertainment footprint has otherwise expanded with film festivals, concert venues, comic conventions and the like.

Which is why that same observer could be forgiven for not noticing how funny Sioux Falls got while they weren’t looking.

The core group of comics who’ve spent four years working to transform the city’s on-again, off-again relationship with live comedy into something more permanent have grown into a solid stable of talent that can deliver laughs as consistently as the visiting comics they support during weekend shows at Boss’ Comedy Club.

The club, meanwhile, survived a pandemic-related shutdown in 2020 to enter its third year at a larger venue in the Ramada at Russell and West. Weekly shows resumed last August, with additional spacing between tables for social distancing. 

Visitors to the Wednesday open mic nights at Boss’ might be surprised at how much entertainment and stylistic variety the scene has. 

In the space of an hour, audiences might see Zach Dresch – aka the South Dakota Department of Health’s “flu bug” – bellow ’90s rock lyrics as punchlines, Chris Freier dryly deliver observations on gym etiquette, Jamie Tharney reenact her kids’ birthday party to show how similar parenting can be to designated driving and Jerry Irby take a seat to offer his quiet take on equitable bathroom cleanup in romantic relationships.

Some nights, it’s a wonder the club doesn’t charge admission to see the amateurs.  

“The scene in Sioux Falls is better than it’s ever been – or at least it definitely was before the pandemic,” said Skyler Bolks, a stand-up who manages the club with fellow comic Luke Johnson. “There are a lot of really funny comics on stage every week.” 

Expanding beyond Boss’

Boss’ remains the city’s only comedy club, but other spaces have emerged for funny folk and their fans. WoodGrain Brewing Co., Covert Artisan Ales & Cellars and Lupulin Brewing have all offered open mic comedy nights.

The city also hosts the three-day Sno Jam Comedy Festival that draws performers from all over the country in January, with proceeds benefiting the Special Olympics of South Dakota. The 2021 event was virtual.

The last in-person festival in 2020 showed just how far the scene had come, staking a claim for the city as a destination. The lineups mixed local and regional talent, offering packed houses jokes about high school football and Casey’s pizza from part-time rodeo clown Tyler Walsh one minute and yarns on immigration and urban life from New Yorkers like Gabe Pacheco the next.

Pacheco, who returned for the virtual festival last month, was pleasantly surprised by how much fun he had at a midwinter gig he’d worried might feel “like driving into the hotel from ‘The Shining.’ ” 

“I really wondered well how my jokes would go over because the country’s so polarized,” said Pacheco, who formed friendships with Walsh and other Midwestern comics during his visit. “The audiences went along with stories about immigrant experiences and gun control – they were just as savvy as you’d find anywhere else.”

Pacheco, who appears on a weekly podcast called “Eat, Pray, Judge” and released an album in 2019 called “Risky Behavior,” said he’d happily return to Sioux Falls in a post-pandemic world.

The New Yorker’s experience is the kind of thing local comics point to as proof that the city has come into its own, but there’s plenty of other evidence.

The locals have credits of their own, after all. 

Sean Jordan, who headlined the past two years, lives in Los Angeles but grew up in Sioux Falls and got his start in the city. “The Buck Starts Here”” was released in 2019, and he co-hosts the “All Fantasy Everything” podcast for the Headgum network. His nearly 14,000 Twitter followers see the word “Midwest” when they visit his profile. 

Dan Bublitz Jr., who helps organize Sno Jam and was a Boss’ regular until relocating to St. Paul last year, has a DIY podcast called “The Art of Bombing.” 

Bublitz Jr. and Boss’ Comedy Club founder Nathan Hults headline the club’s main stage from time to time between touring gigs. Johnson hosts a game show called “Vocabularious,” with a virtual version that appeared during the pandemic. Dresch is a regular player in the Improv Falls comedy troupe, and Tharney has been the driving force behind all-female gigs through the Prairie Madness alternative comedy promotion.

Pushing for diversity

The talent pool’s access to stage time has expanded with additional open mics, and the comics taking the stage have grown more diverse. Tharney launched her promotion last September as a way to highlight female comics.

The goal is to expand comedy’s footprint and to encourage more women to perform in a scene largely dominated by men. She organized several all-female shows last fall, featuring comics such as Gina Kramer, Sarah King, Alex Anson and Alisha Rayne. Each performer is a regular at Sioux Falls open mic nights, tackling topics including waxing, dating apps, dieting and marriage from perspectives that rarely make their way into male comedy sets.

Tharney sees her efforts to shine the spotlight on female talent and make space for unique perspectives as steps that strengthen the scene as a whole. 

“I think making a big deal about the women will be a big deal for the comedy scene,” she said. 

The Boss’ club owners agree. There are more women on stage in Sioux Falls now than when Johnson started four years ago, but the scales are still weighted heavily on the side of straight, white men. 

“We need those different voices, different ideas. We don’t want this to be a bunch of people who look like me,” Johnson said. “We need everyone to feel welcome.”

Tharney doesn’t want anyone to feel intimidated by the imbalance, and she believes there are a ton of talented people who can carve out their own niche in the scene that has helped make Sioux Falls feel like home for her. 

She and her husband wanted a nicer place to raise their young kids when they decided to leave Tampa. They picked Sioux Falls through a process of elimination. The chance to pursue stand-up and join the community of comics is a big part of why she’s glad Sioux Falls won out over Vermont and South Texas.

“I’ve been here for two years now, and I have a huge group of friends,” she said. “They’re all people that I love, and I never would’ve met them otherwise.”

Small, supportive community

Johnson has made close friendships since moving to Sioux Falls four years ago as well. During the pandemic doldrums, it wasn’t uncommon for a half-dozen open mic regulars to pile into virtual hangouts to play online games like Quiplash, party games that double as writing exercises for stand-up comics.

The open mic nights that carved out a space for comedy and Hults’ decision to launch Boss’ Comedy Club three years ago are at the heart of the city’s successes, Johnson and Bolks said. They each cut their teeth at the weekly Wednesday gigs, which offer the chance for aspiring stand-ups to test their skills, hone their craft, fine-tune their performances and connect with like-minded goofballs. 

Open mics for musical acts often double as barroom background noise, but comedy nights are built for the art form. Guests silence their phones, servers crouch and whisper to take drink orders, and chairs face the stage. 

That all makes a huge difference, Johnson said. 

“With comedy, we need that instant feedback,” he said. “We need to figure out what’s funny or isn’t funny and why. It’s rough-drafting on the spot, and it’s helped us all improve. It’s been incredible watching everyone grow over the years.” 

Bolks put it more bluntly: Without a stage and an audience, a comic is just a dreamer.

“Stage time is everything for a comic,” he said. “It doesn’t matter how much time you practice in front of your mirror. If you don’t get on stage, you won’t get any better.”

Open mic comedy nights

Boss’ Comedy Club, 1301 W Russell St.: Every Wednesday, 8 p.m.

Covert Artisan Ales & Cellars, 434 E. Eighth St.: Third Thursday of each month, 8 p.m.

WoodGrain Brewing Co., 101 S Phillips Ave.: Last Monday of each month, 8 p.m.