By Jack Wynn
Dozens gathered to watch and laugh at a stand-up comedy competition Tuesday evening at Stamp Student Union.
The competition, hosted by Student Entertainment Events (SEE) in the Baltimore Room, featured 14 University of Maryland student performers.
Despite many comics admitting this was their stand-up debut, there was no shortage of effort.
“It went pretty well, I did the best I could,” said Jonathan Wu, a freshman computer science major who had never performed stand-up. “I saw a comic on Reddit asking for advice and one of the comments was ‘nothing matters’ so I just went for it.”
Students felt comfortable performing in front of the large crowd as most brought friends to the event.
“I noticed people not being afraid to go up on stage, which I was really happy to see,” senior sociology major and SEE Concerts Director Nathan Steighner said. “So consistently, regardless of the amount of time they’d been doing it, they were just able to make me laugh.”
Each performer was given five minutes to tell their jokes and connect with the audience. Some performers brought a notecard to help stay prepared.
“It was definitely a great opportunity,” Wu said. “It was a good exploration of how other students work, how I do work – I don’t even know if I can call it work at this point, but whatever I made.”
The performers were not afraid of sensitive topics. Race, religion and politics were some of the most popular subjects for commentary.
Gabi Stern based his performance on religion, citing his appearance and connection to Judaism. Stern was part of several consecutive performances based on religion.
“I’m Jewish, so the fact that there were so many Jewish comics back-to-back was pretty funny,” said Talya Deutsch, a junior criminology and criminal justice major, who came to watch a friend’s performance.
Following the conclusion of the last routine, judges took to the halls to deliberate. After a few minutes of discussion and stress amongst the participants, senior Aileen Foley earned the first place crown. Senior Julia Parker was awarded second place, and senior Valerie Caplan finished third.
SEE presented Foley with a set of Apple AirPods Max for her victory. Parker and Caplan walked away with prizes as well, winning a portable speaker and a Vincent Van Gogh Lego set, respectively.
“My highlight was seeing the reactions of the winners when they found out that they won,” Steighner said. “I think a lot of them think that they’re funny, but they wouldn’t think that they’d be as funny as to win a competition like this. It’s just fun to surprise people in that kind of way.”
Events like the comedy competition are part of SEE’s initiative to provide students with a unique, entertaining community experience on campus. Other SEE productions include movie nights and alternate comedy forums.
“It’s always a fun thing because we have the Homecoming comedy show in the fall and we never really know who we’re going to get until we get them,” Steighner said. “It’s just fun putting names to events and getting to see how students end up feeling about it.”
Featured photo by Fiona Flowers on Tuesday, Mar. 12, 2024.