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An update on the local comedy scene
plus interviews with Craig Ferguson and Jenny Zigrino

From Adam Sandler to Sarah Silverman and Seth Meyers, many talented comedians have come from the Granite State. New Hampshire continues to be an incubator for standup comedy and also has plenty of showcases, including a sparkling new one opening soon in Manchester.

In the late 2000s and early 2010s the Queen City was a hotbed for a second wave of comedy that included future SNL stars and buzzy joke-tellers who now reign both on social media and in the nation’s comedy clubs. They were drawn to a weekly comedy night at Shaskeen Pub.

Run by three comics, it began as an open mic and stayed that way until 2015.

At that point one partner moved the open mic to Murphy’s Taproom. The Shaskeen switched to a showcase, run by Nick Lavallee and Dave Carter. It welcomed a new breed of comics like Dan Soder, W. Kamau Bell and Sam Jay. It also gave big names and rising stars with weekend shows in Boston an extra New England stop.

Drew Dunn’s first comedy sets came at the Shaskeen’s open mic. He’s now a touring comic, headlining clubs from Foxwoods to San Diego. On March 30 Dunn began a weeklong run in Las Vegas at Brad Garrett’s Comedy Club, atop the bill for three nights and opening for Garrett on the other four.

A few jokes about the sitting president helped win over a tough crowd. “I don’t think Trump is Christ-like, but it’d be funny if Christ was Trump-like,” he said, retelling the loaves and fishes tale in perfect voice. “I could feed a lot of people with this fish, it’s a big fish, it’s a beautiful fish, it’s a Bran-zino, it’s a very delicate fish.”

As his early success grew, Dunn was a regular performer at the Shaskeen. During a sit-down interview in the outside lounge of Garrett’s club following his opening night show, the Nashua native remembered those days with fondness, along with praise for Lavallee.

“It was probably the best show on a Wednesday anywhere in America for a good stint there,” he said. “Nick was a great tastemaker … ahead of the game on picking some of these guys that are huge names now. He was booking Tim Dillon when he had a few thousand followers, but he just saw how great he was.”

Five years ago Dunn moved to New York City, like many comics with their sights set on the next level in the business. When he arrived, the contacts he’d made performing at the Shaskeen were crucial for him getting booked at a very competitive NYC club.

“This is such a business of connections and having people believe in you,” he said. “My recommendations for the Comedy Cellar were Mark Norman, Soder, and Joe List. Two of those guys I had worked with at the Shaskeen Pub, or at least crossed paths with them there.”

While he was booking shows, including more than a few in the basement of his North Side house, Lavallee was also doing standup and making a name for himself. For much of the decade he traveled a path much like Dunn’s, touring the country and doing area shows at clubs like Rob Steen’s Headliners.

Combining doing and booking comedy with a full-time community media job wore on him, and it also clashed with his newfound sobriety, so Lavallee retired from standup. He and Carter closed out their Shaskeen run in 2021 with a series of shows and a sense of hope.

“When Dave and I passed the torch,” he said, “we wanted to see the comedy scene in Manchester grow. We wanted to leave behind a legacy that was like, ‘Hey, you can do this.’ If you put in the work, you can get great talent from New York, L.A., Chicago, anywhere to come to Manchester.”

It then continued in new hands. Initially Ruby Room Comedy took over. It’s now run by Sam Mangano, who also books pop-up Don’t Tell shows in the state, and is doing well. “Wednesday nights have good crowds and comics,” he said recently. “The past few months have been busy, with repeat faces in the crowd.”

Lavallee moved on to music, making pop culture action figures, and boosting his hometown as the Chicken Tender Capital of the World. He still missed the business, though, and with the recent opening of a complex on Canal Street anchored by Harpoon Brewery, he decided to return to comedy, this time strictly as a booker.

In late February Lavallee began teasing a new venue, and shows presented under his Wicked Joyful brand. Located in the Queen City Center, the 130-seat Queen City Center Showroom will open on April 17 with a veteran comic from his Shaskeen days, Jenny Zigrino (tickets $29 at eventbrite.com).

Lavallee also plans to book shows in a 500-seat space known as Studio A, and mentioned that depending on demand there might be a late show on April 17. Zigrino’s comedy star rose in New England, including many Shaskeen shows, which makes her a great choice to debut comedy at Queen City Center.

“My roots in New Hampshire … run pretty deep,” Zigrino said by phone recently. “I worked in Bedford when I was younger, and my mother lived in Manchester briefly. So I am very familiar with the town, and I love it. I’m excited for what Nick is going to be doing with Wicked Joyful, trying to bring in more arts entertainment.”

In mid-March Lavallee walked around the Queen City Center, showing off the two performance spaces along with a Wicked Joyful retail store that will open soon. There, he’ll be selling bespoke action figures, attire and other items in a room with an original booth from Manchester’s Puritan, the birthplace of “tendies.”

He’s looking forward to booking shows, but stressed that he’s no longer interested in doing comedy himself.

“I fell out of love with it,” he said, adding that the realization happened during the pandemic. “When no one was doing it, I had time to look at the things that mattered to me most.”

Comedy, he could see, had become an unhealthy ego-stroking exercise. “Because of sobriety, the person I evolved into wasn’t getting on stage and saying disparaging things about myself that may or may not be true.” With that understanding, he continued, “I could focus all that energy into my creative outlet.”

Returning as a promoter also offers a chance to restore the community that grew during the Shaskeen days. “I don’t mean community of comics, though they’re a part of it … it’s the regulars who’d show up, would tell their friends about it, would go to work talking about it the next day.”

His old partner will be a presence but not operationally involved.

“I want Dave to bask in the community that he built and consistently served for seven years, that truly loved him and the work that we did…. I want him to enjoy it,” Lavallee said. “That’s the best kind of family reunion you could go to, and I think he deserves that.”

The new endeavor has Lavallee energized for exciting things.

“Despite the great work that other rooms are doing, even the one we left behind,” he said, “I think there’s room to build up community and bring culture into Manchester through laughter and positivity. That’s what I’m most excited about.”

It’s helpful to recall that this began with a gaggle of wannabe funny people looking to sharpen their comedy muscles. That energy, along with the successful comics it’s produced (and continues to produce), is still here. In fact, the comedy scene in the region is arguably bigger than it’s ever been.

Manchester’s current longest-lived open mic offers proof that’s it’s both exciting and promising.

On a recent Friday night, a dozen or so comics, some more seasoned than others, gathered in the back room of Strange Brew Tavern to work in front of a crowd of nearly 50 people. Most had a “tight five” — standup code for the abbreviated set all comics must master to move forward in the trade.

All came from the Strange Brew’s Laugh Attic open mic night. Launched five years ago in June, it’s become a hub for aspiring comics and even a few veterans who use it to work on new material. It’s also launched a few to greater success, like Owen Damon, atop the bill that Friday and doing a 10-minute set.

Damon, no relation to the famous actor, is 21, and began coming to Laugh Attic in his teens. His success arc echoes Drew Dunn’s rise from open mics. Damon is now in Chicago, getting work in Midwest clubs with bits like the one about his Fox News-watching grandma who thinks Pilates is a terrorist group.

The Friday crowd laughed at the young comic’s jokes about sharing his Kindle account with his mom, and her shocking taste in racy books, why all service workers should be tipped like strippers (“I’m throwing a dollar at my barista”), and how a person’s milk preference is a clue to their religion — “almond is astrology.”

Danny Pee and Mike Dupont co-hosted, each doing their own five-minute sets. Danny Pee began coming to the Strange Brew when it started, looking to scratch his comedy itch. He did a solid set, landing with funny observations, such as his belief that fast food and smoking are basically the same vice.

Both cigarettes and cheeseburgers make you smell bad and feel ashamed enough to hide the noxious habit from your spouse, he noted. “I keep an extra shirt in the car,” he said. “I change into it after going to McDonald’s, so my wife doesn’t pick up the stink.”

That the open mic began as live entertainment was returning helped him make the leap into standup. “I’d been holed up, watching YouTube videos, thinking, ‘Where can I find that thing under my nose that I’m very interested in right now?’ This was one of those things,” he said. “I went, and never stopped showing up.”

Laugh Attic was launched by Ben Davis, who handed it over to him in 2024. Davis “really brought it up out of nowhere” and looked to him as someone a bit older and thus a dependable choice to keep it going; plus, he wanted it. “I think that he saw in me this desire to be there; I really hadn’t missed one open mic.”

The event has attracted interest from Rob Steen, who’s been doing comedy shows in New Hampshire longer than anyone. He’s showcased a deep lineup of comedy talent, including booking both Dunn and Lavallee early on, by keeping an eye on events like Laugh Attic, along with the recent explosion of open mics.

“Rob’s been through several times,” Danny Pee said. One open mic comic got booked at Chunky’s, a Steen venue, after he mentioned in his set that he worked there. “A light bulb went off for Rob … I don’t know how the set went or anything, but that was something that transpired from one of his most recent visits.”

Even with Steen’s network, large events and small open mic nights seemingly popping up everywhere, there’s room for more in the state’s comedy scene. Lavallee is excited to add another element to the mix with Queen City Center Comedy, with more bookings due to be announced.

“If there’s anything I missed from comedy, it’s producing a killer show,” he said. It’s something he did in both music and comedy for a big chunk of his 15-20 years as an entertainer. “Knowing I had the opportunity to do it again here, I jumped on it because, again, that’s the thing I miss the most.”

He sees his role as restoring the energy he and Carter created, while shining a light on a brand of comedy that he believes is mostly missing in the area. “Rarely do you see cutting edge … someone on their way up, before they do the Wilbur,” he said. “The shows that I produce here are going to fill that void.”

Full circle moment

Comedy at Queen City Center with Jenny Zigrino

Just over a year into her comedy career, Jenny Zigrino came to Manchester for the first of many times to do standup at Shaskeen Pub. She met Nick Lavallee there, and the two bonded over his connections to Zigrino’s home state of Minnesota.

The friendship endured, and Zigrino performed frequently at the Shaskeen over the years, including several times when it switched from open mic to comedy showcase in 2015. She remembers the era with fondness, and is excited to return to Manchester for the first show at Queen City Center on April 17.

“I’m honored to be doing it. I’m excited,” Zigrino said by phone recently. “I have so many starting out roots in New Hampshire. … My first filmed comedy sets were at the Shaskeen, and still on my YouTube.” After several years in L.A., she now lives in New York City, though she’s back in SoCal frequently for work.

One project that will send her back west is a play, co-written with Caleb Zeringue, about an obscure but crucial Revolutionary War figure. Zigrino’s a history fan who once led tours on the Freedom Trail in Boston, and she performs History Tonight shows dressed up as King George III, including one in Cambridge April 15.

The Drill Master is about Friedrich von Steuben, an openly gay Prussian captain who met Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane in Paris. Experienced officers were needed for a disorganized army, so they asked him to join as an unpaid, unranked volunteer. Bored with Europe, von Steuben agreed.

“He comes over, befriends Washington, and people absolutely love him,” Zigrino said. “He basically whips everybody into shape and teaches them how to be an army … we probably don’t win the war without him, and we still use a lot of the training that he brought to America in the army today.”

The play is filled with laughs and a lot of inconvenient historical facts, like Alexander Hamilton’s more than friendly relationship with John Lawrence. “In the National Archives, you can read the letters, it’s crazy,” she said. “Hamilton wrote, ‘You think that me getting a wife is going to make me love you any less?’”

The staged reading, May 3 at L.A.’s Elysian Theatre, will be a star-studded affair.

“We’ve got a … killer cast,” Zigrino said. “Bobcat Goldthwaite is going to be George Washington, we’ve got Gianmarco Soresi, Cameron Esposito, Lady Bushra, Dylan Adler… they’re going to make it so good.”

Zigrino is also writing a romance novel, and she’s convinced that more men should read them.

“They’re literal manuals on what women want. For once, read the instructions,” she says onstage. “It’s not that hard. We just want you to say that you burn for us and to call us a good girl and to be a grumpy cowboy billionaire that also is sometimes a gay hockey player and you’re a werewolf vampire that might kill us.”

She’s also readying a new comedy special. Like Jenny Z, released on Comedy Central’s YouTube channel in 2023, it’s fan-financed on GoFundMe and Zigrino’s quirky, pretty much PG-13 OnlyFans site. “I have pictures of me in lingerie dressed as King George,” she said. “I’m having fun with it.”

The show is about “starting over” after a challenging period in her life that included the death of her sister, a breakup, and health issues that were ultimately resolved with GLP-1. She lost 60 pounds as a result, but emphatically did not lose her commitment to body positivity. She’ll preview the show in Manchester.

“It’s called Afterbirth,” she said. “The idea is that you come into the world, and all this crap is behind you … but it’s not really. You’re covered in blood, and you’re gross, and that’s what happens when you start over. You’re just kind of like a little newborn baby covered in placenta.”

Wicked Joyful Presents: Jenny Zigrino
When: Friday, April 17, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Queen City Center, 215 Canal St., Manchester
Tickets: $28.50 at eventbrite.com

Comedy talk with Craig Ferguson

Years before he took over the Late Late Show or made his name as an actor alongside Drew Carey, Craig Ferguson was a standup comic. Ferguson’s first forays as a funny man were an outgrowth of his hazy days as a musician. He was drafted into the job, primarily because he had the proper mix of brave and crazy to work a punk crowd.

“They’d get me to go up when they were changing the equipment for the acts, or trying to resuscitate their guitarist, or something,” he recalled. “I would do five to 10 minutes between the bands. Then I kind of moved into it, but the very beginning was just being a loudmouth in punk rock bands.”

Ferguson brings his current Pants on Fire tour to Concord’s Capitol Center on April 12. Shortly after leaving late night in 2014, he hosted the game show Celebrity Name Game and won a couple of Daytime Emmys. In 2021 he did the same with ABC’s The Hustler, and last January he began hosting a TV version of Scrabble.

He likes the game show format because its prep requirements are pretty easy. “You learn how the game works and then you just play,” he said. Beyond that, “It’s very improvisational, it’s very engaging, and then there’s the whole thing of you’re giving away somebody else’s money, which is just icing on the cake.”

Is Ferguson a bit nostalgic for his late night days? “No, I don’t miss it really,” he said. “I’ll tell you why. I mean, I did it for a long time, and I’m proud of that show. I’m glad I did it. I think we managed to do something a little off the beaten track, but by the time I was done I was ready to go.”

Ever the good sport, Ferguson agreed to answer seven seminal questions about his career in comedy.

When did you realize that you were funny?

I’m not entirely convinced that I am, to be honest. I guess when they keep asking you back. So maybe in the punk rock days when you go up between the bands and nobody attacks you, you must have something going on. I think that must have been it.

What made you decide to be funny in front of people,beyond the bits between bands?

I never did decide to do that. It was kind of like I would be asked in increments to do things like that. I never really made a decision. It wasn’t a career path for me. I didn’t think, well, here’s my ambition, I’d like to be a stand-up comedian. I didn’t really have that. It was through kind of a series of unfortunate events.

Who were your inspirations, comics and things that you looked at as good examples?

Well, Billy Connolly was like Jackie Robinson for me. He was the first guy I ever heard or saw that sounded like us and was from a similar background. Billy’s about 20 years older than me, but he was becoming famous in Britain in his early 30s. I was in my early teens, so it was just perfect for me because he was the naughty comedian that would say naughty words, and I loved Billy. I still do. I guess in America it was the great American stand-ups of Richard Pryor and Robin Williams and George Carlin and Redd Foxx, and Eddie Murphy as well. Eddie Murphy’s stand-up. Eddie Murphy’s the same age as me, and I would watch. He was young when he was doing stand-ups. This guy’s amazing, and he was the same age as me. He still is amazing, but when he broke through, it was hard to overstate how important he was at that time.

How did your first set go?

You know, I’ll be honest with you. Again, it was in the before time, so I’m not entirely sure I remember my first set. There were a few very bad ones. I remember doing a show at a punk rock club in London. It was a festival of Scottish punk bands, and there was a bunch of Cockneys there. I thought it would be funny if I wore a kilt, but I was very frightened of the audience. They noticed that my knees were knocking. They were literally shaking. I was so nervous. You could see my knees because I was wearing a kilt. They started a chant, this Cockney chant. They were all shouting, His knees are knocking! His knees are knocking! It was an exercise in humiliation. Yeah, I think humiliation.

Was there a moment when you realized you could succeed at it?

Not particularly like that. When I talk to other comedians, they understand this. When it went really bad, like that gig at the Scribner where the audience were chanting, His knees are knocking, and I died on stage. When I came off, it was a weird kind of like, Oh man, I want to do that again. Comedians understand that it’s hard because you’re like, Why would anyone want to do that again? But you kind of do. I don’t know what it is. I want another crack at it. It’s weird.

Was there a time when you felt like giving up?

No, I don’t really think so. I think that it’s all part of the, especially now, I just kind of roll into it. It feels like I belong there. I’m very comfortable doing what I do. I like doing it. It’s relaxing for me in another way to be on stage.

What’s your favorite part about doing stand-up, Craig?

I think the immediacy and the organic nature of it. The fact that it’s not the same show every night. That it is an analog experience. It’s not, you know, I’m a 20th-century boy. I mean, I have a phone and I have a computer, but I like being in the dark with the audience. It is a visceral kind of immediate, authentic feel to me that I’ve never fallen out of love with.

Craig Ferguson
When: Sunday, April 12, at 7 p.m.
Where: Capitol Center for the Arts, 44 S. Main St., Concord
Tickets: $49 and up at ccanh.com

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