First Mic

Should you move to LA to do stand-up comedy? Lukas Mateus did, and came back. He bombed his first open mic in a Columbus basement with exactly one friend watching. Ten years in, Lukas is 40, works at a grocery store...

How to deal with hecklers, from a comic 14 years in: Jesse Pimpinella befriends them first, then lets the whole room turn on them. Jesse's real first mic was at 18, in the back of a Belleria pizza shop in Cornersburg —...

Terrance "ThaGawdshow" Davis signed up for his first open mic in Columbus and left before going on. The second time, he didn't get a vote. A comic he knew texted him to come watch her set. When he walked in, she told...

Andrew Rudick knows how to deal with hecklers because he used to be one — he heckled his own best friend at his first open mic. Andrew's first mic was a music-and-comedy open mic at Baba Budan's, a long-gone divey bar...

Ty Moore's first open mic ended with a headliner running on stage and taking the mic out of his hands three minutes in — and honestly? He was relieved. Twelve years later, he hosts Bobo's, the Monday-night comedy open...

A fight broke out at Zach Harley's first open mic — and the bartender brought out a wooden bat. The Columbus comic tells the whole story on First Mic. Zach spent over a decade behind microphones before he ever tried a...

Evergreen query targeted: "what to expect at your first open mic" — answered directly in paragraph two. Nickey Winkelman has done stand-up for 20 years and never left Columbus, Ohio — on purpose. Her first open mic...

Murph Henderson flew to New York to do his first stand-up set — and to see a girl. She said no, he never got on stage, and Columbus comedy won. Back home, his actual first open mic happened at Shrunken Head, right...

Henry Allen brought his mom to his first open mic — because at 17, he wasn't old enough to get into the club. It did not go smoothly. Sixteen years later, Henry sits down with Ira Cross at Rehab Tavern to tell the whole...

<p>Barak Lesner moved to Columbus with three outfits in a garbage bag. Today he co-runs The Attic Comedy Club, has five kids and a mortgage, and a blunt message for anyone starting out: you suck — and that's exactly the...

<p>Caitlin Menosky's first Columbus open mic went about as badly as it can go — only woman on the lineup, put up last, and heckled through her whole set by a room full of comedians she'd never met. One comic's apology...

<p>Dan Sebree has been obsessed with stand-up since he was five years old — but it took watching the finals of a Dayton comedy contest, thinking "I could do this," to actually get on stage. On this episode of First Mic...

<p>Jessi Sisson didn't plan to do comedy. She signed up for a speed dating event in Columbus, never saw the email saying it was canceled, and walked in to find an open mic instead. Five years of jokes had been sitting...

<p>Josh Stovall is a preacher, a comedian, and the kind of guest who'll sip Zinfandel like it's communion and then tell you about the last time he made his mom laugh before she passed six years ago this March. He spent...

<p>Janaris Cain (@PrincessNaris) thought she was going to dance for Missy Elliott. Instead, the wig got snatched off her head on a Wild 'N Out tour stop, her friends told her she had to do comedy, and she said "f it"...