SOUTH LOOP — Chicago’s comedy scene can make or break a career. Most of the industry heavyweights you know by name cut their teeth and/or were booed offstage at places like Second City, Improv Olympic (now iO) or Zanies.
No wonder, then, seasoned and novice comedians keep coming back to venues across the city, including one nautical-themed South Loop space where city dwellers can enjoy an IPA and a good guffaw.
Tight Ship Comedy has been drawing crowds since moving from the North Side into the basement of Half Sour, 755 S. Clark St., in 2018. Every Thursday night brings a fresh lineup of comics eager to test out their material in front of an equally eager audience. Here, up-and-comers perform alongside industry veterans, and every week is a voyage into the absurd as they share observations of the world around them.
The team behind the popular South Loop showcase includes Chris Trani, Jeff Brumfield, Pat Bolduc and John Gasper, three of whom briefly ran the show in Roscoe Village.
Moving the series to the South Loop — which is something of a comedy desert — has allowed the team to cast a wider net in terms of talent and audience, they said. Switching from a biweekly format to a weekly one also has helped, Bolduc said.
Why the name Tight Ship?
“There was all these shows at the time that had names of that ilk so we were like, ‘Hey, we run a tight ship.’ We were firing off names and just kind of landed on it,” Boduc said. “Unfortunately it’s not a very cool [name], but it works. There was one [group] called ‘Blanket Fort’ at the time. It really was kind of a trend. Like all the bands in like, the ’90s had sentences for names.”
Bolduc, Trani and Gasper befriended each other on the open mic circuit, they said.
Bolduc, a substitute teacher who hosts “Pat Bolduc And Friends” at The Comedy Bar on the Mag Mile, said the trio’s first go at running the comedy showcase didn’t quite jell.
“When the show was on the North Side in 2017, we had a bunch of producers. We did it for half a year or something like that, but none of the producers were really friends at the time so it kind of fell apart. It felt like a job,” Bolduc said.
“Then Chris started it back up with John [at Half Sour].”
Trani and Gasper convinced Half Sour’s owners to give them space inside the bar and restaurant. The relocated show was initially held on the ground floor in a side dining area, but the logistics of that location proved difficult, they said. They approached the owners once more with a pitch to move into the basement.
It worked. Despite the kitschy seafarer aesthetic, the room was the perfect size and gave off the kind of intimacy one would expect at a dinner party if the host was Lenny Bruce. The speakeasy vibe attracted yuppies searching for something different to do and Columbia College students looking for entertainment on the cheap.
It wasn’t an immediate hit, though. Some nights every seat would be filled, while other nights they’d struggle getting patrons in the door, Trani said.
“You fail until you figure it out. [In the beginning] it was the opposite of a tight ship. It was a loose barge, a weak boat,” said Trani, who once posed as a StreetWise writer to trick Jane Fonda and author Eve Ensler. “The bar was like, ‘Hey, you’re not bringing in customers. Guys, this isn’t working anymore.’ And I swear to God, when we walked downstairs and saw that speakeasy room, we said, ‘Let’s go weekly instead of biweekly, but in the speakeasy.'”
Brumfield joined Tight Ship in 2021 after graduating from Illinois State University and moving to Chicago to work as an engineer while pursuing his comedy dreams. Trani, Bolduc and Gasper noticed him while he was working the open mic circuit and invited him to join the team.
Though he’s the youngest in the group, his fellow producers said he works the room like a seasoned pro and his knack for observational comedy rivals veterans twice is age. He and his fellow producers tap into their respective networks to keep the stage occupied, landing popular comics like Nick Thune and Geoff Asmus.
While the North Side has venues like Lincoln Lodge, Zanies, UP Comedy Club and the Laugh Factory, most of the comedy spots that once populated the South Side have disappeared. Bronzeville’s Jokes and Notes — the city’s last Black-owned comedy club — closed in 2016.
With comedy venues hard to come by south of Madison Street, Tight Ship Comedy is an oasis, Trani said. Being able to provide a space where everyone feels welcome is a point of pride for the quartet, he said.
Putting on the best show means giving their audiences a roster of bold, versatile comedians who can keep them laughing, he said.
“There is a little bit of a North Side scene. These things aren’t set in stone at all, but I was just surprised that after being here for about four years that I would go down to the South Side, do shows and I would see these killers, and I’d think ‘Why have I not seen these people? Why is that?’ I think the Laugh Factory is a little bit better with booking people from all around, but there are certain clubs that it tends to be all people from the North Side,” Bolduc said.
Stand-up comedy isn’t considered a team sport — every comic has at least one story of heartbreak and betrayal — but the Tight Ship team’s pure admiration and respect for one another keep the ship on course, Bolduc said.
“It’s sort of a beautiful thing,” Bolduc said. “We do a free show every Thursday in Chicago in the South Loop in this gorgeous speakeasy room where we booked some of the best comics in Chicago, right? They’ve been on Comedy Central and HBO. Prominent comics are coming in to do sets. … I’m really proud that like we get to this.”
You can get free tickets to Tight Ship’s stand-up comedy show on Eventbrite.
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