Zoe Rogers was growing tired of Front Range stand-up shows dominated by white men — and the same white men at that. The seasoned comedian from Los Angeles had connected with lots of talented comics from a variety of backgrounds in Colorado, but she wasn’t seeing them appropriately represented in the scene.
Rogers decided to take matters into her own hands. After hosting monthly comedy nights at the Dairy Arts Center, she asked if the venue would host a special showcase to highlight more people of color, women and LGBTQ people. They told her she could have the whole weekend. Just like that, the Boulder Comedy Festival was born.
“I was like, ‘OK, what are the tools I have? Who will work with me?’” she remembers thinking. “I know these really funny people, and if I could bring these things together, maybe I could affect change in some small way to move the needle in the right direction.”
Nearly half a decade later, Rogers’ stand-up fest returns to Boulder County for its fourth year of laughs. Ahead of the ongoing four-day showcase spread across venues like the Dairy, BOCO Cider and Finkel & Garf, Boulder Weekly caught up with four local performers to get a sense of where their comedy comes from.
Hannah Jones
How does laughter lead to liberation? Just ask Hannah Jones, a Denver-based comic known for her forward, unfiltered jokes on sex and relationships.
Jones is one of 18 women — representing nearly half of the bill — who will take the stage during this year’s Boulder Comedy Festival. Born and raised in a restrictive, misogynist church in Fayetteville, North Carolina, the origins of her career in raunchy comedy stem from an unexpected source.
“My mom had to raise us in the confines of a limiting marriage. She didn’t have a lot of say over a lot of aspects of her life,” Jones says. “What was important to her, when she was raising my sister and me, was that we had the skills to communicate and argue our ideas. She put us in the speech and debate club and wound up running it because she felt so passionately about us having those skills.
“It turned me into this outspoken, brash, bold, young woman,” she continues. “The community’s response to that was very negative, and I hated that. But the older I get, the more I credit her with giving me a very radical personality. That kind of predisposed me to radical gender politics.”
Ren Q Dawe
Showing up authentically is often all it takes to connect with someone who, on the surface, seems totally different from you.
“Sometimes I’m the only trans person some people have met,” says Ren Q Dawe, a comedian, writer and transgender rights activist. “It’s pretty cool to me to think that some good ol’ boy might walk into a show, not being [an ally], and then he walks out of that show with a different perspective.”
Dawe is organizing a comedy tour called Here to Pee, in which the comedian will perform in every state that has passed transphobic bathroom legislation. The traveling red-state showcase is an extension of the artist’s belief that laughter can connect people across the artificial chasms that divide us.
“It takes a lot of education and effort to try to change someone’s mind,” Dawe says. “But if we can learn to laugh together for 10 minutes, then suddenly it’s a little bit easier to be on the same team.”
BK Sharad
While more diversity on comedy stages is a welcome change here on the Front Range, Boulder comedian BK Sharad says audiences sometimes don’t know how to react to jokes dealing with race.
When efforts toward inclusion become overcomplicated with complex jargon and books upon books on how to not be racist, the people at the center are often neglected in favor of the mirage of virtue, which makes connecting on a basic human level that much harder.
“When I’m telling a story about being Brown, I’m saying, ‘Hey, this is what happened to me, and it’s funny. It’s funny that this happened.’ And we all can laugh,” Sharad says. “Then we don’t have to be sad, and we can also take the wall down.
“Most of us are very similar,” he continues. “We have the same feelings, and the same chemicals in our brains. I think it’s very divisive to put on kid gloves and talk about me like I’m a concept and not a guy.”
Miriam Moreno
Like most comedians taking the stage at the 2024 Boulder Comedy Festival, Miriam Moreno wants to spark community and connection through jokes. If we can laugh together, we can heal together — and if we’re all healed and healthy, maybe we can show up better for each other.
Healing is a crucial part of the comic experience for Moreno, who will perform at the final event of the festival at the Dairy on June 26. An immigrant from Mexico who uses comedy to deal with traumatic experiences like the tragic death of her father, Moreno says laughing is an important step on the path to empowerment.
“It has freed me from carrying around a lot of trauma. Because once you can make a joke about something, it helps you get over it,” she says. “When you laugh at your pain, you take your power back.”
ON THE BILL: Boulder Comedy Festival. Various times and locations, June 19-23.
