When Boulder Comedy Festival began in 2021, a year after the pandemic derailed its planned debut, the city was ready to laugh. So ready, in fact, that festival founder and comedian Zoe Rogers couldn’t even finish thanking the audience for coming before she was cut off by a shouted chorus in response: “No — thank you!”
Now Boulder Comedy Festival is back for its third year, reflecting the strength of the emerging Front Range comedy scene. With new comedy clubs and brewery-based open mic nights cropping up from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs, it’s a much different environment for local stand-ups than it was just a few years ago.
But don’t expect the upcoming five-day event, taking place June 21 through 25 and featuring nearly 50 comedians from Boulder and across the country at locations like the Dairy Arts Center and BOCO Cider, to look like every other comedy showcase in the region.
“[I want to] put to bed that ridiculous idea that a comic looks like one particular person,” Rogers says. “Because they don’t. That belongs to everyone.”
Rogers’ desire to expand her community’s perception of comedy stemmed from her frustration with bookers who never seemed to have enough women on shows. Then, she moved from Los Angeles to Boulder, where white people make up nearly 90% of the population, and felt the lack of diversity in more ways than one.
“I wouldn’t want to sit through a show that didn’t represent me at all, so I imagine everybody feels that way,” Rogers says. “So, let’s make sure everybody feels represented.”
By starting Boulder Comedy Festival, Rogers decided to spark the change she wanted to see in the culture of comedy. To that end, Denver-raised comic Shanel Hughes says the unguarded self-expression required for stand-up is the perfect vessel to deliver a new set of perspectives to a willing audience.
“As comedians, that’s what we bring — a lot of observations, perspectives and points of view, just to [make you] think, or relate to somebody who doesn’t look like you,” says Hughes, who has two sets scheduled during this year’s festival. “I think sometimes that’s an eye-opening experience within comedy. Sometimes as humans we think we’re so different, but we’re really similar.”
‘Comedy is for everyone’
But for a message to land, it needs an audience ready to accept it. Rogers believes Boulder is that audience, with ears ready to hear and voices to laugh along with the range of comics she’s curated for this year’s comedy blowout.
“They’re open to it because they are very open, crunchy, progressive people,” Rogers says. “No one here is unaware of the lack of diversity. So they’re happy to do things to sort of make things better.”
Rogers has always been an advocate for diversity in comedy and a supporter of her friends in the scene. One of these friends is Austin-based comedian Chris Bryant, performing two sets this year at the Dairy, who is fresh off the release of their new comedy special Gender Reveal Party. Bryant says the special, much of which discusses the comic’s relationship to their gender identity and neurodivergency, has been algorithmically censored online after internet trolls reported it for bogus charges ranging from impersonating a politician to promoting mail-order brides.
“I shouldn’t be, but I’m used to trolls on the internet,” Bryant says. “What I’m not used to is completely being silenced.”
Rogers saw Bryant’s comedy being muffled by online hate and suggested they come to Boulder to advertise their special, knowing it would be met with the love she feels it deserves.
“At first, [Bryant] was like, ‘I’m so sorry, this is bringing weird energy to your festival,’ and I said, ‘I love your album; I think you should bring it, and I think you should sell it,’” Rogers says. “So that’s sort of what we’re about … not letting people get censored.”
Rogers says she’s felt tons of support from her community in keeping the festival afloat, but support is a two-way street. Just ask Longmont-based comedian Ricky Ramos, who jumped to help Rogers with the festival when it started. His material is gritty — Ramos, who tells his story through comedy, spent much of his life in gangs and in and out of the prison system — and he was always struck by her unwavering support.
“She’s a comic’s comic. She’s there to support her people,” Ramos says. “Comedy is subjective, but comedy is for everyone, [and] the diversity she brings to the table allows me to be comfortable in any kind of space she showcases.”
ON THE BILL: Boulder Comedy Festival. Various locations and times, June 21-25. Tickets here.
BONUS: What’s So Funny About Boulder?
Four BCF comics on the lighter side of the People’s Republic
Zoe Rogers: “[Comics] will come in and say, ‘Can I say this?’ ‘Can I say that?’ And I say, ‘Absolutely. But you can’t make any jokes about not liking dogs.’ I had my cat get eaten by a coyote. I had mentioned that on stage and people were, like, very pro-coyote. It was a very strange moment: ‘I’m trying to read you — are you pro-coyote? Are you anti-cat? Like, do you understand? The coyote ate the cat, right?’ And the crowd was like, ‘Oh, they’re beautiful animals.’
Also, they do a lot of supportive heckling, which I think is really funny. Typically in L.A. and New York, when somebody heckles you, it’s, ‘Ugh, shut up!’ But here, it’s always like, ‘Yes, yes. Live your truth! Step into your power!’”
Ricky Ramos: “The biggest contributor to my storytelling of Boulder is the white privilege [here]. It is, ‘Get out of my way; I’m doing what I’m doing; you do not have enough money in your pocket to be in my lane.’ And it’s just like, ‘Wow, OK, well, good day to you, too, sir.’”
John Novosad: “There’s a law that you cannot graze your llama on public land in Boulder. I’m like, ‘How did that become a law?’ My joke is, ‘I had a heart-to-heart talk with my llama, because I couldn’t afford to feed him anymore. So I was like, ‘Hey, you’re free.’
There’s another law that you cannot ‘own’ a dog in Boulder. You’re the ‘guardian’ of the dog. And again, I think that’s a really nice thought. But I’m pretty sure my dog isn’t worried about that. When he comes up to me and looks at me, he’s not thinking, ‘Does this guy own me, or is he my guardian?’ So, you know, that kind of stuff I think is a little bit silly.”
Shanel Hughes: “I joke about Boulder a lot. I’m like, ‘Boulder, you’re so rich. Why won’t you come to our shows and laugh?’ I love seeing rich people laugh. They laugh with their mouth wide open. You can see their molars; I don’t even have molars. Like, let me see…
Boulder gets a little stiff. They definitely get stiff on race jokes and things of that nature. Comedians of color poke a lot of fun, and we talk about race relations, because it’s our reality. I think that’s the funniest thing about Boulder. I’ll do a cute little joke to get you in, and then I start talking my shit, and they’re like, ‘Hey, you’re funny, and you’re smart,’ you know? So even if they’re not laughing, they’re listening. And I think that’s just as important.”
