Over the past seven months I’ve been trying my hand at stand up, with fits, bursts, ups, downs, starts, and stops. It’s been great. But I wouldn’t ever have gotten so far (and honestly, the more I do this, the more I realize that “so far” is about one and a half feet out of the starting gate ) if it weren’t for cocaine.

That, and my college.

My time at TCNJ opened my mind to the possibility of comedy as a career, with my stint as a Mixed Signal, my internship, and the incredibly talented, creative, and motivated community of theater geeks. And apparently, I’m not the only one. In the past three years, TCNJ’s been churning out funny people by the assload- myself (I get first billing because, I mean, come on), Vegas Lancaster, Adam Mamawala, Rick Cohen, James Introcaso, and the dorks in Brainstorm’d. And I just read a write up on another CNJ’r, Shelley Snyder, throwing her hat in the ring with musical comedy in the NJ Comedy Festival.

Be it stand up, sketch, improv, or theater, I’m noticing a lot of fellow (and soon-to-be) alumni taking funny business seriously. I’ve got to wonder what it is about TCNJ that’s been encouraging all of us to forego setting up early foundations for healthy, sensible careers and follow our dreams of making strangers laugh at us. In my time there, I witnessed a big change in the theater community between my freshman and senior years. It became very… self-startery? There’s definitely a better way to say that, but the point is, ACT and TMT (which at this point should just become one group because they’re all the same (again, really talented) people filling different roles) went from passive to fiercely aggressive production companies in four years. TCNJ’s become a brimming cesspool of sticky, wet, gooey raw talent, trying its hands at everything from theater to radio to film to sketch to stand up to improv to… hell, we even had a late-night show, that I think continues to this day.

This makes me swell with pride. I mean it, my pride organ is positively throbbing. TCNJ used to be a place where creative nerds would come and learn “useful careers” while pursuing their passions solely as “hobbies” or “extra-curricular clubs”. But for many today, the “student activities” have become their classrooms, and what they do with professors are simply excuses to keep their parents paying. If this continues, I could honestly see TCNJ becoming New Jersey’s go-to institution for aspiring performers of all stripes, and a place talent scouts will pay very close attention to.

This whole “comedy career” thing is a tough nut to crack, but I plan to crack it until there’s nothing left but the splintered remains of what was once a proud nut. And along my entire road to the top, I’ll have TCNJ to thank as the kick in the ass that got me going. Seems a lot of other people will, too.

Filed under tcnj comedy