7 minute read
COVER STORY
Comedy Reflects Our World
Local mom and comic opens The Crow in Santa Monica
PHOTOS BY CHRIS MORTENSON
By Paul Wozniak
Afew years ago, Nicole Blaine was trying to think of something to do with her family for New Year’s Eve that was family friendly. As a new parent, she was struggling to find a community of parents in the area with shared values and work schedules. “I think no one is telling us that it's actually traumatizing to become a new parent,” Nicole said. Modeled by her mother, Nicole was in search of a support group made of other moms. She hopes her new comedy club, The Crow, will be a gathering place for the Santa Monica community to anchor and grow. Nicole shares The Crow with her husband, Mickey. Speaking with a focused intensity, Nicole tells her comedic journey, almost like she’s running out of time as Mickey summarizes and clarifies. The couple leapfrogs over each other in conversational improv as the story of their comedic haven unfolds. The Blaines opened The Crow in June 2022 after Nicole had produced comedy shows for over a decade at a variety of venues. They met in college, drawn together by theater and then found their milieu in comedy. “I think we decided to switch over to comedy and open up a club because everything is tragic right now,” Mickey said. “The Crow is an acronym: ‘Comedy Reflects Our World.’ And for us, it's the way in which we look at the world and sort of process it. We thought people getting together in a communal space, laughing together about things going on, and hearing different people's perspectives to look at different issues that are happening and laugh about them to heal and just bring up the ridiculousness of life.” And in tying healing and storytelling together, one begets a unique spin on the perspective of comedy. Nicole said her first pivot from theater was to storytelling. As a "one-woman storyteller," “Storytelling was my thing,” Nicole said. “And making people feel both equally sad, pain and finding the light in it, and the ‘it's going to be OK’ type stuff that I think especially comedy does that. I think it makes you feel like ‘I'm not alone.’” Another version of this was through the one-woman show Nicole put on acting out the trauma of living with her mother, who for years abused substances, primarily crack. Though there were years of familial struggle, she is now a sober grandparent to their children. Subsequently, when first starting stand-up, Nicole was pregnant with the Blaine’s second child at the "geriatric" age of 34 with the compelling need to cut the drama out of her act and break into the LA stand-up comedy scene. She did her first stand-up set still pregnant with her son. Doing stand-up while caring for a newborn was an entirely different challenge. “I had to leave in between breastfeeding, find an open mic that I was going to be able to go to and I was pumping breast milk in the car,” Nicole said. “But I would go to these open mics and sacrifice nursing time to try to tell a proper joke about my vagina that had just been blown up. And nobody laughed. It was the early 2000s and very uncomfortable.” Fast forward to the Blaines as full-fledged parents and trying to think of something for families to do on New Year’s Eve. Nicole did a 6 p.m. stand-up show years prior and it all lead to the building blocks for their joint venture. “…Because I'm a mom, I don't want to ditch them [parents],” Nicole said. “I wanted them [parents] to also have access to seeing all the different types of people on stages.” In starting her own club, Nicole hoped to provide a welcoming environment not
The Blaines opened The Crow after Nicole had produced comedy shows for over a decade at various venues. The Crow offers a variety of shows including comedy sets for younger audiences.
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only for new parents, but their offspring, a whole new generation who are looking to redefine what it means to be a person…through comedy. Current special sets for families include BYOB (Bring Agent Name, Agent Street Address City, State, Zip Phone I wish all my neighbors a safe and happy holiday season and the very best in the Your Own…Bottle? Boob? E-mail New Year. It’s a true joy to Buggy? Baby?); ‘Pull My be part of such a wonderful Finger,’ an improv G-rated series targeted toward 2- to community. 12-year-olds; and an open mic night just for teens. Like a good neighbor, Of course, creating a comedy State Farm is there.® set for younger audiences required its own bit of improv. “At the beginning, it was kind of like, well, yeah, we'll just get a stand-up comic and have them do family-friendly material,” Mickey said. “And they just bombed.” The Blaines quickly realized for the young kids to sit and listen to a story or a joke, the comedy needed to be sillier and sound almost clown-like. The larger goal being to desensitize children to the stage at a younger age and build upon the theater being a safe space as they became teenagers. “I wanted them to get comfortable getting on stage so that when they grow up, they don't have a fear of being in front of people whether it's a job interview, or if they are a lawyer,” Nicole said. “Then the kids see someone their age and they're interested and they want to participate,” Mickey added. “They want to throw out suggestions. It's the silliness. It's the participation. It's all that in bite-size scenes.” Finally, Nicole and Mickey hope that The Crow is a safe, empathetic and inclusive place, particularly for young people navigating their identities even if they cannot with their own families. One open mic event is specifically for female and nonbinary comedians. “I’m doing this because parents that are still not ready to hear their children and accept them yet, we're gonna NEED CASH? get them there,” Nicole said. “There's something about the HOUSE RICH, CASH POOR? artist who shows you something that you relate to, and then you start to heal and let it DON’T QUALIFY FOR A CASH OUT REFI OR HELOC? out. Hopefully, audiences will I OFFER TRUST DEED LOANS ON REAL ESTATE come and hear it in a different, lighter way. I want to do a EASY AND QUICK PROCESS comedy club that is going to be ultimately, for this next SHORT TERM LOANS UP TO 24 MONTHS generation.” The Crow’s “BYOB” show is the first Saturday of each month at 1 p.m. The “Pull My CALL 310-488-5423 Finger” shows run on the third Saturday of each month at 5 p.m., the next one is on Dec. 17. The New Year's Eve edition of “Pull My Finger” will be on Saturday, Dec. 31 at 5 p.m. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit the website.
The Crow
2525 Michigan Avenue, Unit F4, Santa Monica 424-322-8017 crowcomedy.com
“TIS THE SEASON” (12/08/22) By GARY LARSON & AMY ENSZ
