Dad jokes, a guitar, erotic fanfiction and stand-up comedy

How four friends created the Moonlight Mic, a monthly open mic night at the Masson Beach Club Pool for students to showcase their talents, from drag to stand-up comedy

The Moonlight Mic, a monthly open mic night held at the Masson Beach Club Pool, started in spring 2017. Photo by Melissa Zhuang

It all started with a few friends who bonded over a love for stand-up comedy. Going from one open mic to the next, they couldn’t find a place that would give them more than two minutes of stage time, so they decided to host their own show.

Noah Jorgensen, a junior film production major, brought a stool and his dad jokes. Konner Kienzle, a junior screenwriting major, brought a mic, an amp and a guitar. Oba Olaniyi, a junior screenwriting major, brought some erotic fanfiction. Jack Meisel, a sophomore screenwriting major, brought “pseudo” stand-up comedy, along with some toothpaste. And the Moonlight Mic was born.

“Depending on who hosts, it’s an entirely different energy,” Olaniyi said. “When (Meisel) hosts, it’s this peaceful night out being interrupted by a goofy guy. Then when I host, it’s this peaceful night being interrupted by me making fun of white people. Then (Jorgensen has) this John Mulaney type charm.”

The Moonlight Mic unofficially began spring 2017. Even though “chilling on the grass” was cool, they became an official club — with a legitimate stage and equipment — at the end of the spring of the following year. They now receive funding from the Student Government Association (SGA). They use the funding to bring in headliners for the show, Jorgensen said.

“Each time we have a headliner, we do an interview afterwards. We go to Oba’s house, and I have recording equipment, and we just pick their brain for about a half an hour,” Jorgensen said.

The Moonlight Mic isn’t just for comedy buffs, it’s for any kind of performance: poetry, music, drag, magic, fanfiction and “a bunch of really lovely, really weird acts” Olaniyi said.

“We didn’t know if there was enough of a stand-up community at Chapman, but then we saw that there was music and poetry acts, too,” Olaniyi said. “Right away, (the Moonlight Mic) was anything anyone wanted it to be.”

This semester, the Moonlight Mic started having “writers’ rooms” once or twice a month, where performers can come together and help each other write jokes and work on material, Kienzle said.

“We want (the Moonlight Mic) to be the open mic and performance part, but we also want to have writers’ rooms so we can grow (as performers), have field trips to comedy clubs and be an actual club,” Kienzle said.

Some students who didn’t major the arts who had no creative outlet before Moonlight Mic, Kienzle said.

“I know that performance can be difficult for some people, but Moonlight Mic is a place to be yourself on stage, and that’s the kind of community I would like to continue to foster,” said Brynne McKee, a junior news and documentary major who formerly served as social media chair of Moonlight Mic.

McKee, whose first performance at the Moonlight Mic was singing and playing the ukulele, said the event is a supportive environment.

“The shows are always different. It’s really exciting to see people who are inspired to get up there and do their own thing,” she said.

Some students who take the stage at the Moonlight Mic love performing but aren’t necessarily planning to pursue the arts as a career, and other people just want to try it out, Olaniyi said.

Underclassmen have come up to Jorgensen and said they want to keep up Moonlight Mic after him and he friends graduate, he said.

“(Jorgensen) and I and the rest of the guys have also talked about starting our own open mic outside of college,” Kienzle said. “We’ve seen a lot of open mics, and we’ve seen a lot of the flaws and we can find ways to fix them.”