Vermont Has Become an Incubator for Comedians to Launch Their Careers 

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• Courtesy
• Carmen Lagala

Sure, Pupkin was a character with mental illness who kidnapped a talk-show host to ransom a network into letting him perform on television. And that's, you know, not great. But beyond the blackhearted satire of the film, there is a lesson in Pupkin's madness: In comedy, you make your own breaks.

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Since the opening of Vermont Comedy Club in Burlington in 2015, the Green Mountain State's comedy scene has come into its own. To get a taste of Vermont's verbal wit, we profiled four comics — Mike Thomas, Meredith Gordon, Max Higgins and Jared Hall — who just might be the next to make it big. Catch them on local stages around the state, and read on for insights into their inspirations and unique standup styles.

By Ken Picard

Comedy

That's something Vermont's most ambitious comedians know well. For the past decade, there's been a small but steady flow of talented comics from the Queen City to bigger markets, such as Boston and Los Angeles. Most have headed for the comedy mecca, New York City, following the lead of Montpelier native Carmen Lagala, who decamped from Burlington in 2015. Just three years later, she was booked on "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert."

Lagala wouldn't be the last. From Kendall Farrell to Ash Diggs to Tina Friml, Vermont's funniest standups have left the cozy confines of Burlington's comedy scene to shoot for the big time. More than a few have found success — the latest being Friml, a Middlebury native who performed on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" in November. Vermont has exported a handful of improv comedians, too, including Brian Park and Catrina Hughes, now at Second City in Chicago.

Is there some secret to how Vermont nurtures raw comedic talent? To learn more, Seven Days spoke with several comedy expats, who shouted out the local crowd vibes, Vermont Comedy Club and the benefits of making your friends laugh.

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• Ash Diggs

"The whole comedy scene in Vermont is just overall super positive," Diggs said. The 29-year-old former Burlingtonian moved to New York City in 2021, after four years of hustling in Vermont. He became one of the area's top comics, headlining at Vermont Comedy Club and opening for big names such as Theo Von at Burlington's Flynn — though he never won the coveted title of Vermont's Funniest Comedian. ("I definitely don't think about that every single day," Diggs quipped.)

"People in Vermont really show up for comedy shows," Diggs continued. "And even more importantly, they're usually really open to material. Other scenes have this 'Oh, you're funny? Prove it' vibe, whereas Vermonters — and I both love and hate this about them — tend to be more like ... 'Hey, good job, buddy! We think it's going well!'"

Lagala cut her teeth doing standup in Burlington after graduating from the University of Vermont. In 2012, she opened her own downtown comedy club, Levity, the first dedicated comedy venue in the city. Though it closed after just a year and a half, Levity helped launch Lagala's career.

"I met a ton of comedians when I was running Levity," Lagala said. "I learned that a lot of comedy is self-delusion ... Most people who move to the city quit comedy. I moved here with two friends, and they lasted maybe a month."

After performing in New York for a few years, Lagala found a grittier style than the one she'd cultivated in Vermont. "People in New York are getting pissed on, so they want their comedy hard," she said. "People in Vermont aren't as hardened — they want their comedy a little slower, more nuanced. Also, the audience in Vermont is full of your friends."

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For Friml, that home-field advantage is the "secret sauce" of the Vermont scene. While performing for unfamiliar crowds brought edge to Lagala's style, Friml found the confidence to push the limits while on her own turf.

In Vermont, "you can get onstage and feel safe to try stuff out and experiment," Friml said by phone from the New York City apartment she shares with Diggs. (She previously roomed with Lagala; Vermont's comic expats often house each other while they find their feet in the big city.)

"I remember when I started doing a little edgier material," Friml recalled. "I felt like I could try that, because I was really just trying to make my friends laugh and shock them by being lewd or out of left field. And that's what the scene always felt like to me — a big dinner party where you try to make your friends laugh, but you have a microphone."

That such a supportive yet robust comedy ecosystem exists in the state is due, in part, to Vermont Comedy Club. Founded in 2015 by husband-and-wife team Nathan Hartswick and Natalie Miller, the Burlington club not only gives a stage to aspiring local comedians, it also brings them into contact with professional, touring comics, such as Maria Bamford, Nikki Glaser and Kyle Kinane.

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• Kendall Farrell

The club's practice of booking local openers before big shows gives rising talent an opportunity to talk to their touring counterparts about how to make the leap. Farrell, who grew up in Vernon, won Vermont's Funniest Comedian contest in 2015, a few years before he moved to the Big Apple and was named a "Comic to Watch" at the 2019 New York Comedy Festival. He often opened for touring headliners at VCC — or booked them himself when he ran Comedy & Crepes at the Skinny Pancake in Burlington.

"When I talk to comics who came to New York from other scenes and I tell them what coming up in Vermont was like, I'd just get wide-eyed looks of disbelief," Diggs said. "You get stage time, which is huge, but you also get crazy access to out-of-town comics. You can connect and pick their brains."

When Diggs opened for Joyelle Johnson at VCC in 2019, he said, the Brooklyn-based comic and actor gave him some of the most important advice of his career.

"She was one of the first people to sit me down and really pull back the curtain on what it means to live this life," Diggs recalled. Johnson explained to Diggs that every comedian has their own trajectory, and he should "focus on my own journey, because comparing yourself to others will do nothing," he said.

That conversation bore fruit in other ways: Johnson later reached out to Ilana Glazer when the "Broad City" star was scheduled to perform at VCC and urged her to book Diggs as her opener.

"They were some of the biggest shows I've ever gotten to do," Diggs said. "During that run, Ilana told me I needed to move to New York City. That was the final straw of validation I needed."

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• Courtesy Of Bruce Smith
• Deanne Smith

It didn't take long for VCC's reputation as a welcoming — and often well-attended — comedy club to spread beyond the Green Mountains. New York City-based comedian DeAnne Smith is a frequent performer at the venue. Smith, who will appear in the new Netflix showcase "Hannah Gadsby's Gender Agenda," noted the club's draws: better-than-average food, a hip vibe and "ready for anything" audiences.

"Vermont Comedy Club is a huge part of why Burlington has a thriving comedy scene," Smith wrote in an email. "The general energy is way more modern than a standard comedy club! And if you haven't been to other comedy clubs, many of them still feel like they're stuck in the '90s and run by sexual predators."

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Comedy

But Vermont has its limitations. "The audiences aren't really diverse, which can make doing more racial-themed humor tougher," said Diggs, who is biracial. "You say something for a laugh, and instead you get an awww. Which is like, Uh, thanks, but I'm trying to make you fuckers laugh."

As much as they loved their hometown comedy scene, Diggs, Lagala and Friml each had a moment when they knew it was time to leave. After Levity's closure, Lagala said, the writing was on wall. A decade on from her Vermont exodus, she's a busy, hard-touring professional comic who cohosts a podcast, "In Cahoots," with fellow standup comedian Corey Tindall. This spring, Lagala will release her debut, hourlong special on YouTube.

After Diggs performed on the Main Stage at the Flynn, the largest theater in the state, "I didn't feel like there was anything left for me to do in Burlington," he said. "I knew it wasn't going to get bigger than the Flynn. And I don't think I'm the best comedian in the world, but I believe I can hold my own in any room, and I wanted to test that."

Diggs said he is finally starting to see the results of his grind after two years in New York. He's getting more stage time, and he recently released a special called "Unexpectedly Human: A Half Hour With Ash Diggs," now on YouTube. He filmed it at Burlington's Radio Bean during one of his visits back to his old stomping grounds.

While Friml is enjoying success after Vermont, she looks back fondly at her time incubating in the Green Mountain State.

"Those are some of the best, most fun years that I remember," she said. "Every three years or so, the scene deflates as comics leave for other cities, then it swells up and repeats. The vibe I get right now from the Burlington scene is, they're in the middle of the swell. I just hope they're taking it in and enjoying it — don't rush out until you're ready, but if you want to be a career comedian, you don't get too comfortable, either."

Diggs agrees. Coming up in Burlington, he said, is sort of like going to a comedy university.

"You'd be hard-pressed to find a better place to start a career as a standup," Diggs said. He flashed a knowing smile and added: "You just have to know when to leave."

Correction, February 29, 2024: An earlier version of this story misspelled Catrina Hughes' name.