Most people's first time at a real comedy club comes with a low hum of anxiety: am I going to get picked on? The honest answer is almost certainly no. But there are a few things worth knowing before you walk in, and none of them are complicated.
Nearly every comedy club in New York has one. It means each person in the room orders at least one thing — a cocktail, a beer, a Coke, an order of tots. That's it. It doesn't have to be alcohol and nobody's counting your drinks after the first.
It exists because comedy tickets are cheap and rooms are small. The math on a room this size only works if the bar is doing something while the show is on. At our room that means L'Wren's kitchen, which is the good version of this deal — the minimum is a reason to order the wings, not a tax.
Doors are 30 minutes before showtime. Seating is general admission, which means the room fills front to back and the people who show up early get the seats they want. Arriving at 7:59 for an 8:00 show means you're taking whatever's left, usually standing at the back for the first ten minutes while the host gets going.
Come at 7:30, order your drink before the lights go down, and the whole thing is easier.
Crowd work is real, but it's a small part of most shows, and comics overwhelmingly talk to people in the front row who look happy to be talked to. If you'd rather not, sit in the third row or further back and you will be left alone all night. Nobody is going to drag you on stage.
The two things that actually get you attention from a comic are heckling and talking loudly to your friends during someone's set. Don't do either and you're invisible.
A standard night runs about 75 to 90 minutes: a host who works the room between acts, then somewhere between four and seven comics doing sets of varying length, with the strongest act closing. Some of them you'll have seen on television. Some are working out material that will be on television in two years.
That variety is the point. A show where every comic sounds the same is a worse show, even if every comic is good.
Show up half an hour early, order one thing, sit wherever you like, put your phone away, and let it happen. It's a room full of people who came to laugh, which turns out to be most of what a comedy show needs.
Sunset Park Comedy Club runs Thursday and Friday at 8:00 PM and Saturday at 7:00 PM, in the back room at L'Wren, 4004 5th Ave, Brooklyn.