The Ashland Sarcasm Festival is a three-day comedy festival that kicks off this Friday in Ashland. Held in various venues across Ashland, from local bars to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Bowmer Theater, the inaugural festival aims to make the Southern Oregon city a destination for comics on the touring circuit in a place more famous for soliloquies than stand-up.
ASF features headliners like nationally renowned comedian, writer and actor Ron Funches, who graduated from high school in Salem and achieved early success in Portland’s stand-up comedy scene before he relocated to Los Angeles in 2012. But it also shines a spotlight on local and regional talent like Carl Lee, a Medford-based comedian and comedy show producer who is hosting two shows at the festival. There’s also live music, improv workshops, drag queen performances and a celebrity roast of William Shakespeare for the final act.
Funches and Lee join us for a discussion, along with Matt Hoffman, the founder and creative director of Storytown, a local arts nonprofit organizing the Ashland Sarcasm Festival.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. The Ashland Sarcasm Festival kicks off on Friday. The inaugural three-day comedy festival will be held in various venues across Ashland, from local bars to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Bowmer Theater.
Matt Hoffman is the founder and creative director of Storytown, the Ashland arts nonprofit that’s organizing the festival. He hopes to make Ashland, a city more famous now for soliloquies than stand up, a destination for comics on the touring circuit.
He joins us now, along with two of the comedians who are taking part. Carl Lee is a Medford-based comic and comedy show producer who’s hosting two shows at the festival. Ron Funches is one of the headliners. He is a comedian, writer and actor who graduated from high school in Salem and achieved early success in Portland’s stand-up scene before moving to Los Angeles in 2012. Welcome to all three of you.
Carl Lee: Thank you.
Matt Hoffman: Thank you.
Ron Funches: Thank you.
Miller: Matt Hoffman, first – what was the spark for this festival?
Hoffman: The spark came out of this idea of rebranding Ashland as Storytown, with the goal to bring more experiences outside of Shakespeare, knowing that Shakespeare’s been so successful over the years and just feeling like we wanted to diversify the experiences. So the comedy festival, we’re calling it the Sarcasm Festival, was one of the first things we proposed, and it got the best response from people. Everybody just kind of latched onto it.
Miller: What is Storytown?
Hoffman: Storytown is a rebrand for Ashland at its core. A friend of mine who’s an advertising person in Portland, we’re sitting drinking wine after I had moved back to Ashland with my family and just feeling like the town needed a boost. It kind of lost its groove a little bit, had become a retirement community. So Storytown is a way to rebrand Ashland, almost like Portland being Stumptown, Eugene is Tracktown, so why couldn’t Ashland be Storytown?
Miller: And how does comedy fit into that?
Hoffman: Well, comedy is storytelling, really. If you even think about Shakespeare, you think of the comedies and tragedies together. It feels like there’s a connection to the roots of Ashland through storytelling. And the best comics are great storytellers. So it just feels right.
Miller: Carl, I think I heard some of your “mhms” there. How did you get started in comedy?
Lee: Well, the bug hit me when I was a young boy, man. It goes back to before I even understood what stand-up was, I already had a thing for comedy going back to a love for the “Dick Van Dyke Show,” “Mork and Mindy,” “I Love Lucy” and things like that. And then as I get older you see “Saturday Night Live,” you see Eddie Murphy, and then I see “Eddie Murphy: Delirious,” and then it just start clicking from there, understanding what stand-up is and what comedy is.
A lot of our comedians, you first see them on sitcoms, but I learned they were comics first. My love came from when I was a young boy, and that “Eddie Murphy: Delirious” just really hit me to the core. I knew like this is something that I wanted to do, so it dates way back then.
Miller: Would you ever wear any of the leather bodysuits that he wore in that or in “Raw”?
Lee: I sure would. I think “Raw” is probably my favorite one.
Miller: That’s the red one, right?
Lee: No, that’s the purple and black.
Miller: “Delirious” was the red one.
Lee: I was feeling the “Raw” one a little better cause he had the sexy scarf around his neck. I don’t know if you all remember that. Later on during the show, he took the scarf off and the ladies lost it. [Laughter] But I think I would rock that purple.
Miller: How would you describe the Southern Oregon comedy scene right now?
Lee: It’s a gem. I came out here in ‘04 and I started Chadwick’s, my comedy club, in ‘05. It just brought out so many comics from all over, and they just fell in love with Medford, just fell in love with the people, the people embrace comedy and just love it. It’s grown so much, it’s a gem, but it’s one of those areas that you would never even think of. Because when I came through Oregon, I never heard of Medford. And honestly, I never heard of Oregon except for the Portland Trail Blazers.
But now, knowing that the scene has grown so much in the last 20 years, it’s just an amazing thing. And Matt’s adding the Sarcasm Fest, it’s just going to enhance the comedy scene that much more.
Miller: Ron, you’re performing in Ashland for this festival, headlining on Saturday night. The night before, you’re going to be in Salem where, as I mentioned, you went to high school. What’s it like these days to do shows back in Oregon?
Funches: It’s weird because a lot of my friends try to come in and do shows and take advantage of me, knowing that they’re not at the level to be on the show, that they shouldn’t be doing it. And you got to dodge some people and talk to people from your high school that you were like, “You didn’t care when I was doing comedy the past 20 years, why are you comin’ back around now?”
But the positives of it are that it’s nice to see what the community has changed and grown into from when I started in Portland, when it was just strictly a music town, a Modest Mouse town. And they didn’t pay attention to comedy at all for most of the first 10 years I was doing it there. To go back now and see things like Kickstand Comedy and the Comedy in the Park, where there’ll be like 3,000 people out in the park in the middle of the summer to come see comedy, or things that I could have never imagined when I started.
So now, to see scenes that are building in Ashland and Eugene with the Olsen Run in Portland itself and Salem, and to know that I’m a big part of that … I was one of the first comedians from Oregon to be on a national stand up since the ‘80s. Mostly, I just keep my head down and work. But then now, to come back around and see all these people that have been inspired by some of the things that I did or don’t even know I did them, but I know the path that I laid, it makes me very proud.
Miller: Is there any part of you that’s jealous that the comedy infrastructure that exists now, that it wasn’t there when you were getting started in Portland?
Funches: No, no, I love it. I’m not jealous of it because I don’t think I’d be as good of a comedian if it was as easy. It was a badge of honor to go to Suki’s and have anyone even listen. I’ve been up and down the I-5 every which way, every single town, doing shows in small, little craft stations in Yakima or doing truck stops in Tukwila – those are things I’m proud of. To go from that, to being on television and being in movies, and like knowing that it’s all comedy, it’s all the same. That’s the thing that makes it fun for me and keeps me connected is knowing that the job is the same no matter if you’re doing it on TV or at an open mic, you just gotta love it.
Miller: But it also sounds like you’re saying that it made you a better comic because you weren’t in places where people were used to stand-up or ready to laugh, you had to work harder to get them to laugh.
Funches: Well, not only that, because I would say people still have to work hard. The entertainment business in general is not at a space where anyone doesn’t work hard. I would just say that there was no track. So in that, there’s the negative of you don’t know what to do. But there is a positive of there was no one for me to copy. And that’s what I loved about the Portland scene, especially when I was coming up, is that we were all very much just doing it because we loved it. None of us even fathomed that we would be doing it nationally or on television. And I think that just doing it uniquely and out of your love of it made us all have our own voices quicker. And so there’s a positive to that.
Miller: Carl, I heard a lot of “yeses” from you there. What was your experience starting out doing comedy in Southern Oregon?
Lee: So I was already a professional comic. And I love what Ron brought up about the grind, when you’re at the truck stops, when you’re at the little places that’s not really a comedy crowd or a comedy venue, it’s just a bar that happens to have “comedy night.” I came up and I was going to college in Wisconsin, and my town only had one night of comedy in the hotel, and they weren’t even interested in giving anybody locally anytime.
So I created the scene for myself. I just went around performing at different venues trying to just give myself some stage time. If I really wanted to be in a real comedy club, I had to drive two-and-a-half hours every Monday to get up to Minneapolis to get some open mic at the Acme Comedy Club. So that was my grind.
And then when I bounced from Wisconsin and I got to Arizona, I started with the Arizona scene, was doing bars and going all around Tucson, Prescott, Flagstaff, all these areas. So then I became a touring comic in 2001. I’m pretty sure Ron remembered this name, David Tribble?
Funches: Mhm.
Lee: So I was doing David Tribble runs. I’m telling you, we were in Idaho, Montana, doing bars. And it was everything from racial tension, just a drunk crowd who just really have nothing to do but go out and so they so happen to be doing a comedy show. So to Ron’s point about the grind, you’ve experienced all that, all that drama, that mess, but you can’t wait to do it again.
Miller: Matt, go back to this new festival, you mentioned that Ashland had changed. It’s become, in your words, a retirement community. What do you remember about Ashland in the ‘80s when you were growing up?
Hoffman: I remember a very fun and funny town. The Shakespeare Festival, I feel, was more involved with the community in a way. During the 4th of July there’d be a parade, there’d be dancing wontons, there’d be a float of people just named Dave. So if your name was Dave, you could join the float. And I remember the Shakespeare Festival having a float, and the actors would be marching in the parade. The town just had this magical whimsy to it. And it still does.
We also had a gay bar that was right in the middle of town, so there was always just this kind of, I guess you’d call it sarcastic energy that was like right next to the Shakespeare Festival bricks. There was Cook’s Tavern, and there was music always pumping from that bar.
I just feel like Ashland needs to get its groove back.
Miller: A lot of what you’re talking about, it seems like it’s just sort of homemade. I’m wondering how you feel like you can recreate that as a kind of branding exercise? How from the bottom up you can recreate some of that magic?
Hoffman: Well, to me, that’s exactly why we’re including the homespun comedy scene of Southern Oregon and mixing it with nationally recognized comedians year one. I think that’s the magic mix of someone starting out. We’ve been holding competitions for comics to earn their spot. We had four competitions, I was a judge in two of them. These comics are funny, the local comics are great. I was crying because it was so funny. So, to me, that’s the homespun part of it.
And then Ashland just can’t help itself as a community. Once you come through the town, you’re kind of charmed by it. And it just has that homespun kind of funky, hippie vibe.
Miller: Carl, so there are headliners like Ron, who is with us now, and Moshe Kasher, Amy Miller, who also used to be from Portland, was on our show a couple of times. Who are some of the other current Oregon comics that you think fellow Oregonians should know about?
Lee: We could stay here, right here in Medford, Southern Oregon. We have DJ Kamoflage and Nick Meier. We have a few guys in the Medford scene who’re gonna be on the festival who are pretty funny guys, that’s gonna bring something to the table.
So far as the Oregon scene – we have a guy out of Portland, Adam Pasi, I think that’s his name, I can’t recall.
Funches: That’s who I was gonna say! I love him. He’s hilarious.
Lee: He is, he’s gonna rock it, and I’m so glad to have them here. Then we got a few coming from Washington, Lynette Manning and Sam Miller.
I think it’s great that we’re bringing Pacific Northwest here to Ashland, because we got some nice heavy hitters out here in the Pacific Northwest that get slept on. This is a great opportunity for them to be able to be part of a caliber show like this, so people can get to see who they are, and also so they can experience that themselves and deposit that into who they wanna be in this business and how they see themselves.
Hoffman: And I would just add that part of the reason we’re calling ourselves the Sarcasm Festival is that we are focused on telling jokes on stage. But we’re also, we have a Dungeons and Drag Queens experience, we’ve got a dirty game show that Jay Light’s running. We’re going to have music both nights, Friday and Saturday, so we’re mixing music and comedy. We want it to just be this experience that we’re not just laughing, but we’re gonna dance, we’re gonna hear music. And we want the comics who come to feel rewarded for coming. They’re going to have stories, they’re going to have material to use, because it’s such a unique town.
Miller: Ron, I mentioned Matt’s multi-year plan to make Southern Oregon more known as a stop on the comedy circuit. What do you think it would take to have that happen?
Funches: I think it comes from willpower and determination, and community. It’s gonna take not just a big event like this but also maintaining the community throughout the year. But I think this is what a festival like this does provide, and I think it was a great point said earlier, is that it gives the comedians something to look forward to. When you’re doing small road gigs or you’re doing gigs where people don’t want you to even be doing comedy … which I’ve never even faulted them. If you’re doing comedy at a bar and other people want to talk, I get it.
Lee: Exactly, Ron. We’re interfering with their day.
Funches: Exactly. So it’s nice to have an opportunity to be wanted and be celebrated. I think that gives you something to look forward to and it gives the community a jumpstart. It’s similar to what I’m doing in Salem – they’ve been hosting a few competitions to have someone host for me there, and it gives the comedians there something to push for and to compete over.
And that, overall, is what you want to [do], just continue to build a community, to have this north star, like the Sarcasm Festival. But then off of that, you want to have the coffee house shows, you want to have a community that’s building, traveling to Portland, traveling to Eugene, connecting Oregon all together. And that’ll build it up together. In Eugene, they’re building, in Salem, in Portland, and I think, overall, Oregon has a tremendous scene of being a place that is both well read and likes to party. And that makes great comedians. So I want to support it.
Lee: Right on.
Miller: Carl, I mentioned that you’re gonna be hosting two nights. For people who aren’t familiar with what that word means, it basically means doing a short set to warm up the crowd and then often a little bit of jokes between some of the other comedians who follow. How do you approach hosting?
Lee: It means the world to me. That’s how I broke into comedy clubs. I earned my stripes to become a feature, then worked my way to the headliner. Comedy clubs wanted you to earn your stripes, come in and host first. I would go around these comedy clubs and host, make a couple hundred dollars, very fortunate that they gave me a hotel room or I stayed in a condo. But that, to me, became such an important responsibility for me, to go up front and get that crowd going. Not only that, but to give them a great solid set, great solid material, and make sure the comics, the feature and the headliner was set up well.
And also, you gotta know the comics’ introductions, you gotta know how to pronounce their names, you gotta do everything on point, because you’re truly the unsung hero of the show as a host. So that means the world to me going up front and making sure someone like Ron is just sitting in the back and just can hear that energy, hear the laughter, and everything is just going right and just setting them up for him to take it home.
Funches: I love what you said because hosting is such a tremendous skill that is separate from being a stand-up itself, but it’s just as important. One of the lessons that I learned from an early age that I think gets lost – the more I travel and see a newer generation of comedians – is that in order to be a good headliner, you need to be a good host. Because when you’re a good host, you’re setting the table, you’re relaxing everyone, you’re getting everybody on board for the evening. You know going in, “I’m not going to be the person they’re talking about at the end.” But it’s my job to set up the show so that the headliner can crush.
And if you can do that, you move up a lot quicker than someone who is just worried about themselves. There’s been so many times where I’ve gone to shows and the host doesn’t know how to pronounce my name, which was something, when I even couldn’t find it easily, was something I prided myself on. It was like, “I know your name. I know your credits before you even got here.”
Miller: It’s a basic thing. As a different kind of host myself, I can say that it is something you have to do, know how to just pronounce a person’s name that’s going to be a part of the thing you’re a part of.
Lee: And what Ron talked about it being a skill is something that a lot of up-and-coming comics don’t understand. If you wanna put them in a hosting spot, they consider it an insult. They consider it as like, “I’m no host, I don’t wanna host.” They don’t see that as being a significant part in the lineup. Actually, it’s part of the most important part in the lineup.
Miller: Carl, Ron’s with us obviously right now. I mentioned Amy Miller earlier who also was a Portland-based comedian who went to LA. You’ve done shows all over the country, you are a successful traveling comedian, and you’ve chosen to stay in Southern Oregon. Why?
Lee: The way this town has embraced me, to show me love. When I come off the road and I come back here, I just get nurtured. The community nurtures me, my wife nurtures me. Just to be around this small community of people who have helped me grow as a man and as a comedian. Ron knows, when you in LA, you in LA. It’s a whole different beast out there. So what kind of attachments do a lot of comics, especially in Ron’s position have?
Me, I’m very fortunate that I can go to LA and get some spots, do the Laugh Factory, do the Comic Store, get some good spots and hang out, or go to New York and do some stuff, or go wherever I go, and come back and just get rejuvenated, energized again, and just get all this love from here.
And also, I love being here and running my comedy show when I’m off the road. Medford has been a real good place for me just to keep growing and evolving, just the nurturing. Being here, you get to just gather yourself, normalize life for a little bit, then go back on the road and do what you do.
Miller: Matt, I have to ask you, on Sunday, the last day of the festival, there’s gonna be a celebrity roast of William Shakespeare. I get it, it makes sense, it’s a Shakespeare town, but how do you make that funny?
Hoffman: I have no idea.
Funches: Haha! [Laughter]
Miller: OK, that’s not your job. OK.
Hoffman: You know, we’re bringing in some heavy hitters. That’s the fun of a little town, we’re kind of sneaking in by not trying to act too big year one, but we’re bringing in some heat. These people roast historical figures for a living. That’s their thing.
Miller: That’s a thing?
Hoffman: Oh yeah. We’re gonna capture it on camera so they can put it on their YouTube and add William Shakespeare to their list. And the really fun part of this is that some of the comedians from the week are gonna play the historical characters. So Jay Light, I think, is William Shakespeare. I think Amy Miller’s in it as well, she might be Queen Elizabeth?
And this is a way I think to embrace the history of Ashland as a Shakespeare town, because we’re not negating Shakespeare in any way. We’re celebrating the fact that Ashland is this magical place where stories are told on stage, and we’re leaning into it and presenting the locals something that they can embrace and digest.
Miller: Ron, are you gonna be Hamlet on Sunday?
Funches: [Laughs] I’m gonna come in and do some Othello, make the beast with two backs!
You didn’t think I’d have a Shakespeare joke ready, did you!? [Laughter]
Miller: Nothing you do surprises me. I expect nothing but the best from you. Ron, Carl and Matt, it was great talking to all three of you.
Funches: A pleasure.
Hoffman: Thank you.
Lee: Likewise.
Miller: Matt Hoffman is the founder and creative director of Storytown, the Ashland arts nonprofit that’s organizing the first-ever Ashland Sarcasm Festival, which kicks off on Friday. Ron Funches is one of the headliners. He is a comedian, writer and actor from Salem who went from the Portland stand-up scene to Los Angeles about a dozen years ago. Carl Lee is going to be hosting two shows at the festival. He is a Medford-based comedian.
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