Laugh out loud at The Playground 311, SU’s student-run comedy club
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It was 10 minutes past 8 p.m. last Wednesday, when “we’re already full” could be heard from the bouncer. This was met with groans from those still waiting in line, which was about 20 people deep in the backyard of the Comstock Avenue residence. In just 10 minutes, all 54 seats had been taken.
“They could maybe sit on the stairs,” senior television, radio and film student Liz Goldblatt said, convincing the bouncer that maybe two or three more people could squeeze in. She is one of the cofounders of The Playground 311, along with James Cunningham and Sophie Schlosser.
This was the first comedy show where The Playground tried a “first come, first serve” policy, instead of using RSVPs like it did in the last three shows. It clearly worked — the student-run comedy club seemed to be in high demand.
At the bottom of the stairs, attendees were welcomed into a basement basked in blue LED lights, buzzing with mingling people as they settled into their seats. The ambiance stood out in particular — there was an eclectic collection of thrifted couches and stools against an ironic tapestry of “The Last Supper” hanging on the back wall. Three individual white doors were the backdrop of the homemade wooden stage, with the words “B.R.M. THE PLAYGROUND” artistically graffitied on them in blue spray paint. Electric tea lights lined the bottom of the stage.
“Are you guys ready for the show?!” Carly Murray, a communications and rhetorical studies sophomore, asked.
Murray, a first-time host, warmed up the crowd and announced there was a birthday girl in the room. As a result, she made the whole crowd sing “Happy Birthday” in unison.
The Playground is currently the only stand-up comedy venue for Syracuse University students. Although this project is only about a month old, its conception has been brewing since the 2021 fall semester.
When Cunningham, a television, radio and film junior, met Goldblatt in a comedy writing class last semester, he did not plan on eventually going to her with a business proposal, which he crafted over winter break while he was applying for internships at comedy clubs. He thought that creating his own comedy club would be a great way to gain firsthand experience.
“You’re not going to see just one friend group there,” Cunningham said. “You see people and performers from all across campus in one spot, which I think is so cool.”
Cunningham has wanted to try stand-up comedy since he was a little kid. The Playground would be a natural extension of his current podcast show, “Bad Role Models,” or BRM. Just as his show aims to bring together different people of all sorts to discuss current issues, Cunningham wanted to create a comedy club for SU students of all walks of life to come together and laugh.
Cunningham considered Goldblatt a natural candidate to create a comedy club with. As a four-year member of SU’s improv team, Zamboni Revolution, Goldblatt had the experience and the connections to become one of The Playground’s main comics and the head of talent acquisition— all potential comics go through her first.
“I thought she was so funny,” Cunningham said. “She’s hilarious.”
Last week, The Playground tried a “first come, first serve” policy for attendees instead of using RSVPs as they’d done in the past. It was a success, and all 54 seats for the show sold out shortly after 8 p.m. Courtesy of Plum Sawatyanon
After weeks of sitting on Cunningham’s proposal, Goldblatt texted him back a half hour after he proposed his idea to Schlosser, a television, radio and film junior, on the way back from a comedy show at the Funny Bone, an adult comedy club at Destiny USA. Schlosser was enthusiastic about the opportunity of creating a space where she felt like she truly belonged.
“I’m in Greek life here, but I have not found my place yet on campus,” she said. “That is, until we launched The Playground, and now I just really feel at home in that environment.”
Schlosser is also one of the main comics and runs The Playground’s Instagram page, helping with the production of the show.
Goldblatt offered up her basement as a venue, which was already known as “The Playground” amongst her friends. She said she thought the name was fitting, as the members of her household worked with the random things the previous “frat bro” tenants left when decorating the basement.
“We totally made it fun and playful. If you go in there, there’s like random mannequin parts and megaphones and wigs and all this goofy stuff that just makes you happy,” Goldblatt said.
Murray is one of Goldblatt’s seven other roommates at the house on Comstock Avenue. She makes the graphics for the Instagram page and works with the other roommates to get the house ready for guests every Wednesday night.
“Every single person in this house is essential to making this happen,” Murray said.
After they invited 35 people to the first show on Feb. 9 and almost double the amount of people came, Murray knew the club would be special.
At first, the performers came from friends of Cunningham, Goldblatt and Schlosser. But as the shows got more popular, more and more people began to message the Instagram account wanting to try their hand at comedy.
“So many random people are interested in this who wouldn’t have been before. (I even) have people on the rowing team telling me they want to try stand-up now.” Goldblatt said.
Zach Cohen saw an opportunity to give comedy, a personal love of his, a shot when The Playground opened.
Without this opportunity, Cohen supposed that he wouldn’t have tried his hand at stand up until his mid 40s. Hannibal Buress and Pete Davidson are two comics that Cohen said he keeps at the front of his mind when writing the material he plans to try out.
The different sets at the Wednesday show touched on many different topics, including dealing with body dysmorphia, experiences with drugs, gripes with corporate America and even the simple dilemma of figuring out what to order at the Schine Student Center.
Organizers of The Playground said the comedy club aims to be like a beacon of warmth in Syracuse, hoping that diverse people of all identities and life experiences feel welcomed to perform and enjoy the show.
“I feel like so many people here are struggling all the time, with mental health and with sexuality, or situations with their families, or whatever it is,” Goldblatt said. “As much as the school can talk about this and offer up resources, it’s not going to be the same as looking at people who go to your same school and laughing with them and getting that space to talk about it.”