Building a Moontower with Lietza Brass

Have you ever seen that beau­ti­ful sign (it’s actu­al­ly called a blade) on Con­gress in down­town Austin that says Para­mount in beau­ti­ful shin­ing lights? Bet­ter yet, ever been to a show there? Well, you can thank Chief Pro­gram­ming Offi­cer Liet­za Brass for the fan­tas­tic show you expe­ri­enced there. We recent­ly sat down with her, deep in the back rooms of the State­side The­atre on a busy Sat­ur­day dur­ing SXSW, to find out about how she got her start in pro­gram­ming great per­for­mances and became the mas­ter­mind of Moon­tow­er Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val.

A grad­u­ate of The Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas, Brass got her degree in inte­ri­or design, and while that’s a far cry from the­ater pro­duc­tion and pro­gram­ming, it was a very nat­ur­al segue into becom­ing a prop buy­er for The Old Globe The­atre in San Diego. Brass lived there for sev­er­al years and would even­tu­al­ly become the com­pa­ny man­ag­er for The Old Globe, where she real­ly start­ed to learn the busi­ness. How­ev­er in 2002, the Cap­i­tal City beck­oned her back and into the arms of the Austin The­ater Alliance, hous­ing the Para­mount and State­side The­atres, which were pri­mar­i­ly doing musi­cal the­ater pro­duc­tions at the time. For a time she was the event man­ag­er there, but when her super­vi­sor left, she began the intense on-the-job train­ing of becom­ing the book­ing agent for the Paramount.

After Brass took over pro­gram­ming in 2004, the the­ater began to shift focus from the musi­cal the­ater for­mat to a wider vari­ety of pro­duc­tions. Prid­ing them­selves on cater­ing to the enter­tain­ment savvy and high­ly edu­cat­ed audi­ence goers of Austin, they began to move toward a bal­ance of com­mer­cial­ly viable and artis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant pro­gram­ming. These savvy audi­ences ​“like to learn and laugh at the same time,” and the Para­mount offered a per­fect venue for com­e­dy. In addi­tion to com­e­dy being an easy set up for the venue, come­di­ans love the space. Alone on stage, a vel­vet cur­tain behind them, Brass explains, ​“they also have all of this beau­ti­ful archi­tec­ture sur­round­ing them so they have instant inti­ma­cy and it fills in the atmos­phere so they don’t feel so alone.”

See­ing it become a nat­ur­al venue for com­e­dy, dur­ing Thanks­giv­ing break of 2011, the seed was plant­ed for a com­e­dy fes­ti­val to be the next log­i­cal jump. Book­ing one venue was one thing, but an entire fes­ti­val required much big­ger resources. Who else would Brass turn to for such an endeav­or? None oth­er than Cap City Com­e­dy Club​’s Margie Coyle. Hav­ing been in the busi­ness her­self for over two decades and with part­ners, Colleen McGarr and Rich Miller to reach out to, it was a nat­ur­al next step. With­in weeks they were all in a room togeth­er. As it turns out, a fes­ti­val was some­thing the team from Cap City had fre­quent­ly dis­cussed, but lacked a large venue to anchor the mon­u­men­tal under­tak­ing. Like a Reese’s Peanut But­ter Cup of com­e­dy pro­por­tions, each had some­thing the oth­er need­ed to make the per­fect fes­ti­val come togeth­er. Para­mount The­atre (let’s call them the choco­late) and Cap City Com­e­dy Club (the peanut but­ter) each brought some­thing to this sym­bi­ot­ic rela­tion­ship to make the ide­al fes­ti­val for Austin.

In its sev­enth year, Brass says the Moon­tow­er Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val has fine-tuned the logis­tics of the fes­ti­val and cre­at­ed badges that cater to the needs and desires of the hard­core com­e­dy fans they’ve iden­ti­fied and dubbed ​“The War­rior.” But this fes­ti­val isn’t just for the fans, when orga­niz­ing the fes­ti­val, Brass states their mis­sion was to take ​“the best pos­si­ble care of the come­di­ans” so that the fes­ti­val would be a suc­cess. It’s a phi­los­o­phy that has paid off. Come­di­ans now refer to it as ​“Com­e­dy Camp” because it’s so much fun to work and attend. Each year fol­low­ing the fes­ti­val, sur­veys go out to see how peo­ple enjoyed their expe­ri­ence and to give feed­back on how to make it even bet­ter. Iden­ti­fy­ing these met­rics, tak­ing care of the tal­ent, and respond­ing to feed­back has made the fes­ti­val an ever-improv­ing success.

Look­ing for­ward to the 2018 Moon­tow­er line­up, which runs April 18 – 21, they have added even more pod­casts, such as Raised by TV with Lau­ren Lap­kus and Jon Gabrus and Jack­ie Kashian’s The Dork For­est. Brass is look­ing for­ward to the hilar­i­ous and tal­ent­ed Tiffany Had­dish, whose career is red hot right now (in case you hadn’t heard). Moon­tow­er has also added the new venue of Palm Door on Sixth Street, which will be host to Nik­ki Glaser’s new Sir­iusXM show You Up. One more new and excit­ing change this year is the new Net­flix Lounge at the Aloft, which will serve as the lounge for come­di­ans and fes­ti­val goers, as well as host this year’s after par­ty. With the return of the old favorites such as SHE­BANG!, the pro­pri­etary Moon­tow­er all-female show­case, and Ping Pong Slap­down host­ed by the Sklar Broth­ers, Brass is con­fi­dent that the com­bi­na­tion of new and tra­di­tion­al shows will make this year’s Moon­tow­er Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val tru­ly unforgettable.