Marty Clarke - Comedy Team Captain

In Wis­con­sin, Mar­ty Clarke served as team cap­tain for his high school foot­ball, bas­ket­ball, and base­ball teams. If you know any­thing about what it takes to be a team cap­tain (of mul­ti­ple teams, and in a cold cli­mate), you know it involves focus on per­for­mance, abil­i­ty to mul­ti-task, and most impor­tant­ly, being good at moti­vat­ing your team mates through thick and thin. The cap­tain has to main­tain this through not only the vic­to­ries but the chal­lenges that a team may face. Those skills have served Mar­ty well as he has tak­en on a role sim­i­lar to the team cap­tain role for the Austin com­e­dy scene.

Clarke got his start in com­e­dy in Madi­son, learn­ing many valu­able lessons about run­ning com­e­dy shows. One les­son he learned ear­ly on was to always be espe­cial­ly wel­com­ing with those try­ing their first open mic. It was a les­son he saw first­hand when he first start­ed, and one that has stayed with him. He con­tin­ues to prac­tice the les­son at his Austin open mic, Lucky Duck, by mak­ing sure to intro­duce new comics to oth­ers. He under­stands this net­work­ing style may be unfa­mil­iar to some, but chal­lenges the men­tal­i­ty that often accom­pa­nies many com­e­dy scenes: ​“it’s not us against them or them against them or ter­ri­to­r­i­al. It should just be we’re all just the Island of Mis­fit Toys. We all just want friends.”

Anoth­er les­son Clarke inter­nal­ized and prac­tices is doing research before launch­ing a show that might be a bit risqué. Mar­ty is not afraid to try new things, and one of his raci­er shows in Madi­son, Skin­ny Dip, relies on comics expos­ing them­selves (down to their skivvies). Clarke stud­ied sim­i­lar shows and his focus he says ​“was always about body pos­i­tiv­i­ty and sup­port­ive­ness.” He went to a lot of Bur­lesque and drag shows and got input from his LGBTQ+ friends to make sure that he was on the right track. ​“I knew it could­n’t be tox­ic. It could­n’t be tox­ic mas­culin­i­ty. It could­n’t be any­thing that had any­thing to do with judg­ing peo­ple. It had to be sup­port­ive. And I knew sup­port­ive­ness was the cor­ner­stone of that show,” he says. He got a pos­i­tive response – and even acco­lades – from the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty in Madi­son for hav­ing done his home­work. He also ran a few Skin­ny Dips shows in Austin before the COVID-19 shut­down, and hopes to relaunch with the same sup­port­ive ideals.

As you can see, Madi­son pro­vid­ed a trea­sure trove of learn­ing. But it was recent trans­plant to Austin Mar­tin Henn (also from Wis­con­sin) who con­vinced Clarke to pack his bags (ok, his back­pack) and plant roots in Austin. He was able to devel­op his com­e­dy and start eval­u­at­ing the scene before he start­ed pro­duc­ing a show here or there all before the COVID-19 shutdown. 

After the sum­mer of 2020, Clarke was unem­ployed and eager to stay busy, so he stud­ied venues around town per­son­al­ly and start­ed book­ing shows one by one under the name Rough Cut Com­e­dy, a pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny start­ed by Gabriel Cava­zos. And you can look at the Com­e­dy Wham events cal­en­dar and see that there is a Rough Cut Com­e­dy show near­ly every night of the week, each with a dif­fer­ent hook.

Why does he like to pro­duce a vari­ety of shows? He admits: ​“you want to have as many one off or gim­micky shows as you can. That’s why I have a sto­ry­telling show. And that’s why I have a roast bat­tle show. That’s why I like to run shows with bands. Some­thing that gives it some kind of rea­son for peo­ple to come out.” 

And the push­back he received about hav­ing live com­e­dy when COVID-19 was still prevalent? 

He believes every­one is enti­tled to their opin­ions, but as a self-admit­ted ​“old soul”, he real­izes that with any endeav­or that might raise the ire of oth­ers, ​“There’s gonna be mad peo­ple mad about any­thing you do, regard­less of where you are in life. So what you do is you just keep your friends close and you sur­round your­self with pos­i­tive good peo­ple.” Despite that push­back, Clarke still feels hap­py to be part of the Austin com­e­dy scene: ​“I’m so glad to call this place my home and to call myself part of the Austin com­e­dy scene.”

Of course the biggest news that Mar­ty has to share was how a whim text to Rebec­ca Trent set in motion the recent announce­ment that the recent­ly shut­tered New York City insti­tu­tion The Creek and the Cave (which Trent has whol­ly owned and run since 2006) would relaunch in down­town Austin at 611 E 7^th Street. At the first Lucky Duck open mic since the news broke, Clarke shared the sto­ry with the comics and he told them ​“we’re gonna have our own club, because that’s what it is. It’s the scene’s club. And I love that about it.“

His gen­uine excite­ment shines through, even though a few times through­out the process it wasn’t clear the club relo­ca­tion would actu­al­ly work out. ​“The uni­verse some­times just gives you things and it works out”, Clarke says.

His goal with The Creek and the Cave Austin is for it to be sup­port­ive and have it viewed as ​“a com­e­dy club for the entire scene. It’s not going to be com­pet­i­tive or cliquey? . It’s going to be sup­port­ive of all dif­fer­ent Arts in Austin, espe­cial­ly the com­e­dy scene, which is gonna be great.”

Any­one that knows any­thing about what The Creek and the Cave has done in New York under­stands that it has wel­comed a wide vari­ety of com­ic voic­es to its stage, some­times to a fault. Some recent press (a recent arti­cle about alt-right com­e­dy per­form­ers find­ing space to per­form there) shone a light on that fault line. 

Despite that, it’s very clear that Trent is a force to be reck­oned with as Clarke describes her as the ​“God­moth­er of New York Com­e­dy”, a title any­one would be hard pressed to chal­lenge and whose skills clear­ly bring peo­ple togeth­er. That’s exact­ly what this scene will ben­e­fit from. Along with Clarke’s wel­com­ing and team cap­tain sup­port stylings, Colton Dowl­ing (anoth­er co-own­er of the Austin venue) will bring his strong con­nec­tion to the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty and nation­al net­work of comics. Clarke ful­ly expects that The Creek and the Cave Austin will be a wel­com­ing venue. 

We have seen first-hand Clarke putting on shows every day of the week with Rough Cut Com­e­dy, and with his new role with The Creek and the Cave Austin, he will be busier than ever. The club is set to launch April 1, 2021 and we’re won­der­ing if he’ll have his #1 Dad ball cap on. Even if he doesn’t, you can be sure he’ll be cheer­ing every­one on.

Mar­ty can be seen and heard:

• Almost every night of the week at Rough Cut Com­e­dy Shows 
• Work­ing to launch The Creek and the Cave Austin on April 1, 2021 at 611 E. 7^th Street in down­town Austin

Fol­low Mar­ty -

• Twit­ter — @ComedianMarty
• Insta­gram — @comedianmarty
• Face­book — Face​book​.com/​M​a​r​t​y​.​C​larke
• Do 512 — Do512​.com/​M​a​r​t​y​-​C​larke
• Rough Cut Com­e­dy on Face­book — Face​book​.com/​r​o​u​g​h​c​u​t​c​omedy
• The Creek and the Cave Austin — @creekandcaveatx