Comic Mike Stricker is about three-quarters of the way toward an impressive goal. “I’ve been trying to perform at all 50 states,” he said. “After next month, I’ll be up to 38.”
Luckily for locals, the Westmont resident will be performing in town on April 1 when he hosts the Funnier By The Lake Comedy show at The Laughing Academy in Glenview.
“I’ve always known I was funny — the way I connect with people, especially at work,” Stricker said.
Yes, despite traveling the country with his comedy, Stricker has a day job as an office manager. He used to do social media marketing but switched careers because, “the job I have now has me out the door by 5 p.m. so I can go be a comedian or dad or whatever else I’ve got to do,” Stricker explained. His children are 3 years old and nine months old.
“I’m trying to aggressively pursue comedy but also be a present dad,” he said.
Stricker didn’t begin doing standup until 2012, which makes his countrywide performance achievement even more impressive.
“I went to an open mic at a place I was doing some freelance social media work for,” Sticker related of his standup start. “I did my set and I got lucky. Two show bookers were in the room. They offered me shows.”
Stricker has been doing comedy ever since.
He plans to share some new jokes he has been working on at The Laughing Academy. “I’m going to talk about my dislike of cheese quite a bit,” he revealed. “It’s something I’ve been very passionate about right now.”
Mary Kate Beck will be the featured comic at the April 1 show.
“I’ve always been somewhat of a storyteller,” Beck said. “In college, I’d get really excited when I could tell a funny story and make people laugh. I’ve always had a sense of humor around stuff that happens in life.”
In 2017, Beck began taking standup writing classes at the Annoyance Theatre and then improv classes at iO Theater. “At the end of the standup writing class, you had to do a performance for your friends and family to perform what you worked on for that six-week period,” Beck said. “I didn’t bomb so that kind of lit the fire and helped me take it a little more seriously.”
Beck has performed at Zanies, Comedy Bar, Laugh Factory, and other local spots. “My goal this year is to travel more,” she said.
Her noncomedy hours are spent doing recruiting for a large tax company.
On April 1, Beck will talk about her life. “I usually tell jokes about growing up on the South Side of Chicago,” she said. “I try to keep it very autobiographical.”
Performing comedy is a thrill for Beck, she said. “I love the adrenaline rush,” she said. “I love the fear right before you go onstage. Making a room of 100 or 200 people laugh at your material is one of the most gratifying experiences.”
The headliner will be Kenyon Adamcik, who has performed at Laugh Factory, Zanies, Comedy Bar, Good Nights, and Helium, and across the country.
“In elementary school, our grandma would say, ‘Everybody’s good at something’ and I was like, ‘I don’t know if I’m good at anything,'” Adamcik recalled. “But I would always make my friends laugh.”
His decision to pursue comedy came at an unusual place.
“I was 17 years old and my friend took me to an atheist church — which sounds like a paradox,” Adamcik related. “They were talking about goals.” He told them his goal was to do standup comedy and they helped him figure out the steps he had to take.
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“Two weeks later, I started writing jokes,” he said. “My friend dragged me to my first open mic in North Carolina at this place that no longer exists called Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club, which was across the street from a cornfield in the middle of nowhere. I was super nervous, my legs were shaking onstage, but every little joke got a laugh. Since then I’ve been pursuing it relentlessly.”
At 21, Adamcik moved to Chicago with friends to do more comedy. Daytimes, he works for a startup company called Probi.
During his set at The Laughing Academy, the comic said he will be talking about “relationships — that’s a big part of my act — drinking, I’m half Salvadoran so I talk about that, and my mom’s deaf. It’s all pretty personal.”
Highland Park resident Larry Bloom started Funnier By The Lake Comedy in 2014. “I had been doing standup myself for a while but I also have a background in business development and managing large events,” he said. He combined those skills to create the company.
Comics apply to perform at the events that Bloom arranges at The Laughing Academy and several other venues using a form on the Funnier By The Lake Comedy website.
The Funnier By The Lake Comedy shows are at The Laughing Academy the first Friday of every month.
Academy After Hours — Funnier By The Lake Comedy
When: 8 p.m. April 1
Where: The Laughing Academy, 3230 Glenview Road, Glenview
Tickets: $25
Information: 847-748-7490; funnierbythelake.com
Myrna Petlicki is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.