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Coming up, we introduce you to a trio of comedians from Northeast Ohio, the wily veteran belove by the Cleveland standup scene, a Lorain nativ with a comic style all her own and a young upstart, honing the craft of making people laugh.

Hello and welcome to a special comedy edition of APPLAUSE.

Is anyone here from Northeast Ohio?

You're in for a great time.

I'm your emcee, Kabir Bhatia.

And from Bob Hope to Arsenio Hall.

Northeast Ohio has a lon tradition of stand up comedians making it big.

We're going to add to that list with this trio of comics you're about to meet.

First up is laid back funnyman Ramon Rivas, who got his own Comedy Central special a few years back.

Today, he's a leader o the Northeast Ohio comedy scene.

Let's go behind the scenes with this proud and comedic Clevelander.

Hello.

My name's Ramona Rivas.

I'm from Cleveland, Ohio.

I used to live out there with my siste because it was super duper free.

I comedy because I can say whatever I want when I'm on stage, because sometimes I don't get to do that when I'm offstage because it might be seen as aggressive, but if I'm on stage, you can kind of just have to adjust it and think about it without being able to get upset or, you know, interact in a tangible way.

Like, I talk to you, listen, you laugh like that's the exchange.

It's not anything different.

Oh, no.

Americans are really into policing people's personality when they're comfortable.

I know.

I know.

America is inclusive.

Our founding document starts with We the people.

Oh, my God, that's not inclusive.

We all have a good time, by the way.

AUDIENCE Tonight, that means we all had a good time, if I might.

We the people had a good time.

You like who wasn't the person?

I mean, I feel like comedy is so ingrained in most of pop culture.

There's a White House Correspondents dinner.

It's always a comedian who hosts it.

When they have an award ceremony.

It's usually a comedian o comedic entity hosting the event because it is a skill set that's like valuable to build upon if you're having a live experience.

And it also translates to a literature can be funny you know, it's in everyday like you hang out with your friends who make you laugh the most.

You don't hang out with your w the people who make you cry as much unless you're dating them, in which case you probably are doing both.

He doesn't like one on one situations.

That same day I had picked it was just me and him and I was like, You want to g get some ice cream or some food?

His I would just wait for the other two.

And I was like, Why can't we just go now?

Just be mean you and then we'll come get them and do something else.

He was like I was on my one on one situation giving people the space to to actually have authenti connections and moments without.

Most time you go to a show, you just kind of in your own little bubble and then you leave.

You leave before it pops.

We come in and all our bubbles merge with it's like a community.

So I'm going to slowly mak a song by the end of the night.

And if you feel like singing, submitting, or rapping over the song, you're more than welcome to.

But if you bad everyone's gonna know I got some stuff on Sirius XM, so I started of passive income without having to work.

And like I got my first goes, I got a backlog of money and I got out I yo, what do people with money do?

Because I only by art, that's the first thing.

And then I started thinking I was I could just open the pool for the whole community.

That's how I was growing because I got $2,000.

There's food.

If you if you didn't eat, yo don't even have a little bite, which gives her oil in there.

Oh, and then sofrito.

You can make this from scratch.

You can find it.

Goya.

I hope it looks a little different.

No, darling.

This in the that I always read.

For some reason I get it homemade at home, but it's much more horrible range of mom of the owner makes it marginally more so.

And you think as a professional performer, you know those little things I had hotter talking to the mic how to like keep it down when you at the bar and there's a show happening but you're inside everyone's different of what you it it was so far and she s all she just got the performer so she's kind of out of breath that she was accepting And so but people started yelling turn out to ex all were this frail old black woman accepting a lifetime achievement award.

And I was like comedy has taken me a lot of places.

It's taking me all over the world.

You know, I've traveled all over the country and performed.

I've spent a significant amount of time i New York, in Los Angeles, 2008.

I got to go do this thing called the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which is a huge festival in Edinburgh, Scotland.

And that was really cool because that's like a big there's like thousands of shows on.

And just to be able to run my own hour there, I did my hour 22 times while I was in Scotland.

I did like 58 show over the course of like 22 days.

I, like my youngest nephew, is a little bit of a weirdo.

Like he walked in on me.

I was playing a basketball game on my PlayStation one day.

He's I don't understan why you play this game so much as I always because I'm not athletic enough to play actual basketball.

He's like, No, I get that part.

His I just don't understand.

Like why do people play basketball?

Like, what's the point of a game of basketball?

And I was like, Oh, you scor more points than the other team and you win.

And he's like, Well, why do people want to win?

What's the point of winning?

And I was like, I think it has something to do with their dad's comedy scene.

The song, every comedy scen is its own kind of unique thing.

I mean, it's vibrant.

You can get up every night of the week in Cleveland, you can get up every night.

I live in New York for a year, multiple times, play.

It's very hard to get up every night of the week unless you're past at a certain amount of clubs and good in the indie scene.

And like, you know, there's comics who moved out there who like go from performing, you know, once or twice a night to you're doing once a month, twice a month.

So it's a big drop off out there.

So it's Cleveland's got a very accessible comedy scene.

It's a very equitable comedy scene in the sense of like you could get a lot of stage time without having to jump over a bunch of hurdles or drive super far.

You know, if you live in Dayton, you might have to drive to Columbus, drive to Louisville, drive to Cincinnati to get up that night.

Cleveland You use Lakewood or Cleveland Heights or, you know, Parma.

Everything' really kind of relatively close.

And I was like, You don't want to play these sports, man.

He's like, Now I'm like, Why not?

He thought about for a second.

He was like, I guess I just don't like trying.

I'm a standup comedia with specials on Comedy Central.

It's been a Latino, been on a Netflix show.

I'm an actor.

I've been on Broad City Crashing.

I'm a writer, just mostly fanfiction and then I'm a music producer.

I got two albums out and I'm a community builder.

I run a show every Sunday at Dunlap's Corner Bar in Cleveland, Ohio, and I'm an eminent Latino.

Just because of all those things.

You can find Ramon Rivas and many other Northeast Ohio comics at Dunlap's Corner Bar in Cleveland Our next comedian is a regular at Dunlap's and hosts a comedy and music show on Sunday nights.

Stephanie Janessa is a self-proclaimed loud Latina, awarded the Cleveland Arts Prize in 2023 for her poetry.

Let's meet this Lorain native with a funny flair for the spoken word.

Yeah, the very funny, the very insightful and very revolutionary.

Stephanie Gibney say what drew me over to comedy after after being in poetry was, you know, I grew up lovin stand up comedy, and my mom and I used to watch In Living Color or Saturday Night Live, a lot of Seinfeld.

I grew up loving it, always wanting to do it.

And then, you know, Ramona and I have been friends since high school.

He he got into comedy like straight out of college after a few years, and he'd been doing i for some time, putting on shows.

I've always, you know, gon to his shows, tried to see like live comedy when I could.

And yeah, jus he started running these Friday shows and I was at the first one just kind of watching.

And I was like, I think I'm ready.

How I'm doing tonight.

Oh, he Oh, okay.

That was a good one.

That was a good one.

I was surprised.

I was surprised because, like, judging by the weather today, I was like, ooh, everybody's going to be in their cozy.

But yeah, you know, real cozy.

It is.

I definitely feel like my cultural heritage does play a big part in in my art just because of the environment I grew up in and grew in in a predominantly Puerto Rican sort of like community area of the city with a very rich history.

I grew up wit my mom's side of the family, so all my friends were like Puerto Rican.

Everybody around u was so very much like influenced who I became, ho I sort of relate to the world, my experiences, all of my stories growing up.

It does play a part and it just feels exciting.

I feel like the community I'm a part of is very supportive of one another.

If someone has an idea fo a script or a joke or a sketch they want to do, it's like they can bring it to the group and we'll all kind of like take our expertise and lend it to the project.

So it just feels like very supportive and very, very creative.

Like it's like teemin with inspiration and creativity right now.

So yeah, I remember my kids grandparents, his granddad was like, Why did you give them these toys?

It was like Princess Peach.

I was like, Because he is Mario, He won't play Mario.

All the characters will leave out the girls.

What kind of sick world is this?

It's crazy, Dora.

I was like, Think we agree.

But meanwhil he had a ponytail down to here wearing silk shirts.

Weirdly enough, I feel like because there's such a push now for, like, diversity in comedy, in lineups in, you know, kind of everything we do, we've been really as a society, like, pushed to be like, there's a bunch of white guys on this lineup.

Why is that?

I don't really think too much about i or see it as like a hindrance.

I see it as like a really great perspective that I have that not a lot of people have because of like my background, my experience, Nobody else is going to be able to like, talk about what I'm talking about.

So I don't really mold my set too much to the audience reaction.

Obviously the goal is to get them to laugh righ or to at least feel something.

Comedy has kind of gone beyond like just the laughs.

It's like, What can we get you to feel through the gamut of, like, emotions?

And so I'd like to be doing comedy more, but, you know, I'm a poet at heart, so.

Fine Avenue was first known as Puerto Rican Boulevard.

We all got here by the bootstraps Operation Bootstrap, an illustrious industrious turn means robbery.

Means we rename parts of this hood to remind us of another hood.

Fast forward to now, and I'll tell you how we hav more dollar stores than schools.

My poetry career is probably a little bit different than the traditional, I guess, way of going about it and way of finding success.

You know, I didn't get my degree.

I didn't get an MFA.

I started writing my book without any degrees.

I only recently got m associates during the pandemic.

But I actually do love shopping.

If you can't tell, I love shopping for things you cannot wear to work events and weddings and that people die, then yeah, I have a lot of my debt.

Grandfather's club is.

Those are some of my favorite articles that helped me grow a lot.

I mean, the arts is kind of where I found my voice.

A lot of my confidence, a lot of my just sense of self and being able to like, know I could accomplish something and I found a lot of my community there.

You know, the friends that I have are because of the arts, except for like, you know, my core childhood friends.

But any friend I'm in adulthood now has been because of my involvement in the arts, the community.

I feel there's a big communal aspec to the Cleveland comedy scene.

It's like if you go to the open mics, you all see each other.

There's a few, you know, monthly shows, weekly shows, and if you're out her going to the open mics and, and, you know, doing well and like people can see you working and and taking it seriously, then you know there is a big Yeah, there's like a very big communal aspect I think and like you know, the little things that I'll be like, oh I'll come to the mall.

You could be a model mom, like mama, mama.

And then she yelled at me one day because I was outside playing.

I got all these scars on my knees and she was like, You'r never going to be a model now.

And I was like, That's what was stopping me.

Like, you know, my kids are both sort of artists themselves.

My oldest, you know, wants to get into animation and digital art.

He's also a writer and I think that I would love to give them the opportunity to to like, go out into the world and have a sort of network, you know.

Stephanie Jenny Say co-host a Sunday comedy music and poetry show at Dunlap's Corner Bar in Cleveland.

You know, it's not funny how many people don't know about our free weekly arts and culture newsletter.

It's called The to Do Lis and spotlights arts, news events and trivia from all across the Northeast Ohio region.

No joke.

Please sign up online at arts dot ideastream dot org and thanks.

If you're a fan of Instagram comedy, you might want to follow our next funny man who's barely out of high school.

Elijah Nevils is a rising star, already touring the country at the age of 20.

Nevils got his start on stage as a standup when he was just 14 years old.

Now he's making people laugh like a pro For the mind.

I thin you're going to like him a lot.

Make some noise for the one.

The only wild animals.

Everybody uses.

I think a lot of people look at all these, Well, you could be in a theater and like you could be killing, but like facial expressions mean a lot.

So, like, I've had some show over, like you say, an edgy joke, and you don't know how it went over because you don't see the stink face.

So you don't see the, like confused face in a small club, you know, everybody's opinion on every joke you're telling.

So I know what joke to back this joke with.

Like if I tell this joke and we all got touchy and I can see your face now, I can make the decision if I want to double down or if I want to make a shift.

A more family friendly stuff.

My my cousin, my little cousin just got arrested recently.

He's been going in and out of the system and it's been over a little petty stuff.

And I've been recently like, really?

And you never kno when it gets too far, you know?

I mean, there's always a line with, Oh, we actually have a real problem here.

And I my cousin called me up to pick him up from the police station.

He was right at the police station.

This is when I realized he had a real problem.

Right.

Like, sort of like dude is getting out of hand.

He's like, Dude, I don't have a hollow man.

Take a left right here.

I know Sorcha.

I started comedy seriously when I was like 14.

I watched Dave Chappelle's special Sticks and Stones and my dad told me, like, you should do this.

So he just started sneaking me into bars and stuff and started there.

Kind of started the snowball rolling before when I first started like my first year, I had like, like 500 sets of the like three sets.

And every single night I was always out.

Now I'm kind of only out if I have brand new stuff because like, I don't know, I get robotic if I keep on trying the same thing over and over again.

So like, I, I can't or I can, but I don't sit down and be like, okay, I have to write a joke now.

I'll just be walking or like doing something and it'll hit me and then I kind of write it.

So it's kind of, I don't know, it's more response.

It kind of just happens more than I don't make it happen.

It just does happen.

You know what I mean?

When I do get the material, I kind of write down a little rough outline of it, and then I have to try it on stage, like so like I got I write on stage so I just talk it out on stage and just ramble.

One thing that helps is making my videos, To be honest, I'll record and then just spill everything in my head and then editing kind of shows me what's really not funny when I clip everything out.

I use that to kind of okay those on the set, on stage, and then just figure it out from there.

To be honest, I like to keep it separate.

One reason I like to do my social media in my stage comedy separate is because I don't like when people come to my show and oh, I've heard that online.

I don't like that one.

And then too, I feel like lik if you bought tickets to a show, you deserve something tha you can't find for free online.

This is a message to my mama.

Mama, when are you going understand that just because you lose something don't mean that we stole it.

My mam lost her charger the other day and she hates the group chat.

What?

Death?

My charger adapter out there together somewhere in this house.

If they're unde your possession, please return.

You can leave by my door and walk away slowly.

What kind of John Wic hostage message is this online?

I could just be like, Oh, yeah, Don't you hate when bam, bam, bam happens?

Or my.

Oh, yeah, I do hate that on stage.

I can't just say that I got to have some smart writing backed up behind me.

My parents are out of the country and I'm stuck at home babysittin Now y'all might be thinking, Elijah, don' you got four younger siblings?

Yeah, well, I lost one.

Okay, but don't worry, I still got three left.

That 75% a passing grade mean I miss high school.

I do.

Because, like, my high school was kind of ghetto.

Like every single year at my high school, a teacher would get pregnant.

Yeah, and I was homeschooled, so I'm like, Mom, you got to chill, bro.

Anybody could be watching anything.

The amount of people that just big names that just drop in like open Mike, like, especially out placement work you have.

We had to show Chris Rock to walk in.

He was sa or somebody could just walk in.

They said, Oh, look, my little brother is calling me the one I'm talking about.

I bet you he's asking to use my peers work.

I pick up.

I pick up was like brothers work.

All right, Decide what you want.

I'm at a show right now.

What do you want?

Say what you want right now.

I at All right.

Bye.

My stuff is just more.

I just write clea just because that's just what I what ends up coming out on the pen.

But chart shows are weird.

I've done some for my grandpa's church.

Yeah, Yeah, they're.

They're very fun.

But everybody, the first 5 minutes is like crossing their arms just waiting for you to mess up.

I did one for my grandpa's church, and my uncle came on stage before I even started and whispered to me like, Oh, I don't want to hear none of that mess.

Now I'm writing about y'all and y'all invited me here doing the Tribe.

I feel like older comics kind of resents it.

Like I just was working wit this one comic a little bit ago and she was like, You know, you're doing so great, dude.

But like, you kids got it so much easier than we did.

I'm like, You have social media to do so that you can have it just too easy right now if you got on there.

So I'd recommend unless you want the hard way.

You want the hard way.

By all means, my guy.

Leave it to me.

I'm good.

But my mom she would get worried about you.

She came up to me and she told me to say.

Elijah, what you got in common?

You don't work out.

So you don't need a plan B?

You know plan B, it is crazy hearing it coming from her.

Like you can have a million followers and then only 100,000 fans.

Yeah, I mean, I'm like, if you have the guy with a hundred thousand followers and they're all fans that want to buy a ticket, I'd rather that the more than 3 million followers that are just going to like a video, you know, so they they all bring different things.

It kind of goes back and forth.

Like right now Instagram is working great for a lot of people.

YouTube just helps because it's long form.

So like if you post a comment especially that goes viral on YouTube, if somebody was in their house watching you for an hour, I'm sure they'll buy a ticket to watching for an hour just because somebody can stand you for 30 seconds on Tik Tok doesn't mean they're going to be able to buy a ticket to watch the.

So, you know.

We had creative assistants producing these pieces from students attending the Cleveland State University School of Film and Media Arts.

Thank you to the producers and editors of the future for your work, sharin the stories of these comedians, Now, we need to button things up here and let you know that on the next applause buttons serve mor than just a practical purpose.

They can be miniature works of art me, When you go to the show, the beauty and the craftsman ship that is in these buttons, and then you can see the history of it.

Collectors from across the Buckeye State go bonkers over buttons.

wrote Plus, we share a musical history with a Cleveland Orchestra performance of Tchaikovsky's Joyous Second Symphony.

All that and more in the next round of applause.

I hope you enjoyed this special stan up comedy edition of APPLAUSE.

I'm your host, Ideastream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia, leavin you with some more funny stuff from the stages of Cleveland's comedy clubs.

The guy I'm dating now, he he doesn't have kids, but I know his mom wants grandkids.

She'd be dropping little hints, making more jokes.

I don't know how to tell her.

Her son has me out here chasing a plan B with the number seven from McDonald's every other month.

But it is a large meal because he loves me and I get an apple pie.

You know why?

Because I'm my mother's daughter.

I had take my brother on a road.

I just took off to Arizona and I lost my flight.

My brother got behind it.

He started going off.

And everybody, an airline fellow, I'm like chill bruh I got I don't know what's going on.

I walked the lady one of the flight.

I live with her.

And I said, why?

Okay, okay.

I see what this is.

She said, Sir, this is Spirit Airlines.

Yeah, know.

No.

Americans are really into policing people's personality when they're comfortable.

I know.

I know.

America is inclusive.

Our founding document starts with We the people.

Oh, my God, that's not inclusive.

If I said we all have a good time with the ladies tonight, that means we all had a good time.

If I'm right, we the people had a good time.

You know who wasn't the person?

One of them.

When he's being attacked.

Like what?

Like clap if you don't own property.

You know, we all are people in the structure of the sun.

It's we the people.

Cause people who own property is not a community.

If you're a woman, the whole family going for you because you have to be a man of the people.

And you you're not white man to own property for the bank is a good job.

Even though it's put by your own people.

Either you have to be a white man to own property to be Production of applause and ideastream.

Public media is made possible by funding by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.