The next Leno in the making? Watch a video of the comics’ final exam

Jamie Frank burst into tears before going on stage Wednesday night. She was that nervous. But she had fun once in front of the microphone at DC’s Bar & Grill. With the lights in her eyes she couldn’t see the crowd.

Jamie Frank burst into tears before going on stage Wednesday night. She was that nervous. But she had fun once in front of the microphone at DC’s Bar & Grill. With the lights in her eyes she couldn’t see the crowd.

“I wasn’t scared at all when I got up there,” says the 32-year-old Frank. “… I like being on stage.”

While on stage, Frank riffed on car vandalizations, Santa, nursing homes and trying to fit Depend adult diapers into her skinny jeans.

Living in a nursing home wouldn’t be bad — especially for promiscuous seniors, she told DC’s audience.

“You’d have plenty of doors to knock on at night,” she said. And because of Alzheimers and dementia, the next day she said “half the people wouldn’t even remember who you are.”

Jamie wants to be a comedian. Wednesday’s performance was her first time telling jokes onstage. The stage time was the final for the four-week introduction to stand-up comedy class Jamie took at Renton Technical College. Six others took the class. But Jamie is the only student who wants to be a comedian.

Most the other students enrolled to get ahead in their careers.

“I thought it would help me in sales and help me relate to people,” said Julie Meadows, a real-estate agent.

Trent Barry wants to improve his PowerPoint presentations. Fritz (his stage name), who works for Verizon, and Pat Detmer, a marketing and sales consultant, also enrolled for business reasons. Pat also took the class as a personal challenge.

“I periodically like to do something not usual, that’s a little scary and takes me out of my comfort zone,” Pat says.

Guy Graham’s church paid for his enrollment.

Jamie’s mom Cathy says she took the comedy class to support her daughter. And to prevent boredom. A trip to Vegas kept Cathy from her DC’s performance — and diploma.

“She’s a comedy-school dropout. She’ll cut hair,” joked her teacher, Aaron Flett, who goes by Riggs.

The other six students each performed Wednesday night — and graduated.

“They did awesome,” Riggs said after the show. “I believed they’d all do good, but they did way better than I expected.”

A professional comic for nearly five years, Riggs, 35, of Tacoma performs five to six nights a week. He started the RTC class to teach his students what he didn’t know when he started comedy. During the four weeks, the class covered the basics, like comedy club etiquette and how to hold a microphone, to the more complex, like writing jokes and booking gigs.

During Wednesday’s performance, each student was supposed to take the mic for up to five minutes. Riggs expected two to three minutes. But each student lasted nearly 10 minutes.

“And they had really good first-time material,” Riggs said.

Jamie was the only comic who confessed to pre-stage tears. But each of the new comics admitted nervousness. Many took the stage with notes scrawled on paper or hands. Their performances didn’t reveal their nerves.

Fritz started the show.

“I keep seeing this ad inviting me to an endless festival … for a limited time,” he joked.

He also shared a story about a medical problem in his nether region. The problem required a 14-page consent form for a two-word procedure: excise legion.

“When I raise my hand like this, you’re going to clap,” Julie told the audience during her turn. “That will make me feel good.”

She covered subliminal messages in songs, dating and bludgeoning a burglar to death with a tube of hair gel.

“What’s a fart?” Guy asked the audience during his turn. “Doodie calling!” he answered. Doodie was the subject of most of Guy’s jokes.

Jamie, Trent and Pat ended the student-portion of the show. Trent told the audience he only came to the performance because he heard there was going to be a comedian. The students opened for Sam Demaris, a professional comedian from Houston.

Trent joked about athletic equipment and kitchen appliances. Isn’t something called a burner setting him up for failure? And what’s a fridge, he asked, but “cold dead things in sorted doors. Isn’t that a morgue?”

Pat told the audience she’s a graduate of Catholic school, where they love confession. She attended Lady of Full Disclosure, she said, where there wasn’t much sex education.

“Nuns can’t teach you about sex — they barely believe in photosynthesis,” she said.

She went on to become an English major, with plans to become a high school teacher.

“But when I got out I found out everybody knew how to speak English already,” she laughed.

About 75 people watched the performance of Pat and her classmates, who teacher Riggs introduced as “six brand new, never-been-on-stage-before comics.” Only about 25 audience members were family and friends of the new comics.

The new comics earned laughs. But Riggs was concerned with more than laughs.

“The whole idea isn’t about teaching them to be funny necessarily, but teaching them to be on stage,” he told the audience before the show.

He hoped a successful open-mic experience would inspire the new comics to take the stage again. His hopes may be realized.

Although a few jokes were forgotten, most the new comics enjoyed their first time and want to give it another go.

Jamie will likely be the one to keep the class together.

“I love this experience,” she said after the show. “I told everyone in the class to keep in contact with each other for open-mic nights. We’re all going to stick together as a team.”

Class information

Aaron Flett, who goes by Riggs, has worked as a comic for nearly five years. He will teach another introduction to comedy class in January. For more information, call him at 253-334-9383.