Every Thursday night, a darkly-lit Club Tee Gee in Atwater Village explodes with energy, welcoming standup comedians and a vibrant crowd. This event is the Peacock Show: a weekly independent comedy show that celebrated its five-year anniversary Feb. 29.
The show originated from freelance comedy producers Ali Hart and Rebecca Rufer, Hart being a newcomer to LA with hopes of starting a show, they said. Hart said she wanted to create a show to immerse herself into the Atwater community after moving from San Francisco. Rufer said she wanted to highlight comedians she liked, supporting their talent by helping them perform more often. The pair said they met in 2018 through a friend, where they found out they had similar goals.
“It was kind of a kismet that we met,” Rufer said. “We were both thinking about creating a small, intimate and independent comedy show.”
Hart said that choosing Club Tee Gee as the venue for the show was critical since the club had come under new management around the same time they started the Peacock Show in 2019.
“When I first talked to [Club Tee Gee], they hadn’t envisioned doing anything other than DJ nights or private events in that room,” Hart said. “Now there’s our show, there’s a karaoke night, there’s live music and it’s just interesting to be a part of that evolution of the bar.”
Hart also said that many comedy shows struggle with finding supportive venues, so she feels lucky that Club Tee Gee has hosted the Peacock Show for so long.
Hart and Rufer said they communicate with different comedians and their agents to book the lineup every week. In the first six months of the show, they said they were only booking their friends or comedians they already knew. Now with the show’s success, they have had to make more tough decisions on who they bring in each night.
“On any given show, we want to curate it as best we possibly can and make sure that [performance] styles — even though they may vary in any given show — fit together really well, and we can put together a really full and fun, cohesive night,” Rufer said.
Two of the main constants at the Peacock Show are comedians Kiran Deol and Danny Jolles, the show’s co-hosts. Rufer and Hart said Deol, who they knew from previous projects, was the lone host initially. When the show returned from lockdown, they added Jolles as a co-host since he already hosted whenever Deol was away.
“For a comic, this show is just one of the best,” Jolles said. “I’m really very lucky.”
At the anniversary show, the venue was packed within minutes of the doors opening. Hart and Rufer came on stage first to thank the audience and give housekeeping rules. A blackboard behind them showed the names of the comics performing, their social media handles and a Venmo account for suggested donations, as tickets to the show were free.
Jolles then appeared and opened the show with a few short minutes of material, joking that he made the show despite having a red-eye flight later that night, his suitcase waiting in the back of the venue.
Jolles said the Peacock Show’s longevity and success is due to Hart and Rufer’s hard work and dedication to making the show last.
“It’s so common in small shows that people just won’t put in the work to keep it going,” Jolles said. “So [the five-year anniversary] is really a testament to the hard work of Ali and Becca.”
The success of the Peacock Show did not go without its challenges: producing a small show every week in a non-comedy club venue has difficulties, Hart and Rufer said.
“There were a lot of last-minute drops for COVID,” Hart said. “And there’s all the behind-the-scenes stuff with all the administration of [the show]. There’s really not a lot of ‘stage managing,’ but there’s last-minute tech issues that come in. It’s all those little minor last-minute details.”
At the beginning of the night’s comedy, Hart and Rufer asked people to raise their hands if they were returners to the show – most of the room raised their hands.
“We’re building something for the community in which we live and that was exciting to me to create a space where people could come together,” Hart said. “So many people come to LA, and they feel disconnected. For me, it didn’t take long, and I think that the show was a big part of that because I was creating something that really rooted me here.”
Hart and Rufer said traditions encourage patrons to return, like giving an award to the best audience member that night whether for their laugh, involvement or just their cool outfit.
“I would say it feels like a good excuse to hang out with comics,” Rufer said. “You know the night will be really fun because you get to just hang out after the show.”
Audience members hugged and greeted each other before the show started, and the performing comedians brought their friends to sit in the crowd.
“A lot of comedians will say there’s no room like [Club Tee Gee],” Hart said. “We feel very fortunate and supported.”
Contact Eliana Joftus at joftus@oxy.edu
This article was updated March 24 at 10:36 a.m. to reflect that only one of the producers was new to LA and to correct paraphrased quotes to better reflect the speaker’s information. It was also updated to clarify that Hart said the quote about feeling disconnected in LA, but feeling more involved after creating the show, not Rufer.
