This weekend, Denver Comedy Works celebrates the 45th anniversary of its original location downtown at Larimer Square.
It’s a milestone worth recognizing to legions of stand-up comics, including Jeff Arcuri — one of many who tells us that it’s “easily one of the best clubs in the world.”
Between the original location and a South Denver club opened in 2008, Comedy Works currently averages 7,500 purchases (of one or more tickets) per month. Owner-CEO Wende Curtis believes there’s an “intangible quality” to the original room that’s responsible for its success — “a magical pixie dust” — though she’s also quick to point to specifics.
A simple thing, but perhaps the most consequential, is the very nature of the space.
“Comedy Works, from the very beginning, the physical, tangible building space was just incredibly perfect and magical,” says Curtis. “It’s a small room. They’re packed in there like sardines — and that, my friend, is a magical recipe.”
In large part highly particular about the rooms they play, comedians would tend to agree.
“The main room is one of the only rooms in the country that was truly made with comedy in mind,” says comedian Jeffrey Keller. “Diamond shaped so that the comic is at home plate — everything in the room is focused on the comic. Super low ceilings that actually get lower closer to the comic. Sound bouncing everywhere from the stone walls.”
Sam Tallent, a Colorado native, says: “On stage, the laughs explode at you. I’ve never heard a room that loud. A decent set there is the best set you’ve ever had, but killing at Comedy Works – actually crushing – is drugs.”
Beyond the room itself, Arcuri tells us that the staff “just knows comedy, and they’ve built an audience that truly loves and trusts the club.”
Folks come to Denver Comedy Works ready to laugh, comics say — so comedy-hungry and polite that their enthusiasm can give a performer an inflated sense of their own abilities.
“Tom Segura has said, ‘If you can’t kill at Comedy Works downtown, you need to get out of the business.’ And that’s true. And I have to preach it [to] all of our young people: You must go out and do mics everywhere,” says owner Curtis. “You must work every crappy bar gig, everything. Because this is not reality.”
The atmosphere at Denver Comedy Works can only be improved by the fact that the club implements Yondr bags, locking away phones for the sake of a distraction-free show. This has been the case since Dave Chappelle stopped by for a show downtown in April 2016.
As passionate as Curtis is about Comedy Works — she’s been with the club for 40 of its 45 years — she’s initially inclined to dismiss the anniversary as “just another marker.”
Then again, she doesn’t take for granted the “micromanaging” and attention to detail that it takes to keep a club thriving, whether in running a “hard door” to ensure no minors get in with fake IDs, or by working to maintain a consistency and diversity of talent on the lineup.
“Honestly, this level of success, to be so good at what we do… I mean, I don’t mean to blow my own horn, but there’s blood and guts, mine, all over that place,” Curtis says. “I worked 70 hours a week, every week, for at least a good solid 20 years…But I loved it, and honestly, probably kind of in an unhealthy way, I felt validated by my work.”
It’s not that she needed a pat on the back all that much or all that consistently. But working at Comedy Works “just filled me up,” she says. And it takes this kind of relationship with a club to achieve the kind of success she has.
Known to highlight that she’s never had a resumé, Curtis has a compelling career origin story: She started working at Comedy Works’ now-defunct Fort Collins location as a cocktail waitress while studying theatre at Colorado State University in 1986.
She quickly fell in love with a “fast-paced and fun” business, and within two years, had gotten involved with club management and talent booking.
“I felt so lucky to be a part of that,” she says. “I didn’t have anybody with their thumb on me. I could do what I thought was right, and I talked to a lot of comics, and I feel like we kind of built it together.”
Curtis became General Manager of the downtown Denver location in 1993, becoming co-owner in 2001 and buying out her partners shortly thereafter to take full control. Her first big hurdle with the venture came when she opened the location to the south, out of a desire to capture a broader audience and solidify her dominance of the Denver comedy market.
The Improv chain had recently come to town and, she sensed, wanted to put her out of business. “But my ego was like, ‘Huh, watch this, mother*cker,'” Curtis jokes.
Unfortunately, Curtis’ move to expand came just ahead of the 2008 financial crisis. She’s “no genius,” she concedes, but she remembers reading about the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy and thinking, “Holy sh*t, what’s going on here?”
“I was buying this 21,000 square foot building. I’d saved my money like you do when you’re going to buy your first house, and that hits and we opened in early October of 2008 [with] a crooked developer who ended up committing suicide when the authorities were onto him,” Curtis recalls.
That year was a brutal time dragging her into “more and more debt.” Flash forward a little more than a decade, and a second whopper of a hurdle came with the arrival of a pandemic that shut the world down.
As stunning and frightening as that moment was, Curtis says, it had its positives, at least for the comedy business, contributing to the boom in the space that we’ve seen playing out in the years since.
“What it did is, it turned fans into super fans, and it turned [comedy] novices into fans,” she explains. “Because they had time, and they were watching Netflix specials, and then all of the podcasts.”
The downside, of course, was not just all the lives the pandemic would claim, but the way it would destroy others financially.
“I lost every operational manager I had during the pandemic,” Curtis says. “Downtown was closed for 17 months. Only [in] May of 2021 could we get back to full capacity. But the community wasn’t ready for it, the comics sometimes weren’t ready for it. The customers weren’t ready for it.”
Curtis had a difficult time rebuilding the staff at her clubs on the way out of the pandemic — accomplishing that only with the help of comics who promoted her efforts on their podcasts. And even to this day, she’s not over what happened during that time.
“I’m still pissed; I just think it took some of my steam out,” she says. “If I were to get hit by a bus tomorrow, Comedy Works would struggle a lot.”
Beyond this historic moment, the comedy business has changed fundamentally, in Curtis’ mind, since she first learned the ropes decades ago. In the old days, scheduling and fees were standardized, and clubs had an easier rapport with talent reps.
These days, however, “it’s completely 100% changed. Everybody wants a door deal; they want everything. They want your first f*cking born and your shoe collection,” Curtis says. “I think if it was broken down [for some comics], they might tell their agent to back the f off, honestly. Because the margins are very slim. They think that because we get the food and beverage, [we’re covered].”
That revenue would never be sufficient, however, given the huge monthly sum required to keep the lights on.
Curtis’ blunt assessment is that “bad, lazy agents” are changing the stand-up business for the worse.
“That sounds judgmental, and I guess maybe it is a little bit. [But] they don’t teach their comics,” she says. “There’s so many comics that are coming up so fast. They just want to make a lot of money and think that they need to go to the theaters next or whatever, when they haven’t done a full club run. It has really stunted a lot of careers.”
She equates the “fast buck” many young star comics can make today, ascending from digital fame to clubs to theaters to arenas, to fast fashion — which “doesn’t last very long.”
Curtis frames her approach to the business as the opposite: Instead of trying to take as much as she can, as often as she can, she’s focused on treating people right and making her appreciation for them known.
One embodiment of that would be her decision to purchase two nice condos for visiting comics that she keeps well maintained. When Emmy and Golden Globe winner Ali Wong comes to town, she reveals, she’s gone out and purchased specific $400 IKEA mattresses at her team’s request — and was very happy to do so.
Certainly, the way Curtis cares for comics hasn’t gone unnoticed, either among the artists or many of those working behind the scenes.
“Wende has always treated me like family — probably better than some of my actual family,” says comedian Ralph Barbosa. “She makes you feel welcome the second you walk in, and that kind of hospitality is rare.”
Tallent, the Colorado comic, shares: “When my mom died, we had her wake in the downtown club. Didn’t charge us a dime and Wende paid for all the food and liquor. She occupies a very maternal space in my heart. I love, admire, and fear her.”
Scottish comic Daniel Sloss says that Comedy Works was a club he’d heard about long before he made his way to America to perform. “Its reputation preceded it but also didn’t do it justice. The first club to let me play in the States, the best audiences,” he reflects. “But for me, it was the staff.”
Booked over Thanksgiving weekend, unaware there would be no Thursday show, Sloss “obviously had nothing to do on Thanksgiving, as I’m Scottish and that’s not a real holiday,” he jokes.
Not to worry, though, as the staff “invited me to their home. Fed and boozed me within an inch of my life. And got me the most stoned I’ve ever been.”
Sloss says that when, after the meal, it was his turn to say something he was grateful for, it was a no-brainer. “I was, and still am, incredibly grateful to Comedy Works, for giving me the kindest and funnest introduction to the American comedy scene.”
Curtis says that Denver Comedy Works’ survival for so many years is a testament to the “tremendous amount of support” she’s received, in turn, from the comics — many of whom she’d call a friend, albeit “not a friend like my girlfriends.”
Still, even in the embrace of her community, Curtis says it’s only been “sheer tenacity” that’s gotten her through the toughest moments. This was again the case last February, when she was diagnosed with an “aggressive” form of breast cancer that she thankfully caught early. “I did a double mastectomy with reconstruction, so I’ve got an aftermarket set,” she jokes. “I’m fine. [But] in the beginning, you’re just getting through that, too, like I did everything else in my life and career, putting my helmet and shoulder pads on and just hitting it.”
To Curtis, there’s much to be proud of in reflecting back on Comedy Works’ 45-year history. Over the decades, nearly every major comedic talent has performed there, from Chappelle and George Lopez, to Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock and countless others, as she’s helped lift up the next generation with New Talent Night showcases.
Many comics cherish Comedy Works so much, they’ve recorded albums or specials there; some are even iconic. Take Dave Attell’s Skanks for the Memories, Curtis says, which “every young comic” knows, and some “can recite” from memory.
Thinking back on her favorite memories associated with the club, a few come to mind — taking Brian Regan to meet Bill Burr for the first time, and a run-in with Chappelle backstage at Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre.
“I had a little Mazda Miata years ago, and Anthony Clark and I [were] in the Miata with the top down, singing Rent, the musical, at the top of our lungs,” Curtis remembers “I remember in that same Miata, Louie Anderson and I, late night trying to find fast food. The top is down, and it’s a 1995 Miata — they’re tiny. They look like a Barbie car now compared to the new Miatas.”
Throughout all of Curtis’ years at Comedy Works, though, it’s a belief in the importance of comedy that’s been top of mind. And it’s never wavered. “People come in [to the club] to have a good time. Especially in these times, I feel like we’re providing a truly imperative service,” she says, “and as time has gone on, that’s just become more apparent.”
With so many years of service to her community under her belt, Curtis says that she thought of taking a step back from Comedy Works even before her breast cancer battle.
“The estate is very well planned out, and the company is very well taken care of, should anything happen. In two years, I’ll be completely debt free…So the company will be fine. If I were to sell, I would be very fine. But it’s my ego. It’s my heart.”
If she were to sell Comedy Works, Curtis believes, “some straight white guy would come buy this thing. And I love y’all. I love all of them. But I don’t like what they would do to my club, which is take all of those details away, get rid of some of my people. And it would be a completely different thing.”
Curtis jokes, “I would have to leave the country” if she were to sell — “which might not be a bad idea right now. But I just don’t know.”
Don’t bet on a sale — though Curtis is hoping to find someone trustworthy who can begin helping with talent booking and train over time to take over.
Comedy Works, she says, “is a big thing to let go of.” But the important thing is to “keep up the legacy, continue to grow the legacy. I think that’s the biggie.”
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