Penn alumnus Shaun Eli is hoping to carve out a new niche in the stand-up comedy market: Ivy League comedians.
In April, Eli hosted the first Ivy League Comedy showcase at the Penn Club in New York featuring four comics who had graduated from Ivy League schools.
The idea, according to Eli, is that these comedians would bring a smarter, cleaner brand of comedy to the microphone than that normally found at comedy clubs.
Eli said that he got the idea from people watching his routine.
"I would do stuff that was more intellectual and audience members would come up to me and say, 'Your stuff is smart. Where can I find more like it?'" Eli said.
That caused Eli to search for other comedians who did material like his own. Many, but not all, were from Ivy League schools.
Limiting the show to Ivy League grads was a marketing decision, according to Eli.
By doing so, he hoped to entice people who would not normally patronize comedy clubs to see his show.
"I was trying to reach a non-typical comedy club audience and I think we were successful," Eli said.
According to David Bell, associate professor of marketing for the Wharton School, putting the words "Ivy League" in the name could draw in people affiliated with those schools, but could potentially alienate non Ivy-Leaguers.
Bell said that it depends what connection audience members make: whether people think Ivy Leaguers would produce smarter comedy because of their intelligence or that Ivy Leaguers are smart and therefore not funny.
Bell found Eli's idea interesting, but said that it's hard to know if it would be a success.
"Maybe he gets people interested in comedy who aren't normally interested," Bell said.
Eli said that he got lots of positive feedback from audience members at the first show, and he signed on with the Penn Club to put on a second show in September.
Jason Schneider, a college senior and president of Penn's stand-up comedy group Simply Chaos, said that he would be interested in performing at the Ivy League showcase, but didn't think that going to an Ivy League university would necessarily make one a better comedian.
"It might make you more creative, but practice is really what makes a difference in comedy," he said."
Schneider said that it is already possible to find smart comedy at clubs and didn't see the need for a show to cater to this type of comedy.
"I think if you're a clean comic and you're smart, you're going to get rewarded," he said.
Still, Schneider said that it is always valuable for comedians to be involved in more shows and agreed that the showcase could be a fun opportunity.
The first showcase did not feature any current Ivy League students. Eli said he would be open to the idea if he found one talented enough, but said most undergraduates lack the experience to give a strong stand-up performance.
Eli, who graduated from Penn in 1983, was not involved in comedy while an undergraduate.
He got his start writing jokes for Jay Leno for The Tonight Show, and later began performing his own material.
Eli currently performs at comedy clubs in New York and originally hoped to have the showcase at one of these clubs.
He said that the Penn Club agreed to host the showcase after he couldn't find enough interest from a club, but he remains hopeful that he can get it into a club in the future.
"I'm hoping that this will prove popular enough that it can become a monthly event," Eli said.
