We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Marcus Cardona. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Marcus below.
Hi Marcus, so excited to talk about all sorts of important topics with you today. The first one we want to jump into is about being the only one in the room – for some that’s being the only person of color or the only non-native English speaker or the only non-MBA, etc Can you talk to us about how you have managed to be successful even when you were the only one in the room that looked like you?
I’d say my success in being effective as the only one in the room that looks like me comes from my upbringing. At many times it felt like I was the only one in the state who looked like me. Being a Filipino born in Maine, one of the whitest states, I was not only the only Asian in the room but a lot of the times the only BIPOC in the room. You develop a speed for learning to make yourself seen and understood. When there’s already preconceived ideas of who you are as a person and your lifestyle from lack of exposure you can really focus on making sure you control your narrative. The success in storytelling and controlling one’s narrative is such power that when producing projects that communication and direction needs to be clear to successfully deliver and follow through on projects.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I began performing comedy in 2011, after forming the YouTube sketch comedy group, Pinetree Comedy. Shortly after starting comedy Portland, Maine’s only comedy club at the time The Comedy Connection shut down in 2012. I moved to NYC in 2014 and made a name for myself as an indie producer in the Brooklyn comedy scene producing shows and running mics to give myself stage time and work on material including a ramen shop based show called Send Noods. I primarily performed in urban and indie rooms. In 2019 I became Assistant manager at Brooklyn House Of Comedy under my comedy mom Joanna Briley, helping develop new talent in Brooklyn and rebranding. That is until the pandemic threw me back to Maine in 2020. Which didn’t slow me down as I produced a 13 time SOLD OUT comedy series Cabin Fever: An Outdoor Comedy Show For A Socially Distant Time at an outdoor venue in Thompson’s Point in Portland, Maine, and trying to keep my name relevant in NYC by producing New York City’s first comedy scene only comedy awards show The Bombys which was hosted in 2020 at Bushwick’s The Tiny Cupboard. During the pandemic I also began streaming and gaming on Twitch under the name neurotic_fodder as maintaining my audience online took a different medium. With my eventual return to NYC’s comedy I became involved in more Asian based groups and organizations including sketch group Model Majority and Filipino groups since my audience had been primarily white and black audiences. In 2022 I was brought onto the Don’t Tell Comedy team as Maine’s lead producer and after collaborating with Free Street Bar and Restaurant I went on to turn the pop-up event venue into Maine House Of Comedy as founder and creative director. In 2023 during his time in Maine he successfully brought back comedy to the former Empire Comedy Club stage on 575 Congress Street under the name Empire Comedy Lives. And Maine House of Comedy has now operated in multiple spaces in Maine. Giving a platform and unified name to Maine comics as well to not be shadowed by the Boston comedy scene and highlighting them among NYC comedians to show us being able to perform at their level and raise the standard on New England comedy.
Producing shows in my home state has always been a goal of mine and I’ve gotten to headline and sell out shows that I produced with an audience I always felt distance from growing up. I’ve now been back in NYC since October of 2023 while remotely operating Maine House of Comedy with my team of house comedians and producers keeping the name alive. What has made this whole journey worth it is that I’ve made a name for myself in two scenes while also representing BIPOCs and completely independent. I’ve gotten to perform for a wide array of audiences and I think we like to compartmentalize audiences based on the identity of the performer but I’m a Filipino from Maine who started performing for a majority white older audience, got good at comedy performing for a black audience, found and maintained an online audience, and am finally now growing and developing a Filipino audience on the East Coast getting to be part of the first Asian Comedy Festival and Filipino Comedy Festival in NYC. My plans are to keep Maine and New York as my bases of operation and continue growing the name and talent in Maine while being a representative in New York bringing outside of the comedy audience into my communities that I’ve grown. I feel like I’ve cemented myself as a unlikely representation of a Maine and New England comedian, I’ve been working on future projects to launch in the podcast and content realm focusing on the narrative being a “comedian who happens to be Filipino” rather than being a “Filipino comedian” If you pigeonhole my identity to just that you’re missing out on the bigger story behind me and the culture outside of comedy that I bring.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Reflecting back on producing and building an independent comedy career and comedy club I’d say the most impactful skills were taking action, matching expectations, and adaptation.
There’s no real guide for comedy success there are routes that one can follow but if you aren’t getting stage time. Producing a show is as simple as finding a space, building a show, promoting it, running it and keeping your audience invested. I think that the misconception is that you will get recognized for being funny if you just play the game. Investing in yourself instead of relying on an existing system is fine. I saw how comedy shows and clubs operated and made a plan that I put into action and each one has rolled into a better opportunity and before the end of it I had a portfolio of success shows and businesses and partnerships that wanted to build on my vision. If you want something figure out how its made and just go for it.
People think that ticket sales are what the industry is all about I’d say creative control and intellectual property are the real currency. Through all my mediums of comedy I’ve had to have partners and some have been incredibly successful some have fallen through and operating independently for so long I had a hard time eventually forming partnerships. Maintaining expectations has been huge in that as I’ve brought my creative vision to spaces and had to protect what I was doing and the direction I wanted things to go while reaching goals that I had gotten from venues and partners. Good partnerships is about trust and reaching or surpassing expectations.
Finally comedy has gone through so many changes in what ways to be successful in the industry from clubs, to podcasts, to TikTok, social media, late night TV show appearances, albums, and tapings. Comedy shows are essentially like The Muppet Show or The Circus alot of the show is rehearsed and prepared but LIVE comedy moments that bring excitement and originality are being present and showing vulnerability. Anything can go wrong at anytime we don’t wanna see the lion tamer get eaten but there’s always that risk. A comedian bombing is that equivalent but the humility of it and recovery if it can happen is so human and the reaction is laughter. Venues have closed, partnerships have fallen through, a pandemic threw my trajectory off and I’m still trying to keep up with trends and social media. But I’ve stayed persistent.
These are all skills I have hard focused on when approaching comedy production and where I want my career and business to grow. However these are all communication focused comedy is a buffering medium for more difficult conversations. It can be hard to say no to partners and ideas but you really need to communicate in a way that everyone feels respected, understood and heard to contribute to your own growth and vision.
If you knew you only had a decade of life left, how would you spend that decade?
I’d say one challenge I’m currently facing is getting a bigger opportunity for myself just solely based on identity and just public interest in my story. Maine House of Comedy will always be Maine focused as that space and stage to be seen like that among New York comedians did not exist. However now that I’m back in a more diverse space I’m seeing the Filipino community and in general Asian community having limited seats in art spaces. I created and gave myself my creative director position at Maine House of Comedy and am grateful for Joanna Briley for starting the fire and giving my assistant director position at Brooklyn House Of Comedy. I think I have an interesting backstory and journey and I’ve pitched myself for bigger opportunities like a movie or show. However there isn’t a fanbase for a story a Filipino comedian from Maine who moved to NYC that film directors and talent agencies are willing to risk an investment on which rightfully so you need previous proof of sales success to take that risk. I feel like I’ve connected with so many Filipino artists to push their stories forward to get my own story in line down the road like a Marvel Cinematic Universe phase launch – we have to introduce a Bay Area Filipino’s origin story before we can even talk about “the others.”
I’m so used to my audience not being a direct reflection of me that it’s really clarified my own voice in delivering who I am to others but I don’t want to alienate or seem unrelatable to anyone especially groups I represent whether I look like them or not.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.mainehouseofcomedy.com
- Instagram: Maine House Of Comedy
- Other: www.marcuscardona.com Instagram @marcuscardona
Image Credits
Photos provided by photographer JT Anderson, Kat Soriano, Nate Davis, and Brian Rene Bergeron all photos provided by Marcus Cardona
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
