The Comedy Cellar turns away 20,000 people a week.
That number came from Noam Dworman, the New York comedy club’s owner, when he sat with me a few episodes ago.
Owner of the Comedy Cellar, Noam Dworman on The Black Hoody podcast
I kept thinking about it when I sat down with Estee Adoram, the woman who has booked that club since the mid-1980s.
She gets 300 to 400 emails a week from comics sending their availabilities. All of them want stage time in a 115-seat basement underneath a cafe on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village.
Most of them will not get it.
Estee did not set out to become the most powerful person in New York comedy. She started as a hostess.
The Cellar now runs 12 shows a night and is building a new venue across the road from the Blue Note jazz club.
I saw the space the night before our interview when Noam walked us through it. It might be the best comedy room in the world when it opens.
How Auditions Work
I had read profiles of Estee that described her sitting in a dark corner booth taking notes. That is wrong. She sits at the front door. There is no notepad.
“I am in your face,” she said. “If you cannot handle it, you’re in the wrong business.”
When a new comic auditions, they get five minutes. Estee watches for confidence, how the comic handles themselves on stage, and what happens when a joke does not land.
That last one matters most.
She told me about a gesture she first saw years ago. A comic whose joke bombed put his hand over his head, the universal sign for “it went over your heads.”
She asked what it meant and got the explanation: “Oh, my joke goes over your head. I’m so much smarter than you.”
“How dare you do that in the audience,” she said. “You have a lawyer, you have a doctor, you have a construction worker, you have a student. You really think that the whole 200 people in the room are lesser than you are intelligence-wise? To me, this is a huge turnoff.”
She does not formally “pass” comics the way other clubs do.
She gets an impression from the five minutes and if she thinks there is something there, she gives them a few regular spots and follows up.
If they are great, they are welcome. If not, she pulls back.
I asked what she looks for in the material during those five minutes.
Her answer was blunt: if you come up with bathroom jokes, no. “There’s got to be something there.” You can be risque. You cannot be vulgar. She made the distinction clearly. “I don’t want to represent the club that way.”
Then comes the lineup construction. She books show by show. Friday 6pm, everything else goes away, and she concentrates on that one show. She wants balance in every lineup: ethnic, gender, political variety.
The bigger comics get slotted first, then she builds around them.
Estee Adoram, booker of the Comedy Cellar
All of it is based on merit. “I booked a show on merit, not because I like you or we had dinner yesterday,” she said. “The main core, it’s got to be merit.”
The Recommendation Economy
The way a comic gets an audition at the Cellar is through a recommendation from a comic who already works there.
With YouTube, she can now check a comic’s work in one click, which is far easier than the physical tapes she used to have to watch.
But she still needs someone she trusts to vouch.
The problem is that not all recommendations are honest.
Some comics recommend their friends as a favour rather than because the friend is ready. Estee hates this.
“Why would you do this to somebody?” she said about bad recommendations. “You are opening the guy for hurt. Who knows? Their confidence is shaken. Everything is shaken. What did you accomplish?”
She told me about a comic who cried after a failed audition. Put his head down at the table and physically cried. When comics shake her hand before an audition, their palms are wet and their hands tremble.
She understands the stakes. She tries to be compassionate.
But she will not change her opinion based on a favour.
Real Comics vs Career Comics
Near the end of our conversation, Estee drew a distinction I thought was worth printing in full.
There are comics who use comedy as a stepping stone to get a show or a bigger career. Then there are comics who, no matter how big their career gets, are still comics. Those are the ones everyone loves.
“Dave Chappelle is still a comic,” she said. “Ray Romano is still a comic. He puts in like he did before he had these shows and movies and everything. Chris Rock is still a comic.”
Dave Chappelle at the Comedy Cellar
Then there are people who make shows and movies and do a standup set once in a blue moon. “They’re not real standups like we understand standup. There is a distinction. And you can tell.”
Her advice for comics who have not made it to the Cellar yet: keep writing. Have passion. If you do not have passion for comedy, it is not for you.
John Mayer, Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock and Aziz Ansari at the Comedy Cellar
Estee Adoram has been sitting at the front door of the Comedy Cellar for more than 40 years, watching comics walk down those stairs and try to make 115 strangers laugh.
She told me she does not see herself the way the comics see her. She does not feel the power they say she has.
She just wants to produce the best show she can.
I believe her. But the comics are not wrong either. She is the door. And the door decides everything.
