BOISE, Idaho — Standing before an intimately packed crowd at High Note Cafe in downtown Boise, Reese Samuels effortlessly riffs about growing up as a mixed-race child in Idaho.
With a white mother and black father, Samuels told a crowd clinging to each of her words, the white kids didn’t accept her because of her black skin, while the Black kids didn’t accept her because she wasn’t “black enough.”
“I’m just angry,” Samuels, a 35-year-old comic from Boise, said half-jokingly to the Idaho Statesman in a recent interview about her comedy style.
After five minutes on stage, Samuels passed the mic to LJ Sullivan, her co-host and comedy partner in crime. The duo have known each other through the Boise comedy scene for the better part of a decade and have been close since 2019, when they both first attended the NW Black Comedy Fest in Portland.
“It’s so beautiful because it’s like a huge family reunion,” Samuels said. “All the performers are people of color. We’re all biracial; we’re all Black comedians.”
That sense of togetherness is what first connected Samuels and Sullivan. Now, they’re working to provide a space in Boise for people of color to perform and make a name for themselves.
In early 2024, the pair began co-producing open-mic comedy nights in downtown Boise. The shows are open to comics from all backgrounds, but Samuels and Sullivan hope to specifically make their shows an open and safe space for minority comics.
“That is the difficult thing. They do kind of have to come to us first,” said Sullivan, a 28-year-old from Boise. “You start out as not a comedian; you’ve got to find us. But once they show up, I try to personally make an effort to be as welcoming as possible.”
The two have set up three weekly comedy nights around downtown: Sundays at the Double Tap Pub, Tuesdays at Clairvoyant Brewing and Wednesdays at the High Note Cafe. Sign-up for each night is 8 p.m., and the shows start at 8:30 p.m.
One of the comedians to take the stage at the Double Tap Pub in late July was Rain Forest, a 24-year-old Black comedian from Garden City. Forest started stand-up comedy locally about 18 months ago when he saw “The Daily Show” correspondent Josh Johnson perform in Boise.
“You will get mixed crowds,” Forest told the Statesman shortly after his set. “Even if it’s not racially, religiously or politically motivated material, you will get different vibes overall from the conflicting political parties.”
Forest’s Boise experience contrasts to performing in cities like Portland, he said, where it’s much easier to get a feel for the crowd and know what to expect.
Forest hasn’t been deterred by the tougher crowds in Boise, but he acknowledged that having other Black comedians in the comedy scene and providing a space for him to perform has been important.
“Having that branch to grab on to was really nice, and just having a familiar face to do it with helps out a lot,” Forest said. “Especially when you’re in a state where there are not a lot of other Black people. So having another Black person help you with it and make you feel welcome and being able to be part of it is super nice.”
Samuels and Sullivan want to eventually bring the “homecoming” sense of community seen in Portland and the NW Black Comedy Fest to Boise. They said they want to see people from all backgrounds join their comedy nights, not just Black comedians.
“I want to create a community that is here in Boise, Idaho, that represents us,” Samuels said. “We are all people of color. It doesn’t matter if we’re Black; it doesn’t matter if we’re Latino, Cuban. Sometimes Israeli, sometimes Palestinian, all that kind of stuff. I want to make sure that all people of color have a safe space to express ourselves. And that’s what we’re all about.”
The open-mic nights welcome all comedians. Regular performers at the shows include Matthew Vorhies — who’s also a member of the garage folka band A Mighty Band of Microbes — and Yeti Abides, who’ll always be happy to share his opinions on bidets.
