Ferris students, staff and community members sat in Williams Auditorium on Oct. 2 to be roasted, and have a laugh with comedian Nate Jackson.
The comedian was the headliner for the show this year, accompanied with performances from Molly Kearney, who uses they/ them pronouns, and Atsuko Okatsuka.
Kearney opened the show, with mixed enthusiasm from the audience. While there were some chuckles in the crowd about Kearney’s college experience, they were also met with sounds of crickets playing on phones.
When Okatsuka took the stage sporting her Brain sweatshirt, a callback to a commercial she was in, she was met with slightly more enthusiasm than Kearney. With jokes about tandem biking with her husband Ryan, to upgrading her tandem bike to fit three people if her husband were to pass, and she moved on. Okatsuka navigated the stage with a set about relationships. The laughter for Okatsuka wasn’t nearly as enthusiastic as it was for Jackson, who is known from his comedy on platforms such as Instagram and Tik Tok for his crowd work during shows.
He had several rules before he began his crowd work roasts, with one of the few rules being that the audience couldn’t take offense to any jokes, as he would be making eye contact with the crowd for an okay. He described how it was normally “Karens” who would do this, specifying that they sucked out the joy like dementors sucking souls.
The Ferris show was no exception with students such as sports communications sophomore Katie Stauffer being involved. Stauffer works as a mascot for the West Michigan Whitecaps, a minor league baseball team, and Jackson was fascinated with Stauffer’s side job. She came to the front of the auditorium to show Jackson the mascot and was able to partake in a several minute conversation about her involvement with the Whitecaps.
“I thought it was so much fun,” Stauffer said. “I thought it was really cool. I’ve never done that before, so that was interesting.”
Stauffer wasn’t the only one who Jackson interacted with. When Jackson took stage, he saw the spread out crowd and invited students, like artificial intelligence junior Randen Brown, to move closer to the center of the auditorium to feel more involved with the show.
“I was a little shocked, because I was on my phone at the time, but I understand he wanted to get everybody kind of grouped together as, like, more of a community thing, because I was sitting off to the side,” Brown said. “I sat there on purpose, did not get called out by one of the comedians, but I was fine with it.”
Jackson also spent time working the crowd to get them to fall in love. He asked for volunteers to describe what they were looking for, and then asked other audience members if they matched the description. Even those who weren’t part of the direct matchmaking enjoyed the comedian’s efforts.
“I think this was a very good group of comedians and personalities that bring in for homecoming week, and hopefully that started off everyone’s homecoming week good, and some good this weekend,” Brown said. “ I really enjoyed it. I liked all the comedians, and I enjoyed, also the last part where you was asking people questions about the make you try set them up on dates and that type of stuff.”
The comedian had advice for anyone looking to go to a comedy show, whether it’s their first one, or their 100.
“I think comedy is about healing through laughter. And I use my voice to instill that, because I’ve been their age and had what they go through pressure wise, they haven’t been my age and seen it from my vantage point,” Jackson said. “So give a little bit that’s always like, you know, don’t like, meet, mix, meet other people and stuff. Don’t just stick with your friend group, you know, mix it up. You got people, that support you and there’s people that can love you, that may not look like you. Right now you’re with people that all look like you. Mix that up. Diversity is your friend.”
The next event that Entertainment Unlimited plans to put on in Williams Auditorium will be the spring concert next semester. There are currently no plans set in stone for who will be preforming at the concert.