Comedy works its way south

By Mark Brown, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published September 5, 2008 at 3 p.m.

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Ellen Jaskol © The Rocky

Comedy Works owner Wende Curtis says the downtown club, where she's pictured, is still top priority: "That machine has to keep working."

Photo by Ellen Jaskol © The Rocky

Comedian Chris Voth works the stage last month. Fellow comic Kathleen Madigan says: "(Curtis) doesn't put up with hacks. . . . She sets a standard and you have to meet it."

Wende Curtis is laughing.

"I'm broke," she says, laughing again. Her deal to build the new Comedy Works South "closed one year and 13 days late," she says. "We are opening one year and about three weeks late."

The figure for building the state-of-the- art theater-and-restaurant has "several commas, lots of zeros," she says. "I call it 'gazillions.' I injected every cent that I have. I am mortgaged to the hilt."

So why is Curtis laughing?

Because she knows it's going to work - that this new venture will be acclaimed nationwide just like her Comedy Works club in Larimer Square.

"We absolutely believe we'll be printing money," says Curtis, who offered some numbers to back up that boast.

"I had the best year ever last year. I had the best fourth quarter. I've had the best first quarter (in 2008). I'll have the best first half of this year that I've ever had."

All that success results from hard work. Curtis, 44, was born with that drive, and now it's all focused on making the new 21,000-foot complex work.

She's pulled in "20 years' worth of favors" for its launch. Bob Saget, Jimmy Fallon, George Lopez and Kathleen Madigan have all signed on to perform during the opening months in the new room.

"George Lopez doesn't do clubs," Curtis says, but he jumped at the chance to do two shows a night to open the room.

"What he's making here will not pay for his private jet. That is a favor. He doesn't need two shows. The guy grosses a million a night in arenas."

"I don't think of Wende Curtis as a comedy-club owner," Lopez says. "I think of her as a friend. Being able to help her in any capacity is done out of being a friend first. I'm very excited about returning to help her launch a new comedy club."

"She has treated us so fairly and has done such good work for us over the years," says Madigan, who got an early break from Curtis and over the years has become her close friend. "Most people at my level or above will do her a favor, absolutely."

Lewis Black, who's not even booked for the club yet, happily got on the phone recently to sing Curtis' praises: "I really like her."

That loyalty often results from Curtis' knack for picking talent early on and giving them breaks, Black says, noting that she particularly helped the careers of Lopez, Carlos Mencia and Madigan as well as his own.

"It builds confidence. Any time you have somebody you respect who respects you, it gives you the best thing a comic can have, which is confidence."

Cleaning and sweeping

Wende Curtis was born in Tribune, Kan., to parents barely out of high school. At age 11 her family (she has a younger sister, Cendee Neilsen) moved to Denver, where her father had an auto-parts business at 35th Street and Brighton Boulevard. After school and on weekends she helped out.

"Mom did the filing and some of the book work. Dad ran the store," she says. "I cleaned nasty toilets. He used to make me sweep the parking lot," she said, as well as mix paint and fill cans with it.

"It was great fun, but it was dirty and I was on the girlier side back then. I always had crap under my fingernails, but it was great fun."

More important: "I absolutely, positively, without a doubt think that was a significant component of setting up my work ethic. My father, just like I, was so driven. So driven. He just didn't take 'no' for an answer."

"I may have contributed to her work ethic, but where did she get that bulldog tenacity?" said her father, Terry Curtis. "Her mother (Barb) gave her the ability to feel empathy for other people."

After high school, she went to Colorado State as a business major but quickly discovered acting and directing after finding the business theories she was studying to not be rooted in the real world of work.

"That's really where my passion lay. I think I did know somewhere in the back of my mind that I did have an entrepreneurial spirit. I always worked. I worked in retail. I waited tables. I cleaned houses. I did anything to pay for college."

College, however, wasn't kind to her.

"They said 'Miss Curtis, we think you need to take a break.' I'd been on academic probation most of my college career," she says. After a yearlong break, she got back in and earned her theater degree.

Curtis started as a waitress at Comedy Works in 1986 and was soon booking the place. When it ran into business trouble in 2001, she was able to buy it with two partners. Within a year she bought them out, wanting to run the show herself, and set about building a national reputation.

"She's set a standard for what a comedy club should be," Black says. "She gets it. . . . She likes the work that (comics) do and just allows them to do it. She'll tell you what she thinks, but she trusts you to do what you do.

"The people who try to tell you (stuff) are the people who don't know anything. . . . She sees (comedy) as a craft. The proof is in the comics she's developed in that room. There are few places where that happens."

"She really does a good job with picking who's going to make it before they make it," Madigan says. "She (books you with larger comedians) when you're young and nobody knows who you are. She keeps pushing for you. . . . Most club owners are gross. They lie. They don't pay you right. There are about four or five club owners not like that, Wende being one of them. She doesn't put up with hacks. She doesn't put up with people who steal material. She sets a standard and you have to meet it."

"Denver has a deep well of talented comedians, and she has always treated them with respect," Lopez says.

Comedy Works has gotten such a good reputation that comics far too big for the room, including Dave Chappelle, will go there to hone material.

"Wanda Sykes has been there," Madigan says. "Wanda's not doing that many clubs. But if you're a comic, you go: 'I need to work at a club for a week to work on material. What club do I want to go to?' It's a short list."

Growing pains

Running the downtown club is still No. 1 on her list, to keep the money flowing.

"That machine has to keep working. We have no choice," she says. "I've got another eight people now on the payroll that have nothing to do with that club. Six of them have been on the payroll for a long time. That machine has to stay at its 'A' game, period. There's no room for mistakes. If I miss a weekend, it's revenue that's gone forever."

The new development at Comedy Works South includes Curtis' building and restaurants such as the nearby Pappadeaux, Hapa Sushi, Jing and Ted's Montana Grill.

"I've set a high bar downtown with that beautiful club - a little hole in the wall in a 125-year-old basement. But it's an amazing room, so how do I make this amazing?" Curtis says.

Her answer is a theater/restaurant complex. Her goal is to bring in 2,000 to 3,000 comedy fans on the weekend, like she does at Larimer Square, making the new development a destination spot for people out for fun.

Two restaurants are in her building: Lila B. and Lucy. Lila B. is a martini bar named for her paternal grandmother. Lucy is named for her French bulldog, "my four-legged child," and will specialize in modern American food with a Southern twist.

Delays of all sorts hit, but the biggest came when the tenant for the third-floor ballroom, capable of hosting hundreds for weddings and special events, pulled out.

"We'd booked hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of parties that we had to cancel because of the delays," she says.

"When it came to that third floor, everybody got really, really, really sketchy," she says. Her bankers told her: "You know, we went out on a limb for you with this restaurant thing you wanted, but this third floor is another adventure you don't know. We based all these numbers . . . on what you do know, comedy."

So Curtis was faced with finding a new tenant or running the place herself. To no one's surprise, she took the latter route and the Curtis Ballroom came to be, which she prefers. She lost a friend to a drunken driver in high school and is very particular about how alcohol is served.

"I run a very hard door. I do not let people under 21 in my establishment. But there are a lot of people in the business who aren't (as scrupulous). I don't want anyone else up there serving booze."

A team effort

Curtis isn't the whole show. She tries to surround herself with good people, both on the business end and onstage, be it the best attorneys to hammer out business deals or the best comedians Denver has to offer.

She has also branched out with Comedy Works Entertainment, which manages Josh Blue and promotes shows by Carlos Mencia and Dane Cook.

"I couldn't do this (alone). There's no way. I don't have time, first of all. I don't have time to get my hair cut, let alone time to put together business plans like this," she says. "It's a full- time job doing nothing but booking that downtown room. That's gotta come first. That is what we do."

"It's crazy because we're polar opposites," Madigan says. "I can't even balance my checkbook. The thought of attempting to sit in a bank and get a loan blows my brain apart.

"I have a really good work ethic, but it's for silliness and fun. I've never seen anybody enjoy business so much. She likes all that stuff. 'How can we create something out of nothing? If we have a problem, we'll get the lawyers, we'll do this, we'll do that.' It's astonishing. I could never in 100 lifetimes figure out how to get that accomplished."

But it's not all work, Madigan notes.

"Everybody takes Wende so seriously because she's serious most of the time. Being her friend, I can tell you she is also 50 percent goofy and bizarrely weird fun. Most people don't get to see that side. She shops way too much. Everyone in Cherry Creek knows her name."

By Curtis' own account, she has mellowed despite the current madness in her life. For the past five years of their relationship, Steve Dobo of Urban Peak has balanced her.

"He's exactly the opposite of me. He owns a nonprofit and gets dropouts back into school. He's very wise, very book- smart," she says. "He thinks things through. He doesn't say things that are rash. He's just wise. He's brought some balance to my life. He hasn't judged me for being the crazy person I am, working every weekend, business comes first. I was beginning to find some balance."

Come Oct. 1, a week of charity shows will open the new building, and it'll happen if Curtis has to pound the last nail herself.

"There's no possible way we can do a delay again," she says. "No possible way. This money's gotta start flowing."

brownm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2674

Comedy Works South

* What: the new Tech Center outpost of the Comedy Works

* Where: 5345 Landmark Place, Greenwood Village

* When: A variety of charity events precede the official opening on Oct. 10 and 11.

* Tickets: 303-595-3637, comedyworks.com

Pre-opening lineup

Charity events:

* Oct. 1: 7:30 p.m., Bryan Kellen; benefits Beacon Youth & Family Center, $60

* Oct. 2: 7:30 p.m., Kevin Fitzgerald; benefits Fired Up for Kids, $35

* Oct. 3: 7:30 and 9:30 p.m., Deacon Gray; benefits Rocky Mountain MS Center, Children's Hospital Foundation, Buffalo Trail Elementary School, $65

* Oct. 4: headliner to be announced; 7 and 9:30 p.m.; benefits Food Bank of the Rockies, Colorado Youth for a Change, Bloom Again Foundation, Lupus Foundation, Colorado Cancer Research Program, Colorado Children's Chorale, $30

* Oct. 6: 7:30 p.m., Rusty Z; benefits Parker Hospital Foundation, $30

* Oct. 7: 7:30 p.m., Rusty Z; benefits the Wildlife Experience, $65

Opening lineup

The schedule for the coming months at Comedy Works South:

* George Lopez: Oct. 10 and 11; $50

* Bob Saget: Oct. 17 and 18; $35

* Jimmy Fallon: Oct. 23 to 25; $35

* Kathleen Madigan: Oct. 30 to Nov. 1

* Kevin Pollak: Nov. 20 to 22

* Greg Warren: Dec. 10 to 14

* Tommy Johnagin: Dec. 17 to 21

* Chris Bliss: Dec. 26 to 28 and Dec. 31

• September 5, 2008

  11:30 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  DenverNative80 writes:

  This club has taken a long time to come to fruition, best of luck to Ms. Wende and crew.

• September 6, 2008

  10:53 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  rasputin23 writes:

  Wende, you're the most from coast to coast. Your hard work has paid off and as you print your money, I'm certain it will continue to do so. But Lucy must know that she still has some 'splaining to do.

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