\n<\/p>\n
When Eitan Levine<\/a>, who\u2019s been doing comedy for about 15 years, announced to his roughly 20,000 followers on Instagram that he would be holding a four-night stand-up comedy event called Apartment Fest<\/a> in his two-bedroom Harlem home, he wasn\u2019t too surprised when 157 applicants submitted audition tapes.<\/p>\n \u201cGood stage time is very hard to come by and bad stage time is also very hard to come by, so you take all of it,\u201d said Levine, 34, who was offering peers a highly coveted 10 minutes each. \u201cI\u2019ve applied to worse shows for less time.\u201d<\/p>\n The event, which on some nights featured two 90-minute shows, complete with a headliner and six comedians, took over his apartment. Last Thursday, as Levine pushed back a large sectional sofa, set up some 25 chairs and made sure there was enough beer and water for guests paying up to $25 apiece, he worried about train delays and whether audiences would even show up. \u201cAll of those stressors are amplified 5,000 percent because the show is literally in my living room,\u201d Levine explained. He needn\u2019t have worried. The shows were all sold out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n This D.I.Y. spirit is reminiscent of the New York\u2019s music scene<\/a> in the early 2000s, when bands like the Strokes and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were getting their starts in grimy apartments on the Lower East Side. Just as those groups were to the left of the mainstream at the time, today many early-stage comedians have to create their own spaces to be heard. And just like back then, an apartment works perfectly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Levine\u2019s open-plan living area is painted from floor to ceiling in bold stripes that range from orange to bright teal. A window spans much of the back wall, and the space is open enough to snugly accommodate the crowd that faced a microphone stand.<\/p>\n Chloe Radcliffe<\/a>, 32, worked as a staff writer on \u201cThe Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,\u201d has a studio comedy feature in development and most recently appeared in a mini-series directed by Steven Soderbergh called \u201cCommand Z.\u201d On Thursday, she biked from Ridgewood, Queens, to Harlem to perform at Apartment Fest. She touched up her makeup in Levine\u2019s bathroom and prepped her set from a bench in his bedroom, which was strewn with pizza boxes and was serving as a green room.<\/p>\n Radcliffe opened with a bit about the birthmark on her cheek: \u201cI was on the sidewalk and somebody dropped their AirPod and I picked it up and gave it to him and said, \u2018Have a good day.\u2019 He smiled, looked at my birthmark and said, \u2018Get well soon.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The crowd responded with uncontrollable giggles. \u201cI would love to find that guy in a couple of years and be like, \u2018It won\u2019t go away! I don\u2019t know how to get rid of it!\u2019\u201d she continued.<\/p>\n Despite Levine\u2019s nerves, this wasn\u2019t the first time he had held comedy shows in his apartment. He originally got the idea after a rejection in 2019.<\/p>\n \u201cI was applying to a bunch of comedy festivals and one day I got an email from a festival rejecting me and I realized I never even applied to it,\u201d Levine said, adding that he \u201ccame to stand-up from the improv and sketch communities where it\u2019s very D.I.Y. \u2014 you can put a show on anywhere \u2014 so I just took that idea.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Brandon Barrera<\/a>, 27, host of the first show on Saturday night, agreed with the D.I.Y. label and described the event as Levine \u201cbasically throwing a house party with the people who make him laugh the hardest.\u201d<\/p>\n Because of the many comedy clubs in New York, the city is one of the only places in the country where stand-ups can get onstage multiple times in one night. But even then, they can hope to end the evening with 15 minutes of total stage time. Radcliffe, for instance, had two more shows on the docket later Thursday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But bars and club owners can be picky, resulting in more pressure on comedians. Barrera, who moved from Los Angeles when his friend offered him a job as a golf caddy and a place to live in the nearby caddyshack in New Jersey, records multiple podcasts in addition to performing live. Other comedians at Apartment Fest also regularly appear on or produce podcasts, all while constantly posting material on social media, which is often where club and festival bookers find their work.<\/p>\n Social media wasn\u2019t as much of a consideration for Levine as he put together Apartment Fest\u2019s bills. Though many of the performers who made the cut were his friends and had thousands of followers on social media, he also included younger comedians who were just starting to share their work online.<\/p>\n \u201cThe minimum buy-in to some other festivals is 15,000 Instagram followers and 50,000 TikTok followers,\u201d Levine said. \u201cOther festivals are trying to sell something or they\u2019re trying to be a festival that makes money. This festival is literally just the funniest people that submitted videos.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Radcliffe has a significant following on social media, and while she understands it can be limiting for comedians, she said such platforms have \u201cbroadened access by orders of magnitude: underrepresented voices get noticed; more people are tangibly able to participate; comedians can build their own audience and the monetary exchange is more direct,\u201d Radcliffe said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Festivals often pay only in potential exposure. Even as pop-up shows in unexpected places around the city have become more popular, it\u2019s common for bookers to take home the bulk of the money while splitting meager amounts among the comedians.<\/p>\n For Levine\u2019s show, the host was paid $30, the featured acts were paid $20 and the headliners were paid $75. The money left over from the ticket proceeds \u2014 $1,500 \u2014 was donated to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.<\/p>\n Levine chose the organization after first encountering it at age 10 when he was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma. It\u2019s also how he found his way into comedy. After his first wish, a BattleBot, was denied, \u201cI ended up asking them to put me on a comedy show in New York,\u201d said Levine, who grew up in Springfield, N.J. \u201cSo they put me up on a show at Caroline\u2019s<\/a>\u201d comedy club.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n He currently appears on an Amazon sports comedy show, \u201cGame Breakers,\u201d and plans to cut a special from sets of his performances that were filmed at Apartment Fest.<\/p>\n As for the other comedians, the stage time in a homey apartment offered a chance to connect with an audience in a low-pressure setting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n