Any parents in here?

Anybody got kids?

[Audience members cheer] On a hill in the Petworth neighborhood of Washington, D.C., performers and audiences pay homage to one of our best presidents, who was actually a really funny guy-- Abraham Lincoln.

How old is yours?

Mine?

Yeah.

Still 19.

[Laughter] "Still 19"?

Woman: Still 19.

Comedian: That is a disturbing, weird way of putting it.

"Still 19"!

It's like he got held back from being 20.

Curry: This may look like an ordinary night of stand-up comedy.

That was a bizarre answer.

[Laughter] Curry: But what makes it different is the venue.

I'm going to keep talking to you... Curry: The venue is the parlor of a 34-room house that Lincoln and his family lived in for a quarter of his presidency.

Hawkins: My name is Callie Hawkins, and I'm the CEO and executive director here at President Lincoln's Cottage.

We've been doing this since 2016 at a really divisive moment in our nation's history.

And when we look back on how far we've come, we're so proud... ah, uh, uh... of this program.

[Laughter] Hawkins, voice-over: We all grow up learning so much about the mythological Lincoln.

Lincoln loved a bawdy joke.

He loved a dad joke.

He loved everything in between.

And it really helps us understand him better when we understand that part of him.

Curry: Lincoln was so well known for his humor that printers published Lincoln joke books during his presidency.

Hawkins: It was very mission relevant for us to explore something that talked about Lincoln's humor, but we didn't think that a program on historical humor would be funny at all.

[Curry laughs] ♪ At President Lincoln's Cottage, we do not censor artists, so we make no promises about what you're going to hear tonight.

[Laughter] This program would not be what it is without the partnership of the DC Improv, specifically Chris White.

So, Chris, please come on up.

Thank you very much, Callie.

In fact, let's give it up for Callie.

Come on!

[Cheering] Lincoln used this place for a lot of different things, but one of them was to relax.

And I am a history dork for lack of a better term.

And I love the fact that we get to basically use this space the way Abraham Lincoln did, which is my way of saying you have to laugh.

[Laughter] How did this relationship between DC Improv and the Lincoln Cottage begin?

They called me up and said, "We have a great idea.

"Why don't we come and do a comedy show here at Lincoln's Cottage?"

We had the connections to make this happen.

I myself have a huge interest in presidential history, and so it was a great thrill for me personally.

I feel like they were doing me a favor that I could come up here and be a part of this experience.

Hawkins: The Lincoln-Douglas debates is where we got the title for our comedy series, which is "Two Faces Comedy."

Famously, Lincoln's political opponent, Stephen Douglas, called him two-faced.

Lincoln said, "I leave it to you, audience members.

If I had two faces, do you think I'd be wearing this one?"

[Laughing] White: Each show has a theme that in some way ties to either Lincoln himself or the Lincoln family or the way that the cottage was used.

Themes have explored everything from grief to immigration, veterans' affairs.

Sometimes they're just really silly, like the one comedy night where the only thing that brought people together was all the comics had beards.

Tonight's theme is lawyers, and you guys might ask yourself, "What does that mean?"

Well, because the theme is lawyers, we theoretically should do a show that's about an hour, but again, because the theme is lawyers, we're going to do five and bill you for the entire hour.

[Laughter] That said, you guys ready to get some lawyers up here and have a good time?

Let's get some applause going as we bring our first performer to the stage.

[Cheering] Hi.

Wow.

It's so exciting to be here in Lincoln's Cottage.

And it is true.

Lincoln was very, very funny.

I did some research, and as it turns out, he told a lot of fart jokes... [Laughter] which is really-- Yeah, it's totally surprising.

I really would have thought he'd be more of a [bleep] joke kind of a guy... but no, no.

[Laughter] Arluk: What drew me to do comedy?

I had a milestone birthday, and I wanted to do something different-- something that kind of pushed boundaries that, you know, made me a little uncomfortable.

Hey, everyone.

How you doing?

Arluk, voice-over: So I thought, well, I'll take this stand-up comedy class.

Having a 13-year-old son is really awesome if you hate having sex with your spouse.

[Laughter] And I had so much fun.

[Laughs] And my teacher said, "This doesn't have to be the only time you do it."

Hi, everyone.

Thank you so much.

Arluk, voice-over: There are open mics all over the DC area, and you can keep doing it if you want to keep doing it.

[Laughter] I just don't get it.

For me, it's just fun.

How do you decide on which comics get the privilege of doing a show here in the parlor?

There's tremendous diversity in the DC comedy scene, just like there is in the Washington, DC arts community.

So when we're trying to figure out who to bring in for these shows, it really is that attempt to sort of give this opportunity to a lot of different people and let the audiences here enjoy the wide variety of talent that we have here in DC.

Has anybody here ever had a retail job where, like-- You have?

Where'd you work?

Nordstrom.

Nordstrom.

Damn.

Sorry.

[Laughter] Anybody else have a retail job?

Are we all bougie?

Are we all privileged?

Oh, my God!

[Laughter] Comedy sounded so cool, but one--I'm a woman, and two--I'm a Black woman.

And so when I'm watching stand-up growing up, there's, like, a handful of people that I had to look up to.

So it was always something I dreamed of doing one day.

And then the pandemic occurred.

That's the number of cases.

That's the number of positive tests.

It just so happens I was trained at the CDC's Public Health Law program.

Since the history of John Snow, public health professionals didn't think how to address this kind of discrepancy?

The audacity.

I had information.

so I made videos and I put it out there, and I tried to be funny and entertaining.

This new "Call Me By Your Name" song by Lil Nas X, unacceptable.

And then everything really took off when I did a satire video about Lil Nas X's new music video.

As a mother, I need to speak out against this because children are impressionable.

My son is going to watch this and want thigh-high boots, and I don't even know where you find thigh-high boots for a toddler.

Stand-up is such a good vehicle for getting people to listen and care about something.

You know, I got into stand-up comedy because I watched stand-up comedians when I was younger be able to do this.

And one of the jokes that sticks out to me that really just, like, really, really got in my brain when I was little, was Chris Rock telling a joke about bullet control.

You don't need no gun control.

You know what you need?

We need some bullet control.

We need to make-- we need to control the bullets.

That's right.

I think all bullets should cost $5,000.

[Laughter] $5,000 for a bullet.

You know why?

Because if a bullet costs $5,000, there'll be no more innocent bystanders.

[Laughter and applause] Houston: The audience is laughing, but I'm also like, "Oh, that's a great way to get gun control discussion, you know, out to the public, and, you know, in a place where it's normally not, like not just in the halls of Congress or with people who are experts in that field.

Anybody got younger kids?

How many you got?

Man: 7, 10.

Oh, I thought you said you had seven kids.

I was like, "You need a hobby.

[Bleep]."

All right.

Seven and ten.

Just the two kids.

OK.

Do y'all do Elf on the Shelf?

Yeah.

OK.

Um, w-why do you do that?

[Laughter] I definitely want to bring a lot of my political comedy to the stage.

I think doing it at Lincoln's Cottage is the perfect setting for that.

And, uh, you know, shout out to Abe Lincoln.

Shout out to Abe Lincoln helping to free my people.

Me, as a lawyer, there's two things I don't allow in my house, and that's feds and ops, and that elf is both.

[Laughter] Why are you allowing a stranger to come in your home and make a list of your child's alleged crimes and take it to a white man up north?

What the [bleep] is wrong with you?

[Laughter] When you put it that way.

Houston: Yeah.

[Laughter continues] Houston, voice-over: I feel like these kind of shows really attract an audience that crave really smart comedy.

They crave comedy that has layers, and political comedy is the perfect, perfect kind of comedy for that kind of audience.

Why do you think Lincoln came out here to think instead of being in the atmosphere of the White House?

The Civil War had completely transformed Washington.

It went from being a sleepy Southern town to the center of the Union war effort almost overnight.

And by the summer of 1862, the Lincoln family was desperate with grief over the death of their little boy Willie.

The move out here reflects Lincoln's balancing his role as husband and father and as commander in chief.

I think he knew that his family needed some quiet, and these grounds, which were rural back then, really provided respite.

The DC Improv has been super creative and allowed us to cut through a lot of really challenging topics, which is exactly how Lincoln used humor.

I got some weird questions as part of my job recruitment.

I got questions about my love life.

Like, they said, "Are you currently divorced?"

That's a really specific pointed question, right?

And I said, "Well, yes, but I'm married to my second wife, and she loves it when I call her that."

[Laughter] And here's my favorite question.

They said, "Are you currently engaged in any terrorist activities?"

And I'm like, "Currently?"

[Laughter] "Sir, if you're engaged in terrorism, now's a good time to tell us."

Is it, though?

[Laughter] I grew up in a small town in North Dakota in the only Pakistani Muslim family.

So a lot of bizarre, strange things there that I use for my humor.

But I don't think it always has to come from pain.

I think it has to come from this deep-down, innate urge to want to entertain and make people laugh.

My son said, "Daddy, I want to be just like you."

Audience: Aw.

And he wanted to play a game.

He goes, "I'm gonna be Daddy and you're gonna be me."

I go, "OK."

So he goes, "I'm Daddy.

I'm going to comedy show."

[Laughter] Then he points to me and says, "Now cry!"

[Laughter] Tareen, voice-over: I've performed in London, Paris and East coast, West coast, all over the place, and I love that.

And then he goes, "Now I'm Daddy at comedy show.

No one's laughing."

[Laughter] Tareen, voice-over: When I get different kinds of crowds, I can lean in on certain things without having to give context, and that makes it so much more fun.

Got me thinking, like, civil rights attorney terrorist.

Like, that's a really specific niche, you know.

What would a civil rights attorney terrorist even do?

It'd be like, "Hi, Mr.

bin Laden, sir.

"I'm your civil rights attorney terrorist.

"I noticed your Death to America video is not closed captioned for the deaf or hard of hearing."

[Laughter and applause] "I see you're not paying your female terrorists as much as the male ones."

[Laughter] Tareen, voice-over: I don't know if there's anything inherently funny about the law itself, but I do think that stand-up comedians and lawyers have a lot of parallels in what we do because as lawyers, it's our job to distill something very complicated into something that's palatable and interesting and, hopefully, entertaining in some way, whether it's persuasive or whatever.

And same thing with being a comedian.

Thank you, guys, so much for coming out and being part of this tonight.

Good night!

Thank you.

[Cheering] How are you feeling?

Anytime you can get together in a room full of people and just laugh about something that on its face isn't necessarily funny-- lawyers, you know, not necessarily funny-- but get together and laugh, and it just, it's contagious.

Yeah.

It really is.

Yeah.

White: I feel like the whole point of the show is, you know, there's so much great talent in this city and in the comedy world in general, and it's really great to see that variety, to see the mix of people... Curry: Yeah.

and the ways people can make you laugh.

It was a great show.

The "Two Faces Comedy Series" is back this fall.

Information about tickets and tours is at lincolncottage.org, with more stand-up and comedy classes at dcimprov.com.

And... don't forget to follow our comics: Elizabeth Booker Houston, Badar Tareen, and Pam Arluk.