INTERVIEW: Jill Kimmel keeps it local at Jimmy Kimmel’s Comedy Club
Photo: Jill Kimmel will host a new comedy show at Jimmy Kimmel’s Comedy Club in Las Vegas. Photo courtesy of Caesars / Provided with permission.
One of the most exciting stories on the comedy scene in 2019 has been the opening of Jimmy Kimmel’s Comedy Club at The LINQ Promenade in the heart of Las Vegas. The club has amassed a dedicated following in a few short months and also contracted with many headliners for near-constant laugh fests (check out our profile of club comedian Luenell).
Now Kimmel’s club will welcome someone close to the family: his sister, accomplished comedian Jill Kimmel. The comic will oversee select Thursdays for the next seven months, with her first hosting duties being Thursday, Dec. 26.
Fans of Jill Kimmel can catch her Jan. 9 and 30; Feb. 13 and 27; March 12 and 26; April 9, 23 and 30; May 14 and 28; June 11 and 25; and July 9 and 23, according to press notes. The 80-minute show, which kicks off at 10 p.m., will see Jill hosting a group of fellow comics, many of them close friends and riotously funny colleagues.
“I’m really excited about it,” Jill Kimmel said in a recent phone interview. “I know they say it’s an honor, but it really is. There are so many great comics, especially in the Vegas area. It’s a fun place to go, so to be asked to do this, it feels really good. I know I’ve earned it, but I also feel very grateful.”
Jill Kimmel said her show will be different from the other offerings at the comedy club. For starters, the residencies are mainly about one comic, with an opener or two. Her show is different, perhaps even a little more democratic.
“Vicky Barbolak is there on Tuesday nights; Ian Bagg is there every other Thursday,” she said. “So they’re the headliner, and they bring in a guest comic to open the show up. But I’m doing the reverse. I’m the host of my show. I’ll host it. I’ll be there to welcome everybody. ‘Look what I’ve got for you’ kind of thing, and then every other week I’ll bring in three comics. And generally they’re people that I’ve worked with that I love, that I think are great, that I’m fortunate enough to get to come in for a night to do this show for me, so it’s going to be a really good mix of comics that I’ve come up with and performed with over the years. So you can come every two weeks, and you’ll get a different lineup, a different group, a different flavor of shows. I’m really happy about it. It’s going to be fun.”
Jill’s jokes for the evening will vary. She has her usual bits, which rely on her life experiences and present-day obstacles, and she likes to keep some of these tried-and-true jokes in the routine. However, this doesn’t mean her act is nostalgic; she is constantly evolving the material and finding new stories to tell.
“I have my standard jokes that I have written, and they always evolve,” she said. “As things happen, you kind of phase out different jokes. A lot of my stuff is ad-libbed and off the cuff, so I might do 10 jokes one night, and then the next week I might do one of those jokes for the whole time. It just depends on the crowd and what they’re into. I really like mixing it up with the crowd and including them. Since I grew up in Vegas, I have a little bit of a different perspective on Vegas than a lot of comics because I grew up there. I can relate to the locals in the crowd about the different high schools and the churches and the different restaurants and things, so I’m excited for that part. … I feel like I’m a Vegas girl. When people ask where I’m from, I say, ‘Well, I was born in New York, but I’m from Vegas.’”
She knows better than most people that performing comedy in Vegas can be difficult. The crowds, who have been enjoying food and gambling during the day, are from all over the country, even all over the world. This means a comedian might struggle to find a common denominator, other than say President Donald J. Trump.
Jill Kimmel, though, said that her brother’s comedy club is different. Because of it’s local feel, this lack of unity in the audience is not felt too much.
“It’s really interesting,” said Jill, who started stand-up in July of 2006. “Every other comedy club I’ve performed at in Vegas, I feel like it’s hard to get the crowd on your side. There’s no homogeny whatsoever because people are from everywhere. They’re in Vegas, but they’re from Wisconsin, and they’re from Kansas, they’re from everywhere. When you’re performing for a crowd, you want them to have a mutual feeling of we’re here to make me laugh.”
Here’s how she further described the situation: “Let’s say you went to a football game, and it was the Cowboys playing the Cardinals. And so all the fans were either Cowboys fans or Cardinals fans. [In Vegas], it’s like there’s Rams fans and Raiders fans and Giants fans, so the [comic] is out there playing, trying to appeal to these people. But they’re kind of like, ‘Eh.’ They don’t have a mutual thing to root for. But in Jimmy’s club, I find that every time I’ve been there, there are a ton of locals. They come out to really get more of a real, regular comedy club vibe like you would get anywhere else in the country as opposed to a tourist spot. With his club, I feel like there isn’t that challenge. It really feels like people are in it together, and even the people who aren’t local feel like they’re locals there. And I just think that’s the greatest gift that we could get as comedians.”
Jill made the fateful jump into the world of comedy because she likes how the laugh business rewards solid work. She has always loved acting and has fond memories of performing a variety roles ever since she was a child growing up in the Kimmel household in Las Vegas. However, as an adult, she realized that a good actor doesn’t mean a good career because Hollywood is very much about cutting a break. On the other hand, in comedy, she believes there’s more of a chance to have actual talent direct the trajectory of one’s career.
“I had always done church plays and school plays,” Jill said. “I found myself when I was in college looking at some of the local newspapers trying to find acting gigs, and I got a local agent. But when you’re acting, you really are relying on other people to cast you in something. … But with comedy, you develop your comedy, and people notice. You don’t have to wait for someone to cast you. You could start your own open mic. You could start networking, and if you’re good and making a crowd laugh, these other people putting on shows will hire you. And that’s what happened for me. It just felt so good to be in control creatively that way, where I could go, as long as I get better at doing comedy, I will always be bookable, which is not necessarily the same case for actors.”
She added: “I just really like the part where I can do my own thing and talk about what I want to talk about, what means something to me, not words that someone else has written.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Jill Kimmel will perform on select Thursdays from Dec. 26 through July 23 at Jimmy Kimmel’s Comedy Club at The LINQ Promenade in Las Vegas. Click here for more information and tickets. Click here for more information on Jill Kimmel.
