Meet Comedian Nate Roe

Nate's Audience Member Do's & Dont's

Do: Not talk during the set

Dont: Don’t sit in the front with RBF

When you’re on stage and the lights are bright in your face and you can’t quite see the entire crowd, it can be comforting to slip into the mask or the groove of your stage presence—whether it’s a theater performance, live music, a public speaking event, or a comedy show. It’s pretty special to witness someone else do that, especially when it’s followed by an encapsulating performance. 

Nate Roe came from small-town Minnesota to the area to attend college. He grew up doing a bit of theater in high school. He now works as an engineer for a local pharmaceutical supply company in town. He lives downtown, is a bit soft-spoken when you first meet him, and has an incredible stage presence.

“I think goes back to—all my brothers are a lot older than me. Like, my youngest brother’s eight years older than me. So, I grew up, and I think I got a real kick out of making his friends laugh. I would think, ‘What would they think is funny?’ and it kind of stems from that,” Nate said.

Other than being a jokester with his older brother’s friends growing up, Nate says he hasn’t thought much about why he does comedy; other than the fact that it feels cool—of course, it didn’t start out feeling like that.

Nate had some experience in front of crowds because of theater, but he actually started doing stand-up at the old Red Raven Espresso Parlor (now, an event space called FirehouseNo2 hosted by The White House Co.) in 2019. But, it wasn’t a smooth ride from then on, one might call it more of a zig-zag.

“It’s kind of hard to pin down because I started in, I want to say, 2019, but then during COVID, I didn’t really do any shows. I didn’t want to do any Zoom shows,” Nate said. “I also had a co-op during college, where I lived in Jamestown for eight months. I probably did like, two open mics during that time in Jamestown, and that was nervewracking because it was a new place. Those mics were horrible, with like three people on the lineup, and the other two were country music artists, then me telling jokes for five minutes.”

The First Open Mic

Back in 2019, after watching his friend who has since retired from the stage perform at an open mic at the Red Raven a few times, Nate decided to try it.

“My first time, I basically just told a story about—I don’t even remember what it was— something dealing with a farm story. I literally don’t remember a single thing about it. I don’t even think it had a point to the story. That was my first time on stage in years, since high school. That was fun. Then the next week, I had a couple actual jokes. You just do those jokes again with more stuff to them. More new jokes and they kind of get bigger and bigger.”

Nate remembers a few laughs here and there from that first open mic. Usually, there are some chuckles at every show, but Nate said that if he’s doing an open mic, he’d rather have dead silence than pity laughs. Why? Because that’s more data.

Upcoming Shows

Casselton VFW Post 4655 – Oct 25

Comedy Showcase The Cellar – Nov 30

What's So Funny?

Nate is the type of comedian who immediately grabs your attention. It’s not that he necessarily does that with a loud noise, or a crazy opening line; in fact, he enters the stage in no rush, there’s no hurriedness to his movements, but once he starts speaking you can feel yourself drawn into the show. As some say, there’s a method to the madness.

Wordplay, “aha” moments, and a little bit of formula-driven jokes make up some of Nate’s comedy style.

“Basically every joke is, you set up an expectation, you subvert the expectation, and that’s what causes the laugh for some reason,” Nate explained. “It’s like—what’s the point of the joke? Like, is it true? Because, if you’re pointing out something, it’s got to be something that other people have also noticed consciously—that’s hard to do.”

There are a lot of formula-made jokes that Nate has developed. The tricky part about that style of material development can be to make sure that your jokes are still presented authentically. And what’s a great way to create authenticity? Vulnerability.

“I do a good amount of self deprecating stuff at the top of the set,” he said. “Which is good to do because if you come off right off the bat thinking you’re hot shit or whatever, and then you don’t do that good, everyone hates you for the rest of the set.”

As he starts with a little self-depreciation to connect with the audience, it can almost seem like the set is a bit uncouth, but in reality, it’s extremely calculated. Not in a deceiving way, but rather intriguing. He’s almost calculated it down to a science, the audience is wrapped around his finger waiting on the edge of their seats to hear what he says next—without ever realizing you’re as involved with what he’s saying so much until you’re snapped out of it as he leaves the stage with a wave and a “have a good night.”

“I feel like I’m able to get a good amount of laughs per minute with my current style. And I like the feeling of a crowd pop, where everyone’s laughing, and then if you’re able to pop it up again as they’re dying down. A comic who’s really good at that is Sam Tallent, in his sets you watch him and he does a quip or like a tagline and it’s timed perfectly to when they start to die down,” Nate said.

If you didn’t talk to Nate about this trick, you’d never notice that he is very intentional about his timing. Listening to his set, you’re zoned in, waiting for the next line to come, and as he works out the timing of his next line, you’re almost being baited—which makes you want to listen even harder. And when it does come, you can feel the pressure in the room release.

“I try to do that, and very rarely am I as successful as that. But, it’s a really good feeling when you get the crowd rolling and then with the contagious nature of laughter, if you get that, then everyone’s laughing. It’s loud as hell.”

That's the tough nature of comedy—the better you do, the less material you have to do because there's more laughter to fill the time. Whereas, if you're bombing, you have to joke, and joke, and joke. That is actually a really good metric to tell how well you did because it's hard to tell when you're on stage, threequarters of the way through my set, there's only one minute left that's generally because I did pretty good. Or if I go through all my material and there's still, like, three minutes left, I'm just like, I ate shit."

- Nate Roe

The Long Game

Nate is really at a high point in his career as a comic thus far. You can tell he is comfortable on stage, has plenty of material, and is just excited to be a part of the scene. That’s not to say there’s not much more to come, and that is to say that in reality there’s only about five years give or take under his belt—so again, the future is wide open for Nate.

What he’s really looking forward to now? Growing and being a part of the local community.

“There’s no dearth of talent. There’s a lot of older talent and newer, upcoming people that are getting better each week. I think we’re in good hands, although unfortunately, two of my friends recently moved to the Twin Cities area,” Nate said. “We keep losing them.”

That’s a commonality with comedians from the Fargo area—going east for brighter lights and bigger stages. But, Nate and the other comedians would probably tell you that choosing to move on from the FM scene can be a bittersweet thing.

Q&A with Nate

Q: Do you have any memories that stuck out to you?

A: There was this one showcase we did a couple of years back that might be the best set in terms of crowd reception, and this hasn’t happened since, which is a bummer because I’ve been chasing that high. I was able to do the thing I was kind of talking about, and then there was a point about two-thirds of the way through the set where a lady fell off her chair because she was laughing.

Q: Pre-show rituals?

A: I’ll get a coffee, and then I’ll get an old-fashioned. That’s it. Coffee to pep you, and then the whiskey to… also pep you up?

Q: What isn’t funny?

A: I think a lot of newer comics confuse offensive with funny—it can be, in the hands of a skilled comic, which, if you’re starting, you probably aren’t. Guys will go out of the gate, like, borderline saying slurs on stage—those guys get blacklisted, obviously, so that isn’t funny. Although I won’t say certain topics are 100% taboo, I think if the joke is done well enough and it’s done from a place of understanding then it can be funny, but rarely is the case. [Also], stolen jokes aren’t funny

Follow along with Nate’s upcoming shows and highlights online on The Cellar’s socials and his Instagram!

Instagram | @nath_roe