Royal Comedy Theatre brings authentic stand-up to the Twin Cities suburbs

Mike Edlavitch, in a tight blue jacket and purple bow tie, opened the door to the Royal Comedy Theatre exactly 30 minutes before show time.

A red carpet in the entrance led the audience past the bar and into the main room, painted black and packed with a dozen small tables. The only lights pointed to the stage, where a microphone rested on a stand.

It was the fourth of five shows of the week for Edlavitch's stand-up comedy club, located in one of the smallest storefronts on Hopkins' Mainstreet, a corridor lined with mom-and-pop shops. Three comedians performed, with a headline set by John Bush. They cracked wise on everything from marriage and cellphones to Des Moines and the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile.

"If you have a small crowd here, they seem big anyway because it's a small room," Bush said before his set. "That intimacy, it helps with improv. It's more personal."

The Royal Comedy Theatre just celebrated its first year and this week will host the Hopkins Comedy Festival, to run Tuesday through Sunday.

Edlavitch, born and raised in St. Louis Park, is not new to the world of stand-up. "Part of being Jewish is knowing stand-up," he joked.

He performed for two years in the early 2000s, inspired by the comics he would see Friday nights on Comedy Central. He taught school for several years, starting a popular math games website for kids, before deciding to open up a storefront business with the proceeds from the website.

In his first year, Edlavitch has seen both the ups and downs of running a stand-up club in Minnesota. One downside: No two-drink minimum. "Minnesotans won't tolerate it, being told to drink," he said.

He's also made an effort to book a diverse lineup of comics, many of whom have toured the country and appeared on late-night shows. "Especially being in Minnesota, it's challenging to not always have an all-white-male lineup," he said.

The club just switched from a showcase format, where several comics get 15 minutes on stage, to a headliner and feature act. But Edlavitch's commitment to stand-up comedy hasn't waned. "We try not to have magicians," he said.

Heather Cole-Reeves and her husband Tommy, who used to live in Hopkins, are regulars since November. "The atmosphere is great," she said. "Hopkins really needed something like this."

With the popularity of late-night shows and the number of stand-up specials hitting Netflix, Edlavitch has seen a renewed interest in the art of telling jokes. As a result, many who come to the club are watching stand-up live for the first time.

Then the comedian gets on stage, grabs the mike and does what comedians do best: Make people laugh.

"Stand-up is such a beautiful, disgusting thing," said comedian Joe Cocozzello, who performed before Bush. "In the sad time that we live in, we need to laugh so much more."