Students came to Old Cabell Hall Sunday to watch Andrew Dismukes perform, hosted by University Programs Council. His act featured stories from his childhood, making fun of the audience and dirty jokes — keeping the crowd laughing the whole time.
Dismukes is a comedian most known for his work on Saturday Night Live, where he has been a cast member since 2020, helping create many well-known sketches. Fourth-year Education student Lucia Gabel said that it was cool to see someone she recognized from TV in person, and the more intimate setting added to the experience.
“It's always fun to see somebody you see on TV in person in a pretty close setting,” Gabel said. “So it was cool.”
Katie Frick, director of the Smiles n Giggles committee and second-year College student, was the planner for this event and helped choose Dismukes as the comedian for their annual comedy show. She said her and her committee chose Dismukes because they thought he would be exciting and relevant.
“I wanted someone who could relate to the students,” Frick said. “Andrew was pretty popular from the start … [my committee] kind of knew SNL would be great.”
The show began with Dismukes discussing the beauty of the University’s campus — not saying Grounds — and revealed how he was warned about referring to students as freshmen and sophomores, rather than first-years and second-years. It was a fun way to get the audience laughing at the ridiculousness of our school, and made the show feel more intimate and relevant to University students.
Throughout the show, Dismukes built off of audience participation and created running bits with different sections of the room. One section cheered the loudest at the beginning, so he deemed them his biggest fans, and another side laughed especially loudly at his dirtier jokes, which he continued to point out. He asked the audience questions and used the answers to build on his jokes, making the show more engaging and exciting. The energy of the room never lowered, with laughter and banter keeping everyone entertained.
Fourth-year College student Ahmed Ahmed said he loved how Dismukes promoted audience participation, and noted how he liked that Dismukes spoke to the University’s sketch comedy club — Incident Sketch and Video Comedy — when he found out they were in the crowd and asked them to tell one of their sketches.
“I always love comedy sketches that have crowd work,” Ahmed said. “He did have someone from our comedy group … at U.Va. pitching their own sketch. So that was pretty nice.”
Dismuke’s humor for the comedy show for college students was markedly different from his jokes on SNL, with Sunday’s show being full of far dirtier jokes. He wanted to make his show relevant to students, and made jokes about his childhood and growing up. Dismukes, at the old age of 30, even went as far as to call himself unc — trying to relate to the younger crowd.
Fourth-year Engineering student Jordan Perez said that college students do not have a high bar in terms of humor and that Dismukes’ jokes were well matched to the humor of college students.
“We're college students, our humor isn't that sophisticated,” Perez said. “There were really only a couple things he had to hit, and I feel like he hit them. So I had a lot of fun.”
The SnG committee is the group within UPC that plans everything funny and comedy-related, and Frick hopes that through her role, she can remind people that school is not just about classes, but about trying new things, meeting new people and having a good time.
The SnG committee works hard to create events that students will enjoy, aiming to hold events that will spark joy and make life on Grounds more fun. Frick said that she has found her footing in her role as director and that she loves how she gets to create fun environments to bring people together.
“I think being in SnG is a great way to help the student experience,” Frick said. “Being a student here is not just studying in class, but having fun outside of class and meeting people.”
Frick said that in the future, she wanted to get more student input on who UPC brings in, hoping to keep comedy fun and exciting. Through events like this one, she hopes to get people more involved in the University community and have a good time with their fellow students.
“People don't realize … how much we really care about the students, but we just want to make the student experience better,” Frick said. “I just want to make people enjoy their time [at the University].”
Dismukes ended his show by tying back to a question he asked at the beginning, when he asked whether people watched SNL. He bid farewell and told everyone to enjoy watching SNL on YouTube Shorts, alluding to an audience member’s earlier response to him asking how people watched SNL. By the end of the show, Dismukes proved that even an “unc” can get college students laughing — as long as the jokes are relatable and engaging.
Read More
‘Rental Family’: Hikari’s love letter to Japan and humanity
By Sofia Hahn | 2 hours agoThrough “Rental Family,” Hikari made it clear that she is a fresh talent to watch, and she is just getting started.
‘Nouvelle Vague’ is an unexpected yet delightful excursion for director Richard Linklater
By Joseph Crain | 5 hours agoScreened before theatrical release at the Virginia Film Festival Sunday, Linklater’s “Nouvelle Vague” depicts Godard briefly before and throughout the production of “Breathless.”
U.Va.’s Screenwriting Club is an exciting addition to the student film scene
By Alena Touve | 14 hours agoOfficially declared as a Contracted Independent Organization in the spring of 2025, the Screenwriting Club is the newest addition to the film scene at the University.
