FOR THE LAUGHS Woman Entrepreneur Builds Local Comedy Scene With Yearlong Residency
March 11, 2022
FOR THE LAUGHS
Woman Entrepreneur Builds Local Comedy Scene With Yearlong Residency
Dawn Davis Womack, an entertainer and woman entrepreneur in Harrisonburg, is turning comedy into her superpower.
Her production company, X2 Comedy, is creating an ecosystem for comedy in Harrisonburg and drawing comedians from D.C. and Virginia Beach to local venues.
As a teenager, Davis Womack wanted to become an actress.
Over the next few years, that dream was put on hold by the tragic death of her father.
Days before she was to set off for college at West Virginia University, her dad fell from a high deck and went into a coma. She went on to school and pursued a theater major. At the end of the year, her dad died.
She said her grades were in a tailspin. That entire freshman year, she said she did not feel present at school. When it came time to audition for the official acting program, she performed a comedic monologue to a standing ovation.
Her main theater coach kept her out of the program because of her grades. Because of those circumstances, Davis Womack, who said she was a “gym rat” at the time, pursued exercise science instead.
By the end of college, she had given birth to a son and was ending the relationship with his dad. She was also continuing her education in exercise science.
“I have a lot of memories of staying up at night and I’d be [sitting cross legged] and I’d have graduate school books on my left with a pen and my son, Landon, on the right with a bottle," Davis Womack said.
Over the next 20 years, she worked in health and wellness with a couple of different jobs working with the elderly. She met her husband, Chris Womack, and moved to Harrisonburg in the early 2000s when he got a job as a professor of kinesiology at JMU, a position he holds now.
But it wasn’t until she became a mentor in the Duke Center at JMU that she was bitten again by the acting bug.
It came full-circle for Davis Womack, when a student questioned her. The student wanted to pursue acting, but when she heard Davis Womack’s story, she pointed out that she was encouraging students to follow their dreams, but Davis Womack hadn’t followed her own.
“I went home and I was emotional because she was right,” Davis Womack said. “And here I [was] in my mid-40s, in Harrisonburg, Virginia. How does one follow their acting dreams in their mid-40s in Harrisonburg, Virginia? That was a good question. I was not sure what to do about that.”
That conversation led Davis Womack to audition for a Valley Playhouse show in the early 2010s. The decision to audition was very difficult.
She got a tiny speaking role, which led to more roles in community theater. Then, she pursued background character roles in TV shows and even appeared on House of Cards.
“Will there be washers and dryers on the flying saucer?” Davis Womack said. “That was one of my three lines in [the Valley Playhouse] show.”
A few years later, when she decided she wanted to get better at comedic acting, she signed up for stand-up comedy classes in D.C. The classes culminated in a performance for friends and family, and that’s where Davis Womack got her first paid role.
She was hired for a comedy show in 2017, which featured multiple comics doing small sets. From there, she got more comedy gigs.
“I met other comedians in that process who were doing shows and they found out about me or saw my performance and they put me on their shows,” Davis Womack said.
But the more gigs she got, the more she realized she was spending long hours in the car.
“There isn’t really an ongoing comedy scene here or a big scene here,” Davis Womack said. “It’s just that it’s not to the level of what you would see even in Charlottesville [or Staunton].”
While Harrisonburg had small comedy troupes, like the Friendly City Comedy sketch-comedy group, Davis Womack said she’d have to travel to Washington, D.C. and Virginia Beach for shows.
“There were opportunities to perform and lots of comics in the area,” Davis Womack said. “If you looked for that here, the answer would be ‘no.’”
Davis Womack had already wanted to do more comedy locally, when Jeff Moon, owner of Restless Moons Brewing, connected with her about doing a comedy show in 2018.
It was at Restless Moons, in 2018, that X2 Comedy began.
Davis Womack, who only had 10 minutes of material ready, found talent from JMU’s New and Improv’d comedy club. With the students, she put on a full show.
From there, it was on.
Davis Womack started X2 Comedy, a local comedy production company, with then business partner, Steve McClay. They gave it the simple name since there were two of them and they did comedy.
They started organizing comedy shows with whatever talent they could get.
Abigail Theakston, a senior theater major at JMU, is an aspiring stand-up comedian. Theakston has performed with X2 Comedy through New and Improv’d. Theakston, as part of New and Improv’d, was in the January X2 Comedy show at Court Square.
“I got to talking to [Davis Womack] about possibly doing stand up,” Theakston said. “She definitely was the person who gave me the tools I needed to start doing it myself.”
Theakston said she’s continuing to learn from Davis Womack. Theakston, who’s only done a handful of stand-up events so far, said she recently performed at a show along with Davis Womack in Cumberland, Md.
“She is very, very good at preparation and writing down all her jokes and memorizing the order,” Theakston said. “The inspiration that she gives me is to dive deeper into my work and really memorize the plot points.”
The simple idea of bringing more comedians and comedy shows to the Harrisonburg area is growing into an entertainment network that’s hyper-focused on hospitality and relationships.
“I love looking at it from all angles. I want the audience to have the absolute best experience they can possibly have and the same thing for the comic and the same thing for the venue,” Davis Womack said.
Right now Davis Womack, who jokes she has little experience in business, is brushing up on branding, sponsorship and marketing with a lot of help from local organizations and joining the local Chamber of Commerce.
“Did I mention that I tell jokes?” Davis Womack said. “This is new to me and they were happy to help me figure it out.”
It was great hospitality that Virginia Beach-based comedian Vernard “The Laugh Therapist” Hines noticed as a performer in a recent X2 Comedy show. The X2 Comedy Series launched on Jan. 29 with Hines as the headliner.
A retired U.S. Army Veteran, Hines said he suffers from PTSD. He said laughter has been part of his therapy and that’s where his stage name comes from. He said his relatable brand of humor that blends family and military life went over well at Court Square.
“The audience was diverse and had a couple of military organizations in the audience and it made for a great show,” Hines said. “X2 Comedy’s hospitality was off the chain. The [venue] is great for comedy. The talent was great.”
Winston Hodges, a D.C.-based comedian, headlined the second show in the series on Feb. 26.
“It’s one of the most fun times I’ve had onstage. I was only booked to do about 30 minutes and everybody was having so much fun that I ended up doing about an hour onstage,” Hodges said.
Each show is hosted by Chris Womack and features comedy by Davis Womack.
“It’s a great thing for the comics from some of the larger markets,” Chris Womack said. “They always love these shows. They’re not used to the care Dawn puts into her shows and her talent.”
Womack said he tried his first open mic night last summer.
“That takes a lot of courage,” Womack said. “She started her own production company so she’d have more opportunities and she could bring comics from some of those other places here.”
The next show in the series will be on April 9 at 7:30 p.m. Shows will continue in June, August, October and December.
Tickets for upcoming X2 Comedy Series shows are available online at valleyarts.org/performances, by clicking the icon for X2 Comedy Series, then clicking, “purchase tickets.” For more information about Court Square Theater, visit valleyarts.org/cst or call the Arts Council of the Valley at (540)-801-8779.
“There’s not a lot of stand-up comedy in [the Harrisonburg] area,” Hodges said. “I think X2 has done a really good job of having more frequent shows and they’re all really good.”
The shows are advertised as clean, PG-13 comedy. Hodges said the PG-13 rating gives comedians some leeway with their humor.
“It allows comedians who don’t naturally work clean to make people laugh without cursing,” Hodges said. “She does a really good job of booking comedians who can work clean, but aren’t corny and lame.”
Davis Womack said she does a little bit of everything and is leveraging her connections.
“It’s a lot of booking comedians, scouting talent, connecting with venues, marketing, promoting and putting together killer shows,” Davis Womack said.
She also launched a podcast in April called Virginia is for Laughers, with new episodes each Wednesday. Hosted by Davis Womack, she said by interviewing interesting people in the Shenandoah Valley, she’s hoping the podcast will help build community in Harrisonburg to bring more joy and laughter in general.
“I would love to see [Harrisonburg’s comedy scene] be built so big one day that the big names want and need to stop here on their tour,” Davis Womack said.
Woman Entrepreneur Builds Local Comedy Scene With Yearlong Residency
- By JILLIAN LYNCH Daily News-Record
- Mar 5, 2022
Top of Form
Bottom of Form
For many, humor is a defense mechanism.Dawn Davis Womack, an entertainer and woman entrepreneur in Harrisonburg, is turning comedy into her superpower.
Her production company, X2 Comedy, is creating an ecosystem for comedy in Harrisonburg and drawing comedians from D.C. and Virginia Beach to local venues.
As a teenager, Davis Womack wanted to become an actress.
Over the next few years, that dream was put on hold by the tragic death of her father.
Days before she was to set off for college at West Virginia University, her dad fell from a high deck and went into a coma. She went on to school and pursued a theater major. At the end of the year, her dad died.
She said her grades were in a tailspin. That entire freshman year, she said she did not feel present at school. When it came time to audition for the official acting program, she performed a comedic monologue to a standing ovation.
Her main theater coach kept her out of the program because of her grades. Because of those circumstances, Davis Womack, who said she was a “gym rat” at the time, pursued exercise science instead.
By the end of college, she had given birth to a son and was ending the relationship with his dad. She was also continuing her education in exercise science.
“I have a lot of memories of staying up at night and I’d be [sitting cross legged] and I’d have graduate school books on my left with a pen and my son, Landon, on the right with a bottle," Davis Womack said.
Over the next 20 years, she worked in health and wellness with a couple of different jobs working with the elderly. She met her husband, Chris Womack, and moved to Harrisonburg in the early 2000s when he got a job as a professor of kinesiology at JMU, a position he holds now.
But it wasn’t until she became a mentor in the Duke Center at JMU that she was bitten again by the acting bug.
It came full-circle for Davis Womack, when a student questioned her. The student wanted to pursue acting, but when she heard Davis Womack’s story, she pointed out that she was encouraging students to follow their dreams, but Davis Womack hadn’t followed her own.
“I went home and I was emotional because she was right,” Davis Womack said. “And here I [was] in my mid-40s, in Harrisonburg, Virginia. How does one follow their acting dreams in their mid-40s in Harrisonburg, Virginia? That was a good question. I was not sure what to do about that.”
That conversation led Davis Womack to audition for a Valley Playhouse show in the early 2010s. The decision to audition was very difficult.
She got a tiny speaking role, which led to more roles in community theater. Then, she pursued background character roles in TV shows and even appeared on House of Cards.
“Will there be washers and dryers on the flying saucer?” Davis Womack said. “That was one of my three lines in [the Valley Playhouse] show.”
A few years later, when she decided she wanted to get better at comedic acting, she signed up for stand-up comedy classes in D.C. The classes culminated in a performance for friends and family, and that’s where Davis Womack got her first paid role.
She was hired for a comedy show in 2017, which featured multiple comics doing small sets. From there, she got more comedy gigs.
“I met other comedians in that process who were doing shows and they found out about me or saw my performance and they put me on their shows,” Davis Womack said.
But the more gigs she got, the more she realized she was spending long hours in the car.
“There isn’t really an ongoing comedy scene here or a big scene here,” Davis Womack said. “It’s just that it’s not to the level of what you would see even in Charlottesville [or Staunton].”
While Harrisonburg had small comedy troupes, like the Friendly City Comedy sketch-comedy group, Davis Womack said she’d have to travel to Washington, D.C. and Virginia Beach for shows.
“There were opportunities to perform and lots of comics in the area,” Davis Womack said. “If you looked for that here, the answer would be ‘no.’”
Davis Womack had already wanted to do more comedy locally, when Jeff Moon, owner of Restless Moons Brewing, connected with her about doing a comedy show in 2018.
It was at Restless Moons, in 2018, that X2 Comedy began.
Davis Womack, who only had 10 minutes of material ready, found talent from JMU’s New and Improv’d comedy club. With the students, she put on a full show.
From there, it was on.
Davis Womack started X2 Comedy, a local comedy production company, with then business partner, Steve McClay. They gave it the simple name since there were two of them and they did comedy.
They started organizing comedy shows with whatever talent they could get.
Abigail Theakston, a senior theater major at JMU, is an aspiring stand-up comedian. Theakston has performed with X2 Comedy through New and Improv’d. Theakston, as part of New and Improv’d, was in the January X2 Comedy show at Court Square.
“I got to talking to [Davis Womack] about possibly doing stand up,” Theakston said. “She definitely was the person who gave me the tools I needed to start doing it myself.”
Theakston said she’s continuing to learn from Davis Womack. Theakston, who’s only done a handful of stand-up events so far, said she recently performed at a show along with Davis Womack in Cumberland, Md.
“She is very, very good at preparation and writing down all her jokes and memorizing the order,” Theakston said. “The inspiration that she gives me is to dive deeper into my work and really memorize the plot points.”
The simple idea of bringing more comedians and comedy shows to the Harrisonburg area is growing into an entertainment network that’s hyper-focused on hospitality and relationships.
“I love looking at it from all angles. I want the audience to have the absolute best experience they can possibly have and the same thing for the comic and the same thing for the venue,” Davis Womack said.
Right now Davis Womack, who jokes she has little experience in business, is brushing up on branding, sponsorship and marketing with a lot of help from local organizations and joining the local Chamber of Commerce.
“Did I mention that I tell jokes?” Davis Womack said. “This is new to me and they were happy to help me figure it out.”
It was great hospitality that Virginia Beach-based comedian Vernard “The Laugh Therapist” Hines noticed as a performer in a recent X2 Comedy show. The X2 Comedy Series launched on Jan. 29 with Hines as the headliner.
A retired U.S. Army Veteran, Hines said he suffers from PTSD. He said laughter has been part of his therapy and that’s where his stage name comes from. He said his relatable brand of humor that blends family and military life went over well at Court Square.
“The audience was diverse and had a couple of military organizations in the audience and it made for a great show,” Hines said. “X2 Comedy’s hospitality was off the chain. The [venue] is great for comedy. The talent was great.”
Winston Hodges, a D.C.-based comedian, headlined the second show in the series on Feb. 26.
“It’s one of the most fun times I’ve had onstage. I was only booked to do about 30 minutes and everybody was having so much fun that I ended up doing about an hour onstage,” Hodges said.
Each show is hosted by Chris Womack and features comedy by Davis Womack.
“It’s a great thing for the comics from some of the larger markets,” Chris Womack said. “They always love these shows. They’re not used to the care Dawn puts into her shows and her talent.”
Womack said he tried his first open mic night last summer.
“That takes a lot of courage,” Womack said. “She started her own production company so she’d have more opportunities and she could bring comics from some of those other places here.”
The next show in the series will be on April 9 at 7:30 p.m. Shows will continue in June, August, October and December.
Tickets for upcoming X2 Comedy Series shows are available online at valleyarts.org/performances, by clicking the icon for X2 Comedy Series, then clicking, “purchase tickets.” For more information about Court Square Theater, visit valleyarts.org/cst or call the Arts Council of the Valley at (540)-801-8779.
“There’s not a lot of stand-up comedy in [the Harrisonburg] area,” Hodges said. “I think X2 has done a really good job of having more frequent shows and they’re all really good.”
The shows are advertised as clean, PG-13 comedy. Hodges said the PG-13 rating gives comedians some leeway with their humor.
“It allows comedians who don’t naturally work clean to make people laugh without cursing,” Hodges said. “She does a really good job of booking comedians who can work clean, but aren’t corny and lame.”
Davis Womack said she does a little bit of everything and is leveraging her connections.
“It’s a lot of booking comedians, scouting talent, connecting with venues, marketing, promoting and putting together killer shows,” Davis Womack said.
She also launched a podcast in April called Virginia is for Laughers, with new episodes each Wednesday. Hosted by Davis Womack, she said by interviewing interesting people in the Shenandoah Valley, she’s hoping the podcast will help build community in Harrisonburg to bring more joy and laughter in general.
“I would love to see [Harrisonburg’s comedy scene] be built so big one day that the big names want and need to stop here on their tour,” Davis Womack said.
