A dozen comics sit downstairs in an otherwise empty bar, faint music providing little more than background noise. Some talk among themselves. Others sit quietly, lost in their own thoughts. An eruption of laughter from upstairs echoes down. They pay it little mind.
“LizaBanks, you’re next,” the host says.
LizaBanks Campagna rises from her bar stool, pockets her small notepad and makes her way toward the tall, dimly lit staircase. The laughter gets louder with every step. She stops at the top and waits behind a thick beige curtain meant to keep the light out. Her hand digs back into her pocket for the notepad. Two minutes.
It’s a Thursday night just after 9 p.m. in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C. About 50 people sit upstairs at The Town Tavern, a local favorite for drinks and comedy. It’s a dingy bar with a friendly vibe.
“This is going to be tough,” Campagna says. “That guy is killing.”
The exposed brick behind the wooden stage amplifies the laughter even more. It reverberates through the shallow, intimately seated room. The emcee introduces Campagna.
Grabbing the mic like a seasoned pro, the 22-year-old dives right into a high-energy, quick-hitting set. She riffs on everything from college to politics with witty, sarcastic jokes. The laughs grow as she finds her rhythm.
Five minutes later, Campagna gives way to the next comedian and heads back downstairs. Before she can even get settled, two guests come down to say they loved her set.
Twenty-four hours earlier, Campagna earned praise from another stranger. It was Dana Dobbie. Coming off a game in which she controlled seven draws but her Georgetown women’s lacrosse team lost 16-6 to Loyola, Campagna was stopped by Dobbie, the Loyola assistant and one of the best draw takers in history, who complimented her on her play.
“I don’t even know her,” Campagna says. “That was a top-10 lacrosse moment for me.”
A graduate student, Campagna — who goes by “LB” — is committed to the grind. She played four years at Cal, where her 178 draw controls are the most in team history, before getting into Georgetown for graduate school to study journalism. She asked coach Ricky Fried for a spot on the team. The Hoyas do not usually take transfers. Reluctantly, he said yes.
Having grown up in Alexandria, Virginia, Campagna finds the D.C. metro area to be a comforting, familiar place. It also allowed her to fully dive back into her passion.
Campagna has been a stand-up comedian since she was 13. At an age when most teenagers are doing everything possible to avoid human interaction, Campagna put herself at the very center of it.
“I would go to shows a lot by myself in D.C. — there are times now when I’m like, ‘How was I not abducted?’ — but I would metro into D.C. by myself, and then I hatched a plan to just [perform] and not tell [my parents],” she says.
“When I did my first set, I did jokes that were really blue — like, really inappropriate. It was just something I thought was kind of funny because I was 13 years old. I thought that’s just what you did. People laughed, but they were uncomfortably laughing.”
Christopher and Shannon Campagna knew their daughter was a comedy fan. At the time, they just didn’t know how deep into the weeds she was. That changed as it became part of her identity and she carved out a home in the D.C. comedy scene. Back where she grew up, Campagna can adequately balance the two biggest things in her life right now. During the lacrosse season — which she said takes priority — she’ll perform four or five sets in a week. In the offseason, she’ll go on stage 10-12 times over the course of six or seven days.
“She’s in her happy place,” Shannon Campagna says. “That’s a lot of the reason she opted to come back here for grad school and play for Georgetown. It’s where she can do all the things she enjoys.”