For up-and-coming musicians, stand-up comedians and poets, getting on stage is one of the most important parts of attracting a following and building momentum towards a career in the arts. While more formal venues are hard to get into, open mics abound at local cafes, restaurants and bars in the Philadelphia region that allows new artists to break onto the scene.
According to Good Thomas, open mics can be traced back to ancient times where poets and storytellers would entertain the larger community in public places. But what we conventionally call open mic culture today can be linked to the rise of coffeehouse culture in the 1950s and 1960s across Europe and the United States, where the Beat generation used the spaces to perform art and connect with other artists and activists forging an alternative path to the mainstream.
Open mics primarily function as supportive environments where fledgling artists can spread their wings and experiment with their craft. Through trial and error and getting the real experience of working a small crowd, artists find their voice and build a following. Through it all, local businesses like breweries, cafes and local restaurants attract the community which financially help the small business. Think of it as a win-win for community building: small artists build confidence, and local businesses stay afloat.
Good Thomas claims artists like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Pete Seeger all got their start through open mic culture. Grammy-nominated folk artist Gregory Alan Isakov got his start as a teenager playing open mics in this very region, including at Gryphon Cafe in Wayne.
In a digital age, artists can blow up overnight through social media, but this stardom is explosive and hollow. It can be difficult to translate this immediate success to a long-term career selling out stadiums. What open mics provide is a slower, more sustainable, locally sourced path to artistic greatness. Even if an artist never makes the jump from cafe corners to sold out stadiums, they will have gained local prominence in their community.
According to openmicphiladelphia.com, there are open mics nearby every day of the week. Malelani Cafe in Mt. Airy, a 30-minute drive from campus, advertises open mics each Thursday at 7 p.m. The Philly-Area Comedy Open Mics Facebook group regularly features flyers advertising various stand-up open mics around the area and according to the Char and Stave website in Ardmore, there is a Poetry Open Mic one Thursday a month just 15 minutes from campus.
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