by Christine Mersch
Rajiv Satyal is a funny guy. We know, because he’s this year’s winner of the Funniest Person in Cincinnati award.
This is the second time Satyal, Eng ’00, has won. The first time he won it on the amateur level; more recently, as a professional.
“That really meant a lot to me to come back and win it on a different level,” says Satyal, a stand-up comedian. “This time around it was more audience participation than anything else.”
Satyal was a UC College of Engineering student when he started doing comedy. His brother, Rakesh, saw an article about the Funniest Person in Cincinnati contest and encouraged him to enter. Rajiv had some material written for a book he was thinking about, but instead, used it at his tryout. He made it to the semifinals his first time around in 1998. The next year, he won.
For the next three years, Satyal teetered on whether he wanted to do comedy. He’d do a few shows one weekend, then shy away from it the next. He got serious about comedy in 2002 and has since worked an average of a show a week. He’s worked at clubs in New York, L.A. and Chicago, but his Cincinnati-area hot spots are Go Bananas in Montgomery, Ohio, and Funny Bone in Newport, Ky.
“At Go Bananas, there’s a smaller room, and there’s always good energy,” he says. “Plus, that’s where I started (in 1999) doing shows. But I really like working at both places.”
During the day, Satyal works as an account director at Proctor & Gamble. This qualified him to win a recent award from the Q102 radio station, “the funniest P&G employee.” He says logistically it’s possible to do both, because he works during the day and shows are at night or on weekends. All he needs is energy.
Decide for yourself how much of that he has by visiting the engineering grad at Wiley’s Comedy Niteclub in Dayton, Ohio, Aug. 24-28, or at the Funny Bone at Newport on the Levee, where he will be opening for Jake Johannsen, Sept. 14-18.
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