Here’s a list of things I learned about recently that I didn’t realize I would enjoy learning about: hypnosis, refrigerator cats, the Transatlantic accent, Cabbage Patch Kids, toilet paper.
And that would be thanks to Katja “Kat” Barnhart and Hayley Madden, hosts of the podcast Night Classy, which their intro touts as a “tipsy night class teaching the oddities and curiosities you never learned in school.”
Think weird history, pop-culture, science. “It’s eclectic,” says Madden. “Just whatever catches our eye that week that makes us want to sit down and talk about it with each other.”
The two met as first-year teachers in the Teach for America program in the fall of 2019. Both new to Memphis and fresh out of college, they say, they didn’t have any established hobbies outside of work. “I also wasn’t using my history degree,” Barnhart says, “so a podcast seemed like a fun way to do both of those things. And Hayley and I have such a good friendship. We could have fun and also get to scratch that history itch and research our curiosities and broadcast it for everyone to hear.”
In March of 2020 they released their first episode with Alec Ogg, Barnhart’s boyfriend and owner of Memphis-based Parasaur Studios, as producer and editor. This, of course, was during peak pandemic, which, it turned out, was ironically perfect timing for launching a podcast. Their classrooms were empty, but they had extra time off — enough time to start to get the hang of things. Now, the pair have recorded more than 200 episodes of Night Classy, and that’s not even counting their Patreon bonus episodes.
But there’s another milestone on the horizon: their first live show. And it’s happening this Saturday at 10 p.m. as they will be one of four headliners (and the only locally-based headliner) at the Good Vibes Comedy Festival. (Other headliners include Renard Hirsch, Jayson Acevedo, and Hannah Belmont.) “I’m glad that our first show gets to be in Memphis,” Madden says. “Memphis is the heart of everything — how this happened — and so much blossomed from moving here.”
John Andrew Miller, who organized the festival along with fellow comedian Nate Jackson, says, “We decided on Night Classy very deliberately because the show is doing so well. They have a great platform and I wanted to show that not only is Memphis comedy showcasing stand-up, but we also have high-level edutainment content. And they do a great job.”
As for the overall day, Miller says to expect “30 comedians from all over the country coming out to do 13 different shows. Basically, a variety pack of stand-up comedy productions — raw stand-up comedy with headliner shows, podcast shows, a storytelling show, an improv show, and a roast.”
“Memphis used to have the Memphis Comedy Festival. It’s basically been on a hiatus for the last few years. I, being an adventurous and entrepreneurial spirit within comedy, was pretty much certain that if we did all the hard work, we could pull off a successful comedy festival — since every major city has one. We lost ours. So I wanted to bring it back. It’s going to be a great time.”
Find out more about the festival here.
Good Vibes Comedy Festival, Hi Tone, 282 N. Cleveland, Friday-Saturday, April 19-20, 5 p.m.-midnight, $30/show, $50/day pass.
