This week’s spotlight event: Free open mic comedy at La Nuit Comedy Theater

By Katherine Peck

NolaVie intern

Everybody knows that Mardi Gras is a time for parties, food, middle-aged men in sequins…and stress. Maybe it took you three hours to move three blocks in post-parade traffic, or your daughter brought home 28 so-called “besties” from college. The house is a mess, you’ve gained 5 pounds from beer and king cake alone, and you just found one of your daugther’s inebriated “besties” passed out under your ping-pong-turned-beer-pong table. Relax. All you need is a good laugh to cure that Mardi Gras hangover. Comic Jackie Jenkins Jr says he has just that, at his weekly comedy open mic night at La Nuit Comedy Theater, 5309 Freret Sreet (corner of Soniat). The show starts Friday (that’s today) at 10 p.m. and admission is free. Jenkins worked the stand-up stages in L.A. and New York before moving home in 2007 to help build the local comedy scene. HIs show is mostly stand-up, with the occasional musical comedy act, and he gets lots of repeaters, he says, because of the late, relaxed vibe. Sounds like a great post-Carnival lift to us.