After 16 years in the making,
it was about time
Comedy Café Curaçao didn’t start with market research, a five-year plan or an 86-slide PowerPoint.
It started with one stubborn idea that just wouldn’t go away: why doesn’t Curaçao have a permanent place for stand-up comedy?
The idea just kept boomeranging back
Aranka was already a huge fan of cabaret and comedy clubs long before moving to Curaçao in 2010. Back in the Netherlands, she was a regular at theatres and smaller comedy nights, watching both established comedians and people brave enough to try their very first material on stage.
Moving to Curaçao came with some pretty serious comedy withdrawal symptoms. In the Netherlands, there was almost always something to go and see. Here, comedians only make it to the island every now and then. There are occasional comedy and cabaret shows, of course, but what was missing was a small, regular place where new talent could try things out, grow and get some proper stage time.
So the idea of a Curaçao Comedy Café kept coming back like a boomerang.
And for years... absolutely nothing happened with it. A talent in itself, really.
But then came that one Facebook post
At some point, something finally happened that had been suspiciously absent for all those years: someone was actually willing to help fund the idea. Apparently, that was the little push Aranka needed to finally get it out of her head and onto the internet.
She posted in DurftevragenCuraçao with one simple question: what would be a good venue for this on Curaçao?
John Buca happened to see the post. And he didn’t just come back with the answer Grand Café Mahaai — he also casually mentioned that he’d been walking around with almost exactly the same idea for years.
As if two people had been separately letting the same plan gather dust, until Facebook finally went: right, you two. Sort this out together.
Suspiciously great match
Since then, the combination has turned out to make a surprising amount of sense. Aranka is the chaotic one with ideas, angles and plans that can easily pick up three extra side quests along the way.
John brings years of experience, a strong network and exactly the kind of practical know-how that stops things from ending up in the category of “great idea, never heard about it again.”
And on top of that, he’s also a ridiculously funny MC. Annoyingly well-rounded, really.
So yes: the idea was old, the timing was questionably late and the partnership is brand new. But somehow, it suddenly started to look like this thing might actually happen.
Here’s the idea
No big theatre production. No restaurant where someone with a microphone is tucked away in a corner while table seven starts singing “Happy Birthday” and someone at the bar is busy telling their own wild stories.
What we do want is a recurring, intimate comedy night where the focus is truly on the stage, and where new talent gets the space to try things out, learn, and hopefully get funnier along the way.
Funny? That’s a good start.
You don’t have to call yourself a comedian. You don’t need years of stage experience, and you definitely don’t need a string of sold-out theatres behind you.
Maybe you’re simply the person who always gets the whole table laughing. The one who can turn a simple story into something everyone wants to hear. Or the person who’s been told for years: “You should really do something with this.”
Those are exactly the kinds of people we want to make room for.
Everyone has to start somewhere and do those first few minutes at some point. And yes, they’re allowed to feel a little nerve-racking. That’s part of it.
But with a small filter
That’s why we work with advance applications and a short selection process. Not because we only want professionals, or because we plan to sit behind a very serious jury table, but simply to make sure everyone is prepared, knows what they’re signing up for, and actually shows up.
We’re not necessarily looking for experts. We’re looking for people who make us think: there’s something here.
First, let’s make that first night work
We’re deliberately starting small. No grand plans, smoke machines or world tour in week one.
First, one strong pilot night. Then we’ll see what works, what could be better, and what both the audience and the comedians want more of.
And after that?
If the audience laughs, the comedians want to come back, and Mahaai still lets us through the door after night one, then the plan is pretty simple: this is not supposed to be a one-off.
If the pilot works, we want Comedy Café Curaçao to become a monthly event. A regular night where new talent can get stage time, audience favorites can return, and there’s room to grow into special editions, longer sets and eventually bigger names too.
And who knows, maybe one day someone will be filling a packed room after starting right here with five nervous minutes and a microphone that suddenly felt a lot heavier than expected.
But first, let's switch on the microphone!