EVERETT — The Everett Historic Theater will come alive on July 18, with Punchlines with Purpose – a one-night event that will combine stand-up comedy, live music, and fundraising for the Second Chance Foundation, a nonprofit that helps individuals experience homelessness, addiction, and mental health challenges.
For most people, stand-up comedy and hip-hop concerts occupy different corners of the entertainment world. For even organizer Bill Snickers, they have always shared something fundamental.
“Both are delivering punchline after punchline,” Snickers told the Lynnwood Times.
The show will feature comedians Taylor Clark, Luke Severeid and Lynnette Manning alongside musical performances from ARO The MC, Neema, and J-Kro, creating a lineup that organizers describe as part comedy showcase, part concert and part community fundraiser. For tickets click here.
For Snickers, the event represents the latest chapter in a career that has spent decades behind the scenes of live entertainment.
Long before launching his newest company, Amplified Live, Snickers was booking shows as a teenager, helping manage a country band and learning the business side of music while many of his peers were still figuring out what they wanted to do after high school.
“I was always the business behind the artist, the brainchild behind all that,” Snickers said.
That path eventually led him to Nashville, where he worked alongside professional musicians and learned a lesson that still shapes how he approaches talent today.
“Even the bartender at the dive bar you go to can out sing and out play you,” Snickers said. “The talent and professionalism in Nashville are just on a whole other level.”
After years working with artists and record labels, including helping discover Northwest country artist Aaron Crawford, Snickers’ career came to an abrupt halt during the COVID-19 pandemic. Live events disappeared overnight, he said. Also, around the same time, his mother was diagnosed with cancer, prompting him to return to Washington to help care for her.
But the break from the industry didn’t last.
“Once you’ve been bit by the music bug, you can’t get rid of it,” Snickers said.
Earlier this year, Snickers launched Amplified Live under the motto “raw energy, raw talent, raw purpose,” and with a mission to produce events that support local charities while showcasing Northwest performers.
That philosophy resonated with comedian, and host of upcoming Punchlines with Purpose, Taylor Clark almost immediately.
Clark, an Everett resident and veteran stand-up comic, was brought into the project through a mutual connection with ARO, the event’s emcee and musical performer.
What began as a conversation about booking gigs quickly evolved into Clark helping assemble the comedy lineup.
As a judge for the Seattle Comedy Festival and a fixture in Northwest comedy, Clark was in a unique position to identify performers capable of matching the energy of the musicians sharing the stage.
Luke Severeid, for example, is one of the few comics Clark knows who brings even more energy to the stage than he does. Lynnette Manning, meanwhile, has a style he describes as deceptively calm before he “casually demolishes the room.”
For Clark, comedy has always been about finding connections between seemingly unrelated worlds.
Before becoming a comedian, he spent years immersed in skateboarding culture, eventually building a reputation performing stand-up shows in skate shops and at skateboarding events around the country.
“I like to think that I round out all the physical abuse and pain I suffered while skateboarding and switched to standup where I could just transition into emotional and psychological pain,” said Clark.
He finds parallels between landing a difficult skateboard trick and delivering a successful joke, he told the Lynnwood Times.
“A slight adjustment in how you perform a trick, or land a joke, can make or break whether it works,” Clark said.
Those roots eventually earned him recognition from Thrasher magazine and attention from professional skateboarders including Tony Hawk. Yet Clark said the biggest draw of comedy remains its immediacy.
“It’s undeniable whether you’re doing good or bad,” Clark said. “Laughter is a response, it’s hard to fake.”
Today, much of Clark’s material centers on life as a husband and father rather than skateboarding culture. But the same observational style remains.
“When you’re a skateboarder, you literally see the world differently; staircases become something you can jump, curbs become something you can grind,” Clark said. “In stand-up, it’s a lot like that. You walk around and someone says something, or a moment happens, and I don’t just see the moment. I see how I can make it a bit…and then manipulate it for monetary purposes.”
Clark has been skateboarding since he was 11 years old and performing comedy since the age of 21. He entered the standup comedy scene by way of his ambitions of becoming a film director.
“I realized the road to the director’s seat was long and I thought standup comedy might offer me a shortcut. Cut to 20 years later and I still live in Everett,” said Clark. “But I fell in love with it [comedy] for a lot of the same reasons why I fell in love with skateboarding. It was this weird subculture of misfits with this secret language that you kinda had to be involved in the scene to understand.”
Clark was born and raised in Las Vegas, the son of a musician father (who played in Bo Didley’s band and for Howie Mandell, among others) and a journalist mother (who worked sales for the Daily Herald). His family relocated to Everett, Washington, when he was at the age of 12 until 21 when he moved to New York City for ten years.
While living in New York Clark began running warehouse and apartment comedy shows, some of which featured renown comics including Eric Andre, Reggie Watts, Rory Scovel, and Kurt Braunohler. These apartment comedy shows became the baseline of his skate shop comedy shows, garnering the attention of the likes of Zumies and Red Bull.
He and his family moved back to Everett about 8 years ago.
Clark will be performing all new material, including improv and light roasting of the acts between sprinkling in some Everett jokes.
Self-deprecation is all part of the Everett spirit, Clark joked adding “we hate it but we’ll never move.” In all honesty, Clark said he loves living in Everett for its amazing Parks and Recreation, its sports fandom, and its multicultural diversity. The newly renovated Historic Everett Theatre itself carries special significance for Clark.
One of the highlights of his career came when he recorded a comedy special there, introduced by his wife while his father played bass as part of the evening’s entertainment.
The venue has undergone significant renovations under new ownership in recent years, since being purchased by Johnny Phan who transformed the nearly century-old theater into what Snickers describes as an intimate and modern performance space.
“It’s gorgeous,” Snickers said. “If you haven’t been you need to see it.”
But of course, Punchlines with Purpose isn’t just about a night of non-stop, unforgettable, entertainment. It has a purpose, as its name suggests, and both Snickers and Clark point to the event’s charitable component as one of its defining features.
Amplified Live, which has historically dedicated a portion of ticket sales to local nonprofits, hand selected Second Chance Foundation because of its focus on helping individuals address the underlying causes of homelessness and addiction. The mission carries personal significance for many of the performers involved.
For Snickers, he said the organization’s work resonated with his own experiences and struggles.
“I’ve had to have second chances, even third chances,” Snickers said. “Mental health and addiction have really affected all of us, whether once or twice removed.”
Clark echoed that sentiment, noting that several performers on the bill have overcome significant personal challenges.
He highlighted ARO and J-Kro as examples of people who rebuilt their lives after addiction and transformed those experiences into artistic careers.
“I cannot speak higher about another individual,” Clark said of ARO. “He has more core strength than anyone I’ve ever known.”
For both Snickers and Clark, Punchlines with Purpose’s blend of comedy and music is about more than entertainment; it’s also about healing.
“Music and comedy heal,” Snickers said. “If you could put a smile on somebody’s face for just an hour, you may have saved that person’s life.”
Clark has seen evidence of that firsthand.
Over the years, audience members have approached him after performances to share stories of illness, grief and personal struggles, explaining how an hour of laughter offered relief when they needed it most.
“Those are the moments I live for,” he said.
When the curtain rises in July, Snickers hope audiences leave with more than memories of punchlines or songs. They hope attendees experience what happens when entertainment, community and purpose share the same stage.
“If you like live entertainment of any type,” Clark said, “you’re not going to find a more diverse, concentrated talent anywhere in the state.”
Punchlines With Purpose will be held July 11 at the Historic Everett Theatre, 2911 Colby Ave. in Everett. The event will feature stand-up comedy and live music, with a portion of proceeds benefiting Second Chance Foundation. Tickets are available through Eventbrite.
Other Punchline with a Purpose Line Up Headliners
Luke Severeid (553,000 followers)
Luke Severeid is a high-energy Seattle comic whose “insightfully idiotic” style delivers unfiltered laughs and unforgettable stage presence. With years touring North America, millions of online views, comedy competition honors, and a Best Comedy Film win at HUMP! Film Festival, Luke’s shows are pure chaos you don’t want to miss. Catch him live — it’s a comedy experience you’ll never forget.
ArotheMC (15,750 followers)
ArotheMC’s sound mixes modern rap production with personal themes, balancing emotional depth and motivational energy. With consistent single releases in recent years, he continues to develop his style and connect with listeners through raw lyricism and versatile beats.
Lynette Manning (5,400 followers)
Lynette Manning is a rising Pacific Northwest comic whose sharp, fearless storytelling turns motherhood, identity, and everyday chaos into smart, relatable laughs. Recognized by Forbes as one of its “Rising AAPI Stand-Up Comedians to Watch,” she’s taken stages from the Moon Tower Comedy Festival to the semifinals of the Seattle International Comedy Competition, winning audiences over with her confident delivery and unapologetically honest humor.
Neema (8,139 followers)
Seattle-based rapper Neema is carving out his own lane in the independent hip-hop scene. Known for his smooth delivery, reflective storytelling, and beat-driven records, Neema balances introspection with high-energy performance tracks that connect live.
J-Kro:
Emerging from Seattle’s streets, J-Kro is the rap artist everyone’s talking about. A raw voice for those fighting to rise from the ashes, his music hits hard and true—real stories from a life rebuilt. New to the scene, but impossible to ignore.
Author: Kienan Briscoe
