It’s taken more time and money than anticipated, but the Comedy Studio is finally set to reopen in Harvard Square next week.
The club, which for many years occupied the attic of the Hong Kong restaurant on Mass. Ave., will unveil its new basement space in The Abbott, the wedge-shaped building in the heart of Harvard Square, on Wednesday.
It’s been nearly three years since the Comedy Studio’s founder and then-owner, Rick Jenkins, announced plans to move into the landmark building that formerly housed the Curious George store. In the interim, however, much changed, including the project’s construction costs and Jenkins’s status.
In May, Jenkins, who created the Comedy Studio in 1996 and gradually built it into a destination for both comics and audiences, abruptly resigned. In an interview this week, he said he made the decision to leave amid complaints from some comics and others about aspects of his past management.
In one case, Jenkins said, an employee at Vera’s, the Union Square bar where the Comedy Studio hosted occasional shows during the pandemic, reported seeing pornography on Jenkins’s computer. In another case, a comic complained that Jenkins told a person who served time in prison for child pornography that they could perform at an open mic. (Jenkins acknowledges telling the man he could perform, but said he never did.)
