‘It’s A Date’ Revels in the Court of Public Judgment

The nightclub HAN has been transformed. Located in Allston, its dance floor is lined with rows of folding chairs, all facing three high stools near the DJ booth. As the audience streams in, they’re given two props: glow stick necklaces (yellow if they’re taken, pink if they’re single), and pink and black paddles.

This is the setting of “It’s a Date,” the brainchild of comedian Jaylene Tran. The show, voted New England’s hottest live event of 2022, has two components: In the first half, four contestants chat individually with Tran, ingratiating themselves with her and their audience, who can jump in with questions by raising their black paddles.

The second half is where the fun really begins. After a round of audience voting, the four contestants are paired up to go on dates, with Tran and her team of comedians as facilitators. Audience participation is, again, heavily encouraged, as people chime in with questions and whoops. And during the date, audience members can raise their pink paddle to swap with a contestant if they feel that they are a better match.

The website of “It’s a Date” boasts a list of impressive statistics — 34,000 tickets sold. 52.2 million views. And 18 lap dances. This final statistic perhaps captures the true spirit of “It’s a Date” — it’s a wacky show that’s unashamedly raunchy.

As Tran interviews the participants, she fields questions from the audience and asks some herself. Topics range from spirit animals in bed and the most romantic thing they’ve done for someone to the more sexually explicit.

“What kind of porn do you watch?” Tran asks a contestant bluntly, to nervous laughter from the audience.

Tran adopts a deadpan personality throughout the show, one which plays off nicely against the nervous energy of those being scrutinized. It’s a fun atmosphere as the sexual life and preferences of each contestant is examined under a microscope, who are simultaneously trying to impress their potential dates and a gleeful audience. In a way, this is what makes the show such a cathartic experience for its spectators, who surely are all too familiar with the universal awkwardness of first dates — with its explicit and intimate questions, the show skewers social norms by aiming straight for the heart.

The audience participation was a feature that Tran developed as the show grew.

“If you take part in deciding their fate, you’re more likely to be invested and keep watching the show,” she said.

And indeed, the audience remains wholly absorbed in the reality TV-esque drama unfolding before them. The energy in the room is akin to a court of public judgment as they listen to the responses of the participants and emit various boos and gasps, whispering opinions to friends that have come to the show as well. The most dramatic moments of the show easily comes from the employment of the pink paddles: A particularly entertaining moment ensued when a pink paddle was raised in the middle of the second pair’s date.

The owner of said pink paddle was Diana Reach, who proceeded on to the stage for her date with contestant Jack to raucous cheers.

“I thought he was cute,” Reach said after the show. “He looks very cool, calm, collected and confident.”

By then, she had exchanged numbers with Jack.

“It’s a Date” has also formed a community of regular audience members, who return to the multiple variants of the show that Tran hosts — which include queer-, poly-, and weed- friendly versions of “It’s a Date.” One of these regulars is Christian Nguyen, who came to the show with his girlfriend.

“We know if we come to HAN on a Saturday night, we’re going to see this group of people and they’re going to be having fun, and they’re going to be doing hilarious shit,” he said.

Nguyen also described his favorite performance thus far, in which a contestant attempted to share his SoundCloud and Spotify playlists while making sexually ludicrous claims.

“He was like, ‘I can come while I’m soft,” Nguyen said. “To this day, whenever I think about ‘It’s a Date, I think about ‘I can come while I’m soft.’”

It is these absurd, farcical people which help make the show so compelling. Beyond its relatable premise of the modern dating life, “It’s a Date” is a show that thrives on schadenfreude. People love watching trainwrecks happen — all the better when the trainwreck is happening live on stage, where people are practically invited to gawk and laugh. This could come from individuals like the SoundCloud contestant, or from wildly incompatible contestants who are paired together.

“It’s a Date” exists at a time where the opportunities for dating are rising, but organic meet-cutes are steadily dwindling — while the number of couples meeting online has increased, every other outlet for meeting a partner has fallen. People have increasingly begun to turn to dating apps to meet prospective singles in their area, and Boston is no different: A survey from Boston Magazine claims that only five percent of Bostonians haven’t been on dating apps, while article after article tries to explain why, precisely, dating in Boston is so hard.

Reach, who’s lived in Boston for 20 years, agrees. When asked about the dating scene, she said with a laugh: “I wouldn’t say it’s amazing.”

“It’s a Date,” in a way, embraces that dearth and strives to fill it. Nguyen compared going on “It’s a Date” to being on a reality TV show.

“You go through something together that not a lot of other people have experienced,” he said.

And even beyond those in the spotlight, that possibility of meeting “The One” persists; Tran, ever the matchmaker, tells the audience before the show that if they spy someone in the crowd that they find attractive (clad in a pink glow stick necklace, she stipulates), they should reach out to her on Instagram, and she’ll do her best to connect them.

After the show, Tran had shed her on-stage persona: As she sat on a chair in a backroom of HAN, her tone turned reflective. She credited the appeal of the show to the way it remains both risqué and respectful.

“It became more of a community of people who enjoy chaos, but also understand that this is a safe space,” Tran said.

For her, that sense of community is important — each iteration of “It’s a Date” should be welcoming and unique, so that audience members become regulars.

It seems that she’s succeeded.

“I’ll keep coming [to the show],” Nguyen said. “I’ll keep coming while I’m soft, as well.”

—Staff writer Angelina X. Ng can be reached at angelina.ng@thecrimson.com.