JASON OWEN-SMITH
Barger Leadership Institute Professor & Director
Executive Director, Institute for Research on Innovation and Science (IRIS)
Professor of Sociology
Research Professor, Institute for Social Research
UNIVERSITIES
AND OUR
COMMON
FUTURE
RESEARCH
Thursday,
September 14, 2017
Michigan League
Hussey Room
4:10 p.m.
CREATIVE CAPABILITIES AT SCALE
A public lecture and reception.
For more information call 734.615.6667
The phrase “hole in the wall”
is thrown around a lot, but the
Ann Arbor Comedy Showcase
might have the best claim to
the ubiquitous descriptor. It’s a
hole in scaffolding.
That’s
because
the
Showcase’s home — a short,
anonymous building on Fourth
Avenue
between
Liberty
and Washington — is under
renovation, and all signs of
the Showcase’s very existence
are reserved to the covered
sidewalk that runs next to the
construction: a folded sign on
the street, large blue letters
on the door and the brief sight
of an attended ticket office
through the glass.
But once inside the doors,
and down the hallway and down
the stairs and across from the
bar, the Comedy Showcase is
inviting. Excited 20-somethings
are mingling, drink orders are
being taken; there’s a giddy air
of anticipation before a show.
At the center of the Comedy
Showcase’s
operations
sits
the soft-spoken yet deliberate
Roger
Feeny
(“I
honestly
don’t like to do interviews”), a
smallish man with graying wiry
hair and focused eyes behind
large,
tortoiseshell
glasses.
One would hardly think of the
60-something Feeny, who was
dressed in a hoodie and polo and
quietly sipping tea as we spoke,
as the sort of entertainment
genius who could keep a club
afloat for 33 years in one of
Michigan’s most competitive
real estate markets. And yet
there we were.
Feeny
founded
the
club
in 1984 when he was 29. He
had been a dockworker and
teamster for 10 years, hardly a
recognizable career path from
this vantage point. His brother-
in-law, Kirkland Teeple, had
established himself as a stand-
up comic on the road before
coming to Ann Arbor with the
hopes of starting a comedy
club. Starting up a club in a
big town from scratch requires
more than just a sense of humor
(though that certainly helps),
but Teeple and Feeny created
a perfect match: Teeple knew
the comics, and Feeny had a
business sense, and so the pair
opened up a comedy club above
the Heidelberg Restaurant on
Main Street in Ann Arbor.
The
Mainstreet
Comedy
Showcase
remained
on
its
titular street for a few years
before moving in 1987 to the
VFW Hall on Liberty Street,
where Jerusalem Garden sits
now. The Showcase relocated to
its current location on Fourth
Avenue in 2014. In between,
the club has sponsored softball
teams in town, hosted benefits
for the community and put on
golf outings for the staff.
Ann Arbor, it turned out, is a
great location for the club.
“The
school
and
the
curriculum spits out doctors
and lawyers and Ann Arbor’s
a smart town,” Feeny said. “So
we’ve got smart people that
come here.”
That
intelligence
puts
pressure on comedians; here,
even slapstick comedy, which
is based in embarrassment and
errors, can make you think.
While the club has moved a
number of times, the structure
of its shows has remained
consistent. At a typical stand-
up show, an emcee, and perhaps
another comedian, will play
the role of warm-up act,
each telling jokes for about
five minutes. The opener is
followed by the featured act,
a more established comedian,
who entertains the crowd
for about 15 minutes. The
headliner, with a set of about
50 minutes, closes out the
show.
Feeny acknowledges that
there’s a business strategy to
the timing — 90 minutes, he
notes, is the typical length of a
film before an audience starts
to shift in its seats — but when
the shows are good, it’s a win-
win situation.
“It’s
taken
from
the
restaurant philosophy: Feed
‘em, don’t stuff ‘em, so they’ll
want to come back for more,”
he said.
Saturday nights are the
most
popular
shows,
and
winter is the busy season. His
key to success is bringing in
a wide variety of comics and
comedic styles: slapstick and
storytellers, men and women,
catering to old and young.
Over
time,
Feeny
has
incidentally become a sort
of comedy guru, continually
providing a forum for young,
budding comics to perform at
open mics. “We like to develop
talent,” Feeny said. “I’ve been
known to give guys their first
headline gig and bring in guys
you don’t really hear of, but
they’re very funny.”
The Showcase hosts weekly
open mics, which can help
young
comics
try
out
the
medium. “You can come and
work on your material,” said
Erich Laux, a recent University
of
Michigan
graduate
and
budding stand-up who often
performs at the Showcase. “And
through that he’s in the local
scene because he sees all the
younger and newer comics
come through. So he can see
when somebody is ready to
start hosting.”
Feeny’s quick to give out
advice to young comics, too.
“You have to keep writing,”
he said. “That’s what I keep
telling
them:
Keep
writing
clean material. That’s the only
way you’re going to learn how
to write jokes.”
Undoubtedly
a
result
of
Feeny’s efforts at creating a
supportive
training
ground
for rising comedians, the Ann
Arbor Comedy Showcase has
become a go-to destination
for comics looking to find
friendly
audiences.
While
most
performers
are
from
southeastern Michigan, “guys
come to the open mic night
from over 100 miles away,”
Feeny said. “They’ll drive in to
do five minutes on stage.”
One hundred miles is no easy
drive for anyone, let alone a
young comics who may be just
feeling out the industry and
looking for available open mic
nights, but their willingness
to drive all the way for five
minutes
in
an
Ann
Arbor
basement is indicative of the
support system Feeny provides.
“If you’ve got a good stage to
perform on, they’ll come a long
way,” he added.
Laux, the budding comic,
started performing stand-up
through a student organization
at the University called LOL
ROFL — “It was started when
that was still relevant,” he said
— and would go to the Showcase
to see comics and perform at
the open mic nights.
Now, he spends time in a
community of rising stand-
ups who stay at the Showcase
to watch and learn from the
performers. They carpool to
different shows around the
state and share notes and horror
stories with one another.
Laux readily acknowledges
the help that Feeny and the
Showcase provide. “Roger is
the owner and he runs (the
Showcase),” Laux said, “so he
has say in all the shows and
everyone he books.” Feeny’s
style is in sharp contrast to
more
corporate-run
comedy
clubs elsewhere. Those clubs
lack the sort of personal touch
and quality that has become
the hallmark of the Showcase,
where
comedians
have
to
impress Feeny in order to move
up to performing at shows other
than open mics.
Laux was the emcee this past
Saturday at 8 p.m., and he was
followed by Nicole Majdali, a
Livonia-based comedian with
a
more
confessional
style.
Chris Daniels, originally from
Michigan
and
now
living
in New York, served as the
featured comic.
The headliner featured the
show’s
biggest
name:
Dave
Landau,
a
comedian
from
Detroit who was featured on
NBC’s “Last Comic Standing.”
Before he was a touring stand-
up comic, Landau was based at
Second City in Chicago, when
a friend there suggested he
should try his hand at a solo act.
He made his way to Ann Arbor,
where he started at the open
mics.
“The open mic really gave you
training wheels that nowhere
else could because the audience
was always more diverse and a
little more heady,” said Landau
in a roundtable of comics,
including Majdali, Daniels and
Nate Armbruster, who also
performs regularly at the club,
in the green room after the 8:00
show. “They expected more out
of the comic and I loved that
about it.”
The
Ann
Arbor
Comedy
Showcase was the first place
both Daniels and Armbruster
had
performed
comedy.
Armbruster was in high school
in Dearborn when he first
came to a class offered at the
club. Soon after, he began to
perform at open mics. He was
so young that Roger had to call
his mother to make sure she
approved of him performing
stand-up. That was nine years
ago. Now, bearded and leaning
back on the green room couch,
he’s a regular.
Daniels
was
17
when,
unbeknownst
to
him,
his
friends signed him up for an
open mic at the venue after
he had boasted of his comedic
talents. Suddenly, Daniels was
thrust into a five-minute set —
a rarity in his current milieu
— which he remembers going
well, joking about partying with
friends and Britney Spears’s
attempted comeback.
“I had easy targets at the
time,” he said.
Majdali is the newest to the
club in the room. She caught
wind of the open mic and
continued to return.
“I did not come to Ann Arbor
until I got hooked on coming
here,” Majdali said, enamored
with the support system at
the club, including the comics
sitting in the back and the
bartenders that serve and laugh
along with the audience. “Now I
go to Ann Arbor a couple times
a week.”
Even the space itself is crafted
for
optimal
performances.
Behind the comedian looms a
white backdrop with the club
logo, cropped by glass blocks
lit an electric blue. The stage
is rather small, the ceilings
are low and the first row of the
audience is huddled around
the stage. The result is a
large-capacity space that feels
intimate, even from the back
row.
“A room with 20 people can
feel like a 100,” Armbruster
said.
“It encourages participation,”
Daniels added.
“It feels like a nightclub in the
basement of a place,” Landau
said, which he explained makes
the Showcase something of an
oasis in the Midwest, where
that ambience is more of a
rarity.
But even in such a tight space,
no comedian is guaranteed
success. Bombing in Ann Arbor
is something all the comedians
have
experienced,
and
it
especially stings.
“It’s a great place to grow as
a comic because you get good
audiences,” Landau said. “They
kind of expect more from you
and when you bomb here you
really fucking bomb.”
Daniels attributes the low
lows to the spirit of the crowd.
“They just seem to enjoy it a
lot more than in a lot of other
places,” he said. “They just kind
of create an atmosphere, and
that helps, so that’s why for me
doing bad here feels like you
kamikaze’d yourself. You had a
win and you blew it.”
But even when the comedian
is down, Feeny is there to help.
As long as the comedian in
question is trying new material
and working hard, “they’re
not judging you and kicking
you out and saying don’t come
back,” Landau said. Instead, the
comedian is encouraged to try
again.
Armbruster
recalls
that
occasionally,
if
he
tries
something
that
falls
flat
before an audience, he’ll hear
Feeny cackling quietly in the
background — it’s “one of the
worst and best feelings,” he
said. “You just know that he’s
enjoying it because he knows
exactly what’s going through
your head.”
The
others
nodded
in
agreement.
Landau
added
that when a comedian totally
offends the crowd, “you’ll also
hear that laugh sometimes and
it’s so encouraging, because you
think, ‘Oh, the guy who really
gets comedy got it so I don’t
care what anyone else thinks.’”
That’s in sharp contrast to
other clubs in the area where
the owners are often divorced
from the comedians, to say
nothing of the corporate-run
clubs to which Laux contrasted
the Showcase. At some of those
other clubs, “somebody could
walk here and punch me in the
face and nobody would have my
back,” Armbruster said.
But it’s different at the
Showcase — Feeny provides
a wealth of resources to his
comedians.
“He has a speech at every
open mic: ‘Don’t go over the
time,’”
Majdali
said.
“He’s
trying to teach you to be a
professional and a good comic,
and sometimes people don’t get
that. And it’s very important.
They’re teaching you business
skills.”
And even better for comics:
“They just understand comedy,”
Armbruster added.
“Don’t take it for granted,”
warned Daniels, the Michigan
transplant in New York. “If you
leave here and hit the road or
if you move to a bigger comedy
scene, they’re not as forgiving
and you won’t be able to hone
your skills in the same way.”
“But every time I come here,”
Daniels said, “I’m like, ‘This
feels good. It feels like home.’”
2B —Thursday, September 14, 2017
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
ANN ARBOR COMEDY SHOWCASE
Chris Daniels performing standup at the showcase on S Forth
After 40 years, the Ann
Arbor Comedy Showcase
continues to thrive, shine
DANNY HENSEL
Daily Film Editor
ANN ARBOR COMEDY SHOWCASE
Those clubs
lack the sort of
personal touch
and quality that
has become the
hallmark of the
Showcase, where
comedians have to
impress Feeny in
order to move up
His key to success
is bringing in
a wide variety
of comics and
comedic styles:
slapstick and
storytellers, men
and women,
catering to old and
young.
B-SIDE LEAD
B-SIDE LEAD