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

