Unscripted Michael C. Moses Summit City Comedy Club
“When you look at it, comedy is the funny part of our drama that we go through, in a weird way it’s become like a ministry for me.”
Unscripted
By Keith Edmonds
Ink Spot Contributing Writer
Michael Moses has always been passionate about keeping the talent that develops in Fort Wayne here in our community. That’s why he chose to create the Fort Wayne Comedy Club right here in our city! The club was born out of the desire to attract local talent to and keep that talent here in the summit city. The goal? To make people laugh, and to provide a community space to share the arts. In todays UNSCRIPTED I sat down with Mike Moses to hear the story behind the club and why he decided to come to Fort Wayne to launch his vision. I found him to be very engaging, forthright, and willing to share a laugh or two or three or….(lol)
UNSCRIPTED: Welcome to Unscripted Mike! You’re a tough brotha’ to get ahold of because you’re so busy!
MM: “Man, I’m just staying on the grind and trying to make things happen in a positive way but thanks for having me!”
UNSCRIPTED: So, share with us what got you started in comedy and launching the Fort Wayne Comedy Club?
MM: “So, here’s the story… As a comedian I was in Medford, Oregon back in 2016. It was at that time that I heard that Snickerz Comedy Club (Fort Wayne) had been shut down. So, with me having a very inquisitive mind (like most entertainers do), I looked into it. I always like to look and see what comedy is going on around me to see if they’ve advertised me or put my name and picture in that particular city. I would type in comedy near me to basically see if/where I was being promoted. The nearest clubs were always 6-8 hours away! As I did my research it got me thinking that maybe I should open a comedy club in Fort Wayne. Now mind you, there was already another club in Fort Wayne doing similar things but that didn’t deter me from starting my own project here. Usually, comedy clubs are named after the city they originated in (hence the name Fort Wayne Comedy Club). Thankfully 6 years later we’re still moving upward and running well.”
UNSCRIPTED: How do you go about finding the “right” talent to come to your club?
MM: “So, I don’t have to find comics, when you advertise that you’re booking comics, with the abundance of them out there, they find you. I have more comics reaching out to me than I could ever put on stage in a lifetime! It’s so few comedy shops out there nationally, and even less when you’re speaking of minority-owned venues, so my approach is that instead of just trying to fill the urban market, I would approach it from the stand point of I want a “mainstream” club. If you’re funny and have the ability to unite the room, then I’ll give you and opportunity to come and perform at my club.”
UNSCRIPTED: Share the process of being a part of a particular booking with your club as an aspiring comedian. Do I send a demo tape or just come to an audition?
MM: “That can be both simple and hard. There are so many comedians out there and with 52 weekends in a year that gives me 104 comics that I can schedule in a year (1 feature and 1 headliner) which means there are 2 comics per show. With various venues in Fort Wayne having “open mic” night’s I can really go on referrals that I receive from people attending these shows and give 3-minute opportunities to comics who want to have their shows in my club. This keeps my overhead down and allow for aspiring comics to have perform “live.” Now, they have to be very impressive and have a tremendous stage presence during that time. Many of the great comedians that you’ve seen in years past (Richard Pryor being one of them,) got their start with a 3–4-minute set to be funny before they were able to move forward.”
UNSCRIPTED: I would be remiss if I didn’t ask. Do you regret doing the Mike Epps show because of the controversy surrounding it?
MM: “No, I don’t at all. Mind you, I got booed off-stage by making a calculated risk that had about a 50/50 chance of being successful. Barack Obama had only been President for 2 weeks. I had made the claim of being the areas only Black republican comedian. I performed at the Embassy, and they started booing me something fierce. I said don’t boo me, didn’t you hear, “Obama was the only President to move a terrorist into the White House by moving his mother-in-law in” If that’s not a terrorist move, then what is? Those folks never let me get to the parking lot, and that was almost 12 years ago. A true lesson on how to read your room as a comedian!”
UNSCRIPTED: Can you explain what you meant by this: “I’m not interested in the comedy that continues to divide us. I just want all of that to melt away when you come into my club. Whatever your day was like, just forget about your day, and have an enjoyable time for an hour-and-a-half. We’ll pick it back up when we get outside.”
MM: “That’s really how I run my club. The comics that are performing there understand my philosophy, but I have to share this. A comic who’s a friend of mine (and will remain nameless) was having a show that was going well but then he decided to go off-track and made the statement “F- that orange headed muppet in the White House” and completely lost the room. Comedians need to understand that people aren’t coming to see them necessarily, they are coming to be entertained, laugh, and forget about their day. If that’s accomplished, then you’ve had a successful outing at the Fort Wayne Comedy Club.”