News With Stacey Page | Mid Northern Indiana News

By Stacey Page

     He appears live most days at one of Warsaw’s newest hot spots. He’ll ring up your purchases and crack a few jokes while he does it. Just call him Joe – that is his name after all – the local starving artist working at Good to Go.
     But today, Joe Schroeder is in Detroit for the premiere of a documentary about comedy; a documentary featuring some of today’s top comedians, including our local Joe.
     Joe Schroeder has traveled from Warsaw up and down the East Coast, as far west as Iowa and St. Louis, in Michigan and in Louisville, Ky., performing in small clubs to the United State’s oldest comedy club, Mark Wrigley’s Comedy Club in Detroit where famous comedian and TV star Tim Allen got his start. He’s also a regular at Snickerz Comedy Club in Fort Wayne.
     Schroeder got his start in comedy about 6 and a half years ago. “I was unemployed so I started going to open mic nights at (the no longer in business) Funny Bone in Mishawaka.” From there, he says he started contacting comedy club managers and booking appearances. Now, he averages about 15 “gigs” a month. “Twenty is a good number,” he says. “It’s not making a living for me yet.”
     But tonight’s world premiere of the documentary, Detroit International Comedy Festival, may give Schroeder just the shot he needs to be discovered.
     Filmed largely during the second annual Detroit International Comedy Festival held earlier this year in Royal Oak, Mich., the documentary takes a look at stand-up comedy and the laughs that happen behind the scenes. The film is opening this evening at Detroit’s Emagine Novi theatre.
     “I’m in it for about 5 minutes,” says Schroeder. “In one scene I do a few jokes and introduce an act. In another, I’m backstage with a couple of my good comedian buddies and two of us are trying to calm the other one down before he goes on stage. It’s pretty funny.”
     The documentary was filmed during the week-long stand-up comedy festival. It features performances by Ryan Hamilton, Tim Nutt, Alycia Cooper, Brett Eastburn, Brandon Vestal and Mike McDaniel – and of course, up and coming comics like Joe Schroeder. The documentary was filmed by Jim Dudek, who’s previous films included then unknown comic Dave Chappelle.
     The world premier begins at 8 p.m. tonight in Detroit and will then open exclusively at Emagine Theatres in New York, Los Angeles, Orlando and Chicago on Jan. 8.
     And if you happen to miss the film, Schroeder says he’ll appear briefly in another one due out later this year. Bluegrass Run is a mob comedy based on a true story. “That’s really about all I can about it at this time,” he tells.
     To learn more about local comic Joe Schroeder, log on to www.joeschroedercomedy.com.

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