Screening

About Road Comics: Big Work on Small Stages

Year Released:

2012

Genres:

Documentary

This documentary film follows the creative brilliance of three stand-up comedians working the comedy club circuit in middle America. Local audiences across the Midwest and South appreciate the humor these comics draw out of strip malls, fast food, and the slow quirkiness of lives not made for TV. Producer and IU professor Susan Seizer (Communication & Culture) follows Stewart Huff, Tim Northern, and Kristin Key as they transform daily life into live art. The film also offers a glimpse into the business of comedy through interviews with club owners on the ins and outs of regional entertainment industries. Poignant and laugh-out-loud funny, Road Comics: Big Work on Small Stages is a work of art about the art of work. This project was partially supported by Indiana University’s New Frontiers Program, funded by Lilly Endowment and administered by the Office of the Vice Provost for Research. (Digital presentation)

Producer Susan Seizer is scheduled to be present.

Susan Seizer
Susan Seizer is a cultural anthropologist whose research and teaching celebrates the critical potential of live performance. Stigmas of the Tamil Stage is her awardwinning book based on Seizer’s ethnography of comedic theater artists in South India. Road Comics: Big Work on Small Stages is her first documentary film, and is based on four years of ethnographic research with professional standup comics in middle America. She is currently writing a book on road comedy to accompany the film.