Branyan Bringing Laughs To The Eagles Theatre
“I don’t know what I’m going to do at the Eagles Theatre, it just depends on who shows up,” says comedian John Branyan, who will take the stage at Wabash’s historic theater on April 2.
“I don’t take a setlist up,” he explains. “I’ll throw new things in to see how they work. Literally, just see where you’re going with the audience. Every audience has its own personality. The live performance, there’s just nothing like it.”
Every time Branyan takes the stage, his goal is to make the audience laugh til they hurt. And his brand of family-friendly comedy tends to connect well with audiences of all ages.
“I’m a Hoosier to the bone,” says Branyan, who grew up in LaPorte, and even spent some time at his family’s lake cottage on Barbee Lake. He started his comedy career, almost on a whim, doing open mics in Indianapolis.
“I just called up the comedy club and said, ‘I want to do comedy. How do you do that?’” he remembers. “I just wanted to get up and see if I could be funny. There were two clubs in Indianapolis. They liked me, for some reason.”
“I was an open mic-er for a number of years, then I started working as an MC,” he says. “It’s a decent supplemental income. For $300 bucks I’ll go down and stand on stage for 15 minutes. It was a part-time job. I didn’t expect it to blow up.”
Branyan was plugging along, working his day job at a print shop and MCing comedy shows in the evening, when he got a call from Mark Anderson, who, at the time, ran the IMPROV in Tempe, Ariz. “He said, ‘I saw a video tape of yours and I think you’re funny,’” Branyan remembers.
Anderson flew Branyan out to Arizona where he headlined for a week. “That was my impetus into going full time in comedy,” he says.
“I went from doing middle work at the club in Indianapolis to headlining a one-man show touring all over the country,” Branyan says. “It’s been sort of a word of mouth thing. I’ve never had management or an agency backing.”
In recent years, Branyan has found favor on comedy cruises (“I didn’t even know you could work on cruise ships. It’s the sweetest gig.”) and women’s conferences – of all places. “If I could do nothing but women’s conferences, you’d never see me again,” he says.
“The savvy comic understands that if you win over the women, that’s the whole audience,” Branyan explains. “I noticed the pattern when I was coming up through the comedy clubs, there was always one bachelorette party. It’s all these girls out with their girlfriends. They’re the best audiences in the world.”
While his comedy has struck a chord with the ladies, Branyan’s act, which is clean, smart and keenly observational, appeals to a wide audience. “Faith underpins everything in my acts,” he says. “I don’t talk a lot about religion in my act, but my world view shapes everything I do on stage. What you believe determines how you talk.”
Branyan will perform at the Eagles Theatre in Wabash at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 2 as part of the Thursday Night Comedy series. Tickets are $12 in advance and $15 the day of the show.