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Gutty’s Comedy Club to host family-friendly showcase

“All Indiana” visits Gutty’s Comedy Club in Greenwood, Indiana

GREENWOOD, Ind. (WISH) — A comedy club south of Indianapolis, Gutty’s Comedy Club, is giving people a chance to join an atmosphere of laughter the whole family can be a part of.

Any comedian that comes to perform only tells clean jokes, without the use of profane or offensive language, and unlike most comedy clubs they don’t sell alcohol.

For veteran comics Steve Rivera, Dennis Tooley and Hoss Ridgeway, on this stage they can shed a different light and redefine what it means to make people laugh. Each comedian has at least a decade of experience, but they were bonded by the chance to make a difference.

“We wanted to get together and when we met at the Christian Comedy Association and when we met there we said let’s take it to another level and make it a little bit different,” Rivera said.

“You definitely have to actually be creative,” Ridgeway said. “Most nonclean comedians just use certain words to fill up things and trigger you to laugh, but we have to be creative and use words that don’t embarrass people.”

Tooley says what makes their comedy special is the quality of the content they put out on stage.

“It’s well written and it’s clean and everybody can enjoy it,” Tooley said. “That’s what comedy is all about. It doesn’t matter how old you are or where you’re from. You can still enjoy a good show.”

With plenty of motivation, Tooley says the name of the trio was inspired by another popular group of comics, The Kings of Comedy: Steve Harvey, Cedric the Entertainer, D.L. Hughley and the late Bernie Mac.

“We thought The Kings of Comedy we should do something like that, but we weren’t cooling enough to be the kings,” Tooley said.

They came up with the name Ministers of Comedy and even though all three comics have performed and been involved in church they insist that they’re not actual preachers.

“We’re ordained to tell jokes,” Rivera said and then laughed.

Ridgeway, who’s been performing comedy for 20 years, serves as the club’s House Comic. He described his passion for comedy and what it feels like to feed off the crowd’s energy.

“It’s like saying sick ’em to a dog,” Ridgeway said. “It’s on and when they start laughing you start feeding off of that and sometimes you come up with stuff you never even thought of before. It gets you pumped.”

However, even when he’s talking about the energy the fans give him, he always reminds himself of why he’s doing it.

“It’s not about me it’s about the people who are here so they can laugh,” Ridgeway said.

Rivera has been trying to create this platform for comedians, local and across the country, since 2003. Now he believes they’ve found their groove in the Greenwood community.

“It’s electrifying,” Rivera said. “When everybody’s laughing it’s just cooking. You got to be here when it happens.”

The Ministers of Comedy Show is happening Friday and Saturday. Doors open at 7 p.m., and the first comedian is set to hit the stage at 8 p.m.