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The stand-up, storytelling, DIY-laughing comedian and comedy producer from Pittsburgh, according to his website, John Dick Winters will be coming to Arthaus Projects, 140 W. Fourth St., at 8 p.m. on Tuesday hosted by The Comedy Shop and Elite Games. doors open at 7 p.m.
Originally from Altoona, this is not Winter's first time in the area, he has also been to Lewisburg, Lancaster, Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and State College, although no one showed up to the Scranton show, he said.
The comic has been performing "comedy for a little over six years," he said. Winters has been interested in stand-up comedy since he was a child and built up the nerve to start in Pittsburgh in 2012. He began touring independently during the summer of 2013. He's performed with other comics such as James Adomian, Kyle Dunningan and Steve Byrne, among many others.
Winters is the founder of Race to the Coffin Comedy. Originally, Race to the Coffin began with friends and a tour, growing to become a brand, he said. Winters' produces his shows through Race to the Coffin and started a T-shirt company with the same name.
Winters also is the founder of the Burning Bridges Festival, the largest Pennsylvania comedy festival, focusing on stand-up, founded in 2016. They just recently finished their third year and Winters mentioned it was a big success.
He's won the GrandSLAM victory at the 2014 Arcade Comedy Theater contest and has been featured on tours such as The Cape Fear Comedy Fest, The Pittsburgh Comedy Fest and The DVE Comedy Fest, among many others. Recently, Winters was accepted into the 2018 Memphis Comedy Fest.
"My style is observational, autobiographical and can be a little dark at times. I talk about my dead parents and my own mortality, but I also talk about being proud of my kids. It's not all dark," Winters said. "Like always, my set will be a mix of older, more-rehearsed material and some newer stuff I'm working on. It'll be loose and fun."
Winters learned about Arthaus Project through other comics, and he is looking forward to his Tuesday show in Williamsport, he said. Also performing will be local comedians Kevin Brosius, Megan Desmond and Eddie Kiersnowski with Kevin Seibert, of The Comedy Shop, as the night's host. Elite Games will be giving gift cards to the first 20 people in the doors, Seibert said.
Seibert has seen Winters perform before and described his performance as witty and relatable, he said. "People love being able to say 'I saw (insert name of performer or band) before they blew up.' "
"The Williamsport comedy scene is continuing to gain momentum. We've had more touring comedians ask to do shows with us in the first five months of 2018 than we did in the entirety of last year, and we still have more on the way," Seibert said. "Williamsport is being recognized increasingly by professional comedians from out of the area as an excellent place to perform along with a very enthusiastic and talented local scene."