Missoula comic Michael Beers returns with 'Comedians with Disabilities Act' tour

Twenty years ago, before you could see local comedy on the calendar in Missoula regularly, Michael Beers was seeking out gigs anywhere he could find them. He’d sign up at open mics for musicians, even get creative and make up his own ways to hone his craft in public.

“I’d go to karaoke nights and pick the song with the longest instrumental break,” he said. “So I sing along and then during the instrumental breaks, I practice jokes."

He first gave it a shot when he was a senior at Hellgate High School, where he’d never been a class clown. He felt “a little outside of everything” as someone born with a physical disability, he said. From that first minute of stage time at dive rock bar Jay’s Upstairs opening for an improv group, he was hooked.

“I felt more like myself than I’d felt in my life. When I work with students, I say 'chase that feeling,' like something's gonna come along that makes you feel authentically like yourself. And it may not be your profession, but it's worth paying attention to,” he said.

Now working as a comedian, disability activist and keynote speaker out of Oklahoma City, Beers is returning to his home state this week with a whole crew of comedians. They’re filming sets for a documentary, “Comedians With Disabilities Act: Going Beyond the Punchlines!"

“To be able to take that stage and help people see a different version of what you know disability is is cool, especially as part of the tour,” he said. Inclusion, which has been a long and ongoing effort in comedy, helps break down barriers and follows one of his favorite adages: "laughter is the shortest distance between two people."

The tour's modeled after one of his favorite live comedy movies when he was starting out, “The Original Kings of Comedy."

“We all put comedy first and very much subscribe to the idea that it’s about the entirety of the show from beginning to end,” he said.

He’s going to headline in Missoula on Friday and another person will the next night in Butte. Within the huge world of comedy, all of the performers have broken their own ground mingling jokes with a social justice message.

The shows will be documented by a team from BASE Missoula, a program of Summit Independent Living Center, that provides a space for all ages and all abilities. The offerings include a movie program, BASE Film Extravaganza, that’s documenting the shows with team leads John Howard (of Homegrown Comedy) and Gavin Workman.

The team includes director Gina Chin-Davis, who’s directing her third feature-length film and producer Nina G., comedian and author of “Stutterer Interrupted: The Comedian Who Almost Didn't Happen.” This leg of the tour includes Beers, Nina G., as well as Mean Dave, a Bay Area comedian who draws on his experiences in recovery from addiction; Adam Keys, a U.S. Army veteran who lost multiple limbs while serving in Afghanistan; and Loren Kraut, of Instagram fame as “LOL Little Old Lesbian.”

In an email news release, Chin-Davis said the film "confronts ableist norms in comedy by elevating Disabled performers who use humor as both art and activism. It’s joyful and funny, but it also asks audiences to reflect on who gets to speak, who gets to be heard, and who we choose to laugh with.”

If you go

The “Comedians With Disabilities Act” live tour has two stops in Montana this week. Both shows will be recorded. For mature audiences.

• Friday, March 20 in Missoula: Zootown Arts Community Center Show Room, $15 in advance. Doors at 7 p.m., show at 7:30 p.m. Michael Beers headlines.
• Saturday, March 21 in Butte: Covellite Theater, $15 in advance, $20 day of show, 7:30 p.m. Go to comedianswithdisabilitiesact.com. Mean Dave headlines.

Starting out in comedy

Beers was a fan of comedy growing up, watching any specials he could find. He recalls nabbing his parents’ Richard Pryor and George Carlin tapes and playing them on a Teddy Ruxpin, a stuffed animal with a cassette player designed to read stories to children.

“You've really never lived until you've seen a teddy bear recite the ‘Seven Things You Can Never Say On Television,’ ” he said.

He first tried out the artform himself as a senior project at Hellgate. Back in 2000-2001, there weren’t local comedy open mics, so his mentor, Aaron Roos, suggested opening for his local improv group, the Shoppe, that performed regularly at Jay’s. Beers came to rehearsals and learned the basics, like how to “own the stage and deal with things as they come in addition to what you write,” he said.

He had months and months to prepare for a performance that was a sprawling 20 minutes instead of the usual amount, which is a fraction of that.

“I remember the first joke working, and it was love at first laugh,” Beers said.

Once he was in college at the University of Montana, he’d sign up at open mics at bars like Sean Kelly’s or that karaoke gambit. If touring comedians played town at what’s now the Still Room, he’d sign up as opener and “pick the brains of every comic that would talk to me.”

Then, a friend and fellow comedian, John Howard, started up Homegrown Comedy, with regular nights at the Union Club.

“That’s really when the Missoula comedy scene happened,” he said.

He thinks the city is a healthy place for artists to develop their talents versus the open mics he’s seen in larger cities.

“An original voice can flourish easier because you're not mimicking what's getting the stage time that you want,” he said.

In 2022, Beers moved to Oklahoma City with his wife, who he met through work with the Youth Leadership Forum, which he’s been involved with since high school.

The program is “another piece of my heart that really helped me with my identity when I needed it growing up,” he said. He comes back every summer to work with them.

Back here in Missoula, he worked for Summit Independent Living Center. In Oklahoma, he’s continued in the field with the Association of Programs for Rural Independent Living.

He met Nina G., the tour producer and comedian, through a Montana Youth Leadership Forum, which led to collaborations going back years now, including live shows in the Bay Area. They've already recorded one leg of the tour to sold out crowds in California.

“That time on stage is very sacred for me, just because it's one of the few places in life where I'm ultra-focused on one thing,” he said.

That experience is important for performers and audiences alike in an age of information overload, screen time and isolation.

“To be a part of creating a space that people can exhale for a moment and find that common language that is laughter together, I think that's really cool. As long as I can keep being part of that, I'll come back all the time,” he said.