The Ark’s 36th Annual Storytelling Festival

Heywood Banks is simply one-of-a-kind, almost impossible to describe, with a style his very own. Equal parts genius and buffoon, this songwriter-comic-singer-poet-musician from Flint has become a cult hero and a pop icon, with a show that appeals to college students, stoners, businessmen, yuppies, rednecks, punks, kids, or your grandmother. Heywood intersperses his humorous observations of life with twisted, inventive, bizarre songs, sung and played in a variety of styles, from folk, to country to rock to pop, and way beyond.

The tradition that started more than a decade ago at the Bell House in Brooklyn, and now is a much-anticipated event also in Los Angeles and other cities, is coming back to Ann Arbor! Fifty of the area’s up-and-coming and veteran comics come together to tell the first jokes they’ve written for the new year, kicking off the 2023 comedy scene in the most righteous way possible! It’s fast, it’s fresh, and above all it’s funny. It’s also not going to break the bank, so why not check out some Michigan comic voices you may not have known about?

The first name in comedy since 1959, The Second City cuts to the quick in their new show that takes on our great big dysfunctional nation!

The first name in comedy since 1959, The Second City cuts to the quick in their new show that takes on our great big dysfunctional nation!

No one ever accused Suzanne Westenhoefer of being subtle, not the shuttle driver who took her to the airport, the woman she was in line with at the grocery store yesterday and certainly not her audiences. Subtle, she is not.

Heywood Banks is simply one-of-a-kind, almost impossible to describe, with a style his very own. Equal parts genius and buffoon, this songwriter-comic-singer-poet-musician has become a cult hero and a pop icon, with a show that appeals to college students, stoners, businessmen, yuppies, rednecks, punks, kids or your grandmother.