Greg Bach on Milwaukee Comedy Festival

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Photo by Matty Field

Greg Bach

Greg Bach

“I wanna be your lovable jam band Santa Claus, making you chuckle,” says Milwaukee's Greg Bach in reference both to his generous beard and desire to elicit laughter with his stand-up comedy. He abets laughter for other comics, however, in his role within the Milwaukee Comedy promotion company that is responsible for many stand-up shows held in the city. The annual peak of that activity comes in the form of the Milwaukee Comedy Festival, the 18th iteration of which takes place from Sunday October 1 to Sunday October 8 over 13 shows in seven venues (see mkecomedtfest.com). 

Bach and fellow Milwaukee Comedy partners Matt Kemple and Kaitlyn McCarthy maintain a steady stream of comedic activity at their own club, The Laughing Tap, and other locations throughout the city; it takes an extra level of effort to execute what has become one of the nation's longest-operating comedy fests. “When booking comics for The Laughing Tap, Kaitlyn, Matt or myself will come to the table with a name to headline, we look at clips, make our decisions, and then go through the necessary steps to book them,” Bach explains. 

Of the lengthier process for filling all the openings in Milwaukee Comedy Festival schedule, he confides. “We have a submission process which lasts nearly three months. Then we meet with a committee to watch all the clips .Then we make our decisions on who will be in the festival. This doesn’t include contacting comics, slotting them for shows, marketing, etc., so the process for the fest is a lot happening in a shorter amount of time.”

Finding Time to be Funny

Dedicated as Bach has been to the festival's success since becoming a producer for Milwaukee Comedy in 2018 and earlier as the organization's communications director, he hasn't abandoned his pursuit of the kind of artistry by which he wants to generate those aforementioned chuckles. “I’m not as active as I’d like to be, but we run The Laughing Tap, our remote shows and the festival, and I have a full-time job. So, my moments are quite limited; but in the new year, I would like to do more shows, travel more and possibly do a full tour at some point. I still perform here and there to keep my mind sharp, but I’d like to increase my stage time. I’m not done telling jokes on stage, not by a long shot.”

Of his approach to engaging audiences, Bach shares, “My comedy is easy and fun. I like to stand on stage and tell relatable stories and jokes.” Perhaps in relation to his pre-Milwaukee Comedy training in improv and sketch-writing with ComedySportz, he realizes, “Comedy is a team sport, even when I’m the captain with the mic telling a one-way monologue—in other words, don’t heckle!—but I want to feel a connection with the people in the room and relate. You won’t get hot takes or edgy material,” he admits, “unless you think me talking about being married to someone I love and respect is edgy. Audiences pay money to be entertained, and if I can do that while forming a bond, being silly and telling some truths about me, we all win. I have started to open up a little more about certain aspects of my life—being queer, mental health struggles, body image—and as I spend more time on stage, I suspect I’ll speak deeper on topics which I’ve never discussed on or off stage.”

Though there’s room for the type of confessional, anecdotal comedy in which Bach specializes at the event he helps organize (he won't be performing there at this year), one of Milwaukee Comedy Festival's strengths is its diversity. Of the panoply of the 2023 fest's participants, he says, “We have one-liners. We have story-based comics. There are absurdists, and one guy who is a professional yo-yo…ist? Yo-yo-er? He’s pretty sick at working a yo-yo!”

Bach believes that a comedy festival can be just as much an asset to the city hosting it as can a film fest or similarly prestigious exhibition. “I believe hosting a major and one of the country’s oldest comedy festivals is a point of pride for us,” Bach says as a Milwaukeean, “and should be for the city, because it means we are a hub for art and yes … comedy is art. Year by year we show that Milwaukee is a great place to do stand-up, but also visit. Everyone is so impressed with how cheap parking is here.”

From a few years ago, here’s Bach—who can be followed at iamgregbach on social media platforms—regaling a Madison audience with bits about childhood idiocy, mistaking attic insulation for a spun sugar treat, his unfitness for a fitness regimen he already purchased, and the resemblance of unborn children to dinosaurs, among other subjects ...

And here's Kyle Kinane, one of this year's Milwaukee Comedy Festival headliners to whom Bach is looking forward to seeing, on the relativity of wealth, the repackaging of TV inanity and paying for pizza delivery in Canada while high on marijuana...