Standup comedian and YouTube star John Crist will bring his Christian comedy act to the historic Embassy Theater in mid-October.
Fort Wayne is just one of 100 stops that the Georgia-born Crist will make on the Fresh Cuts Comedy Tour.
Boasting numerous television and radio show appearances, which include appearances on Indiana’s own Bob and Tom Show, Crist has also been featured on Christian television network TBN, and news sites like The Daily Wire and Huffington Post.
In September, The Daily Wire noted that Crist often makes jokes aimed at “Cancel Culture, virtue signaling, and other habits of the progressive Left.”
In one of Crist’s quips, the comedian jokes, “I’m on unemployment because I enjoy the freedom. Which, ironically, an able-bodied person now relying on the government for their survival is actually the opposite of freedom.”
Humble Beginnings
While the comedian has had great successes in recent years, his first gig took place at a Chili’s restaurant over a decade ago, according to The Southeast Outlook.
Crist started thinking about pursuing standup comedy when he began making videos and doing announcements for his church community in Colorado Springs.
“People started saying I was hilarious in front of the camera and asked me if I had ever considered standup,” Crist said in an interview with the Atlanta Christian Voice. “That’s what really first put the idea in my head.”
Crist was a finalist in Comedy Central’s Up Next Comedy Competition, a finalist in the Comedy Works New Faces Contest, and was named to the Burbank Comedy Festival’s “Best of the Fest.”
But the most unusual stage that Crist took was all the way on the other side of the globe, at the border of Middle Eastern countries Iraq and Kuwait.
“It was surreal,” Crist said. “It was just me and a tent full of soldiers at this military base on the border of Kuwait and Iraq. No mic, no stage, no nothing. I was standing on a wooden crate. It was probably 120 degrees in there. It was comedy in its purest form.”
Crist has also found major viral success online on platforms like YouTube and Facebook. According to heavy.com, “Unlike other YouTube comedians who go for a more raw comedy style, Crist keeps his content clean.”
He has performed with big names such as comedians Jeff Foxworthy, Larry the Cable Guy, and Late Night host Seth Meyers.
Plenty of Background Material
Crist has stated that draws a lot of his jokes from his upbringing. Not only was Crist homeschooled, but he is also the third of eight children and his father is a Christian pastor.
To top it all off, Crist told Fox News that not only did he work for the prominent Christian chain Chick-fil-A, but he was fired from the chicken restaurant for stirring lemonade with his hand.
In 2016, Crist’s career took off when he made a three-minute video poking fun at the cliches of Christian music songwriting.
He told the Tennessean in 2019, “It was making fun of the generic, everything-kind-of-sounds-the-same type of vibe that is Christian music.”
Crist told Paulson that he thinks “Christian comedy has gotten a bad rap in the past because it’s very passive, and it’s not honest.
“It’s like knock-knock jokes type humor,” he said. “What we’re bringing to the table is another level of honesty, and maybe transparency that I think does make some people uncomfortable.”
The video, How It’s Made: Christian Music, is closing in on three million views on YouTube, and has garnered over 8.2 million views on Facebook.
In 2018 Crist told Atlanta Christian Voice, “I think it’s cool that I’m able to put words to things that other people — Christians especially — resonate with. A lot of my jokes are on the topic of Christian subculture. It’s just what I know the best.”
Stopping at the Embassy
According to Crist’s website, he will embark on a 100-show tour across the country beginning in the fall of 2021.
This tour includes a stop at downtown Fort Wayne’s historic Embassy Theater on Oct. 14 at 7 p.m.
