Bringing comedy to the mall

Christian Gutowski, a comedian from Sparta, is hosting a pop-up comedy club at the American Dream mall in East Rutherford.

The club opened Friday, Feb, 23 and is scheduled to run one weekend a month. It may be open weekly in the future.

Gutowski is the founder of Damn, That’s Funny!, also known as DTF Comedy, a production company serving newer comedians.

“This was in an attempt to give up-and-coming comics more stage time, more notoriety by doing high-quality filming of their sets, posting them online, and we also do pop-up shows,” he said.

Gutowski grew up in Sparta and graduated from Northeastern University in Boston.

A lover of standup comedy, he saw shows when he was young as 8 years old.

“I would always have the comedic-relief roles in productions that I did in theater. In college, I would emcee big Greek life events at the school and perform in them, doing musical standup-comedy routines,” he said.

He started doing standup comedy in 2019.

He uses a variety of comedic styles. “Sometimes, it’s light-hearted. Sometimes, it’s dark. Just depends on the room, but I like it all. Whether it’s cute or edgy or silly, I think it’s all great. Whatever gets the laughs.”

He also has performed in larger shows. “Last year, I got to open up for T.J. Miller in front of a big crowd. I’ve headlined a few smaller shows up in Boston. I think the biggest show I’ve ever done was in front of 300 people.”

DTF Comedy, which was started about a year ago, focuses on pop-up comedy shows.

“We do pop-up comedy shows across the tri-state area. We’ve done them in people’s houses. We’ve done them in gymnasiums, underneath churches, anywhere that we could put up a stage and decorate it well and put up some lights.”

DTF Comedy is not limited to live performances. “Every once in a while, we’ll do a taping where we bring a very high-end production team and film it,” Gutowski said.

That provides professional clips of newer comedians to help them gain attention online.

Pop-up comedy shows sometimes are challenging, he said. “Sometimes, the space is not good acoustically or sometimes it’s too small or sometimes it’s too big. You don’t always sell out.”

His goal is for everyone to have a enjoyable time.

“The hope is that we can make as many people laugh as possible. I think it’s a great genre of entertainment. I think it just changes people’s moods, mostly for the better.”