Out comic Jason Dudey teams with Dallas’ Paul J.  Williams and others for Gay Up Stand Up, a comedy tour for gays in the Tornado Belt

COMICS OF THE CENTRAL TIME ZONE: Kansas native Jason Dudey, above, teamed with Oklahoman Shawn Pelofsky, below left, and Texan Paul J. Williams, below right, for the Tornado Tour of homo-larious humorists.

As the producer and headliner of the Gay Up Stand Up comedy tour, Jason Dudey gets to give the show any name he wants. But that hasn’t stopped his fellow comic, Dallas-based Paul J. Williams, from laughingly re-branding the program — which goes from Wichita, Kan., to Tulsa and ends on Sunday at Dallas’ Lakewood Theater — the “Gay Tornado Tour.”

“That’s right,” grins Dudey. “We can take it around the country! Next will be the Hurricane Tour, then the Earthquake, then the Blizzard Tour. It’ll be great.”

But in fact, Dudey is serious about calling it Gay Up Stand Up: It’s more than a name for him. It’s a mission statement.

“My mother suggested I take the word ‘gay’ out of the title,” Dudey admits (though he stresses his parents have been very supportive of him since he came out 20 years ago). “I said no, there’s nothing wrong with being gay. There are lots of kids in small towns who don’t realize that.”

Which accounts for why Dudey booked this mini-tour as far from the coasts as he could.

“Los Angeles, New York, West Hollywood, Provincetown — they get a lot of gay entertainment. I decided it was time to take it someplace new,” Dudey says. “Dallas already has a lot of gay stuff — Suzanne Westenhoefer was at the Lakewood just before us — but the people there are so friendly and with-it, I had to come there. Dallas is by far is our cherry on the top of the cake.”

Dudey isn’t some WeHo hipster deigning to bring gay culture to Flyover Country. He’s from Flyover Country. Born in Wichita to a white upper-middle class family (complete with a career-Army dad and 2.3 kids), he was — and remains — the poster boy for Midwestern values, the boy next door.

Only Dudey was the kind of boy that liked other boys, so he knows how lonely it can be for young gay people in the heartland: worried whether they will be accepted, wondering whether anyone else could feel the way they do, seeing only the extremes of gay culture — drag queen, leather daddies, dykes on bikes — in mainstream media and not fitting in. As much as anything, he wants the tour to reach those people.

“I love being a stand up comic and I love being out,” he says. “I wanted to go to cities where they don’t expect this. I know Wichita and Tulsa are a little risky. The marquee says ‘Jason Dudey presents Gay Up Stand Up,’ and the Wichita theater is getting a few phone calls and e-mails saying we’re all heathens. A theater in another state rejected us, saying they wouldn’t put the name on their marquee. But my last name’s Dudey and they’ll put that on the marquee. Go figure. Who knows? Maybe we’ll have a picket line! We’d love that.”

One person who won’t be picketing is Dudey’s 87-year-old grandmother, who has already bought tickets to the Wichita show. “She will be there with all her friends — and my parents used to go on dates to the theater where we’re performing.”

Indeed, of the foursome of comedians Dudey assembled, three have roots in the tour towns, though Dudey says his two main considerations in selecting the line-up were “Are they funny?” and could he endure riding in a car with them for hours on end?

“Think of it: two gays, a lesbian and a Jew driving through the Midwest — what could be more fun? You know we’re gonna have to throw on a boa and go into a truck stop,” Dudey says.

He may not be joking. It has taken a ballsy approach for Dudey to get where he is. He started performing at open mike nights 20 years ago in New York City, then moved to Los Angeles, but never hitting it big. He finally followed his parents’ suggestion to get “a fall-back career” going.

Then in 2000, he got the itch to perform again. Last year, Dudey quit his 9-to-5, earning his living by opening for comedians like Craig Shoemaker and Kathleen Madigan. Last month, he recorded a comedy special that will air on Logo in January. And he’s delighted that he can help spread the wealth a little.

“I can name two dozen openly gay comedians now. Just 10 years ago, you couldn’t name many at all,” he says. “As my friend Ant says, there’s enough work to keep us all busy.”

Even if the work takes you to Wichita — which is just fine with Dudey.

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This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition September 5, 2008.