Center Grove to Vegas and Back

Jeff will be performing at the Greenwood VFW Post on Saturday, March 2, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $15, and the show is open to the public. For more information, call 317-888-2488.

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By: Rick Ebb
Ever since he was a little boy, Center Grove native Jeff McDonald dreamed of doing something big. Growing up on Grace Street, Jeff loved playing basketball with the neighbor kids. At age six, he told anyone who would listen that he wanted to become a Harlem Globetrotter. One day someone told him he couldn’t possibly live that dream because he wasn’t tall enough. That simple comment was the first of many moments in Jeff’s life where he realized that in all of life’s events, one could find an element of humor.

Throughout his school years, Jeff would become the guy who was always telling jokes. He continued to play sports, but he would always find ways to connect with people through humor. On the night of his 1986 graduation from Center Grove High School, several teachers signed a note stating he was the “class instigator and that he was incorrigible.” What others might have seen as a negative Jeff took as a compliment which simply reaffirmed for him that he was successful in finding ways to think “outside the box.”

Jeff enrolled at Indiana University and ended up studying psychology. His first job was caseworker for Johnson County Welfare Department where he got more write ups than raises.

He started to go to amateur comedy nights in the mid 90s, but didn’t get serious until around 1998. In early 2001, Dave Wilson, owner of One Liners comedy club, told Jeff he had the talent but it was up to him either to live it or not.

So in 2001, Jeff gave his two-week notice to his current employer, a bank in Indianapolis. He soon was living the life of a road comic, emceeing and then featuring at clubs all over country – racking up thousands of miles and never looking back on the former 9-to-5 life. He was lucky enough to work clubs in Vegas relatively quickly in his career and was given the opportunity to work at the Tropicana, which at the time was the place where only the top comics in the country worked. His Vegas resume expanded to Catch a Rising Star in the Luxor and several other prestigious Vegas clubs. Jeff was soon working from Atlantic City to Orlando to Reno and almost everywhere in between.

Since his start in 2001, Jeff has worked with such stars as Drew Carey and Jerry Seinfeld. He was twice named “Indiana’s Top Comedy Writer.” He performed in a number of commercials and has even starred in a short film coming out in 2013 that has already been accepted to several top film festivals around the country.

Although competition is high in the comedy industry, he has taken his hard knocks and learned the tricks of the trade from the top people in the business. His inspirations vary from Red Skelton to Pryor and Carlin to the late Richard Jeni, who befriended Jeff and used a joke Jeff wrote. That cemented to Jeff that he really did belong in this profession.

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After a decade of traveling, Jeff started to feel the stress of constantly being on the road take its toll. His uncle invited him back to Indiana to do a show for a local American Legion Post. Jeff agreed and discovered a new direction. He always enjoyed the crowd at fraternal-organization-type shows. The audience tends to connect and embrace a comic more than a typical comedy club crowd would. He realized that he missed his Indiana roots and the “home town” feel. He then turned his focus to performing for corporations, veterans, and fraternal-type organizations.

Today, Jeff is striving to bring a top-notch professional quality “Las Vegas” level show to the people of Indiana. In preparing for the Greenwood VFW Post show, Jeff provided a list of suggestions including how to set up the room, best ways to promote the show, and how to make the atmosphere enjoyable for the crowd and the comics. Comedy is popular nowadays, but not many entertainers have cut their teeth on the Las Vegas strip. Jeff brings a level of entertainment not typically seen outside the major cities.

Maybe the teachers who labeled him as “class instigator and incorrigible” might come to one of his local shows and see just how “incorrigible” their former student has become! Center Grove native Jeff McDonald, following his dreams, is still instigating the laughs one crowd at a time.

Learn more about Jeff McDonald at ComedyMac.com. cg


Rick Ebb is a resident of Greenwood and a member of the VFW. He has served for 36 years in the Army and has served three tours overseas. He is currently in the Indiana National Guard.

To see more of Christopher’s photography, visit MadeByCarter.com.

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