by Mike Birbiglia spent most of the past week at the Comedy Studio in Cambridge, Mass., workshopping a new one-man show that he’s calling "Sleepwalk With Me." On Saturday, he even took an hour before the club opened to meet with any and all local comedians who had questions for him about comedy and show business. It was a nice gesture on his part. Closing out the lineup on Saturday, Birbiglia brought out 34 minutes of material, noted his time was up, then skipped ahead to a 12-minute section of material dealing with his real-life odysseys in sleepwalking. A lot of this falls under the category of strange but true. Even stranger, yet just as interesting to me, was seeing how Birbiglia took his closing bit from his Comedy Central Presents and made it the opening routine for his one-man show — it’s his childhood Valentine’s Day bear card he drew up for his parents. Consider this as evidence how moving material around in your setlist can open completely different avenues for humorous storytelling.
He’d show off his efforts the following month in Montreal at Just For Laughs, and told me he expected to have the full show ready for viewing in a few months.
