Day: October 27, 2008

If there’s one part of the comedy scene that has not gotten enough due on this site, it has to be improv, which is extra-weird for anyone who really knows me, since I started my professional comedy career in improv in Seattle. Fortunately for New York City, Keith Huang covers the improv scene here quite well and photomographs it, too, at his site, improv is good for you*. Huang reports today in The Apiary that improv star and teacher Matt Donnelly will be heading out for Las Vegas, and gets many of Donnelly’s NYC comrades to weigh in on what Donnelly has meant to the community. If you want to see him off with a bang and a laugh, Donnelly will perform at 11 p.m. tonight at The PIT with his teams Threat and Neutrino, and also Wednesday as part of the entire...

Dozens of New York City stand-up comedians got together Saturday night in Long Island City to have a little fun, Halloween-style, by performing tribute sets of other, more famous comedians. A few comics didn’t get the memo, apparently, but after a false start, Gilad Foss really set the bar high with his spot-on impersonation of a young Woody Allen (see it on DailyMotion, too). It was the most fun I’ve seen out of this community since the last time so many of them had gathered at The Creek in early January for "50 First Jokes." And by this community, I mean I’m not sure how to classify this sub-group of the New York comedy scene. They’re not the alt-alt comics. They’re not underground comics. They’re not the AA ball or junior circuit. So who are they? Do I even need to find a word to categorize them? How about this for an example, then: Tom McCaffrey did a take on Louis CK, while there was another comic Saturday night who impersonated McCaffrey. Co-hosts Matt Ruby (Rodney Dangerfield) and Mark Normand (Groucho Marx) led the proceedings, and Ruby posted his own recap. Other highlights: Jared Logan as Kevin Meaney, Mara Herron as Janeane Garofalo, Chelsea White as a female version of Mitch Hedberg, Mo Diggs as Carlos Mencia telling the bit he stole from Cosby, Becky Ciletti as Sarah Silverman,...

At one of my first newspaper jobs, my editor liked to joke whenever something went awry: "Ain’t technology great?" Of course, this was before our office had the Internet. Or email. Or even cell phones. I couldn’t have launched The Comic’s Comic without any of these advances. Online social networks keep me in the loop on upcoming shows, and also keep me connected to comedians around the world. A video camera that fits in my pocket lets me capture exclusive interviews and in a couple of clicks, share them with you. I can bring you comedy news as it happens, no matter where it happens, thanks to technology. So yeah, it is great. Now if only I could find a gizmo that paid all my...