The Definitive Guide to Comedy
The New Faces Characters showcase, which is even billed in some of the Just For Laughs literature as an SNL audition of sorts: “Quickly! Before they’re ‘Live From New York…” the official program boasts, doesn’t have a host. Instead, JFL booker/programmer Nick Brazao greeted the audience and explained the format …
Can we talk about last night’s one and only official showcase for the “Unrepped” New Faces of Comedy for the 2016 Just For Laughs comedy festival in Montreal? I don’t know, can we? Did you even stay for the whole show, dear agent and/or manager? I’m guessing no based on …
Back in the day, New Faces in Montreal were truly new faces to the comedy industry. That was back when six-figure development deals got thrown about and signed by young comedians even before they returned back to the States. This dot-com comedy boom has changed much of that. As Just …
We’ve all seen pregnant woman perform comedy before, even if the memory isn’t on instant recall for you. Saturday Night Live reminded us this past Mother’s Day with a primetime run from Mother’s Day past — circa 2011, hosted by a then-pregnant Tina Fey and featuring also flush-with-baby SNL alum Maya …
Adrienne Truscott won multiple awards when she took her one-woman show about rape jokes to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, including honors for “Comic Originality” and the prestigious Panel Prize. That was August 2013. Some three years later, the summer of 2016 finds Truscott doing “Adrienne Truscott’s Asking For It: A One-Lady …
In case you missed the premiere last night of Quincy Jones: Burning the Light on HBO, it’s available to subscribers now On Demand as well as HBO GO and HBO NOW. I wrote a review for my friends at Decider. Here’s an excerpt: By the time he hit the stage …
My review of Bo Burnham’s new Netflix special, Make Happy, is on Decider.com. What’s it about? I’ll let Burnham tell you what he says 45 minutes into his latest hour of comedy and art: “But for real. What is it about? It’s about performing. I try to make my show …
Two years ago this weekend, after a Friday night gig in Delaware, Tracy Morgan and his entourage were on their way home when a Walmart tractor trailer slammed into their SUV on the New Jersey Turnpike, killing comedian “Jimmy Mack” and almost killing Morgan and his opening act, Ardie Fuqua. …
You’re forgiven for believing that Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping is the first movie from The Lonely Island. Nobody really saw Hot Rod in the theater (it earned $14 million after spending $25 million). And that 2007 comedy — which starred Andy Samberg as an amateur daredevil, was written by Samberg, …
“What is this?” Both Martin Short and Kenan Thompson both asked variations on that question during the opening monologue for the debut episode Tuesday night of Maya & Marty on NBC. In short, it’s Saturday Night Live alums (mostly), performing in front of a live audience (but taped on Thursdays …
