The Definitive Guide to Comedy
Everybody loves a comedy festival. And in this year of 2016, it doesn’t just feel as though every city has its own comedy festival, because not only do they, but oftentimes, several cities have recruited all-star comedy lineups to their region on the same weekend. And New York City can …
Aparna Nancherla returned to Conan the other night, and she has a problem with pills. Well, not so much the pills, but how it looks if you happen to drop them on the floor or street. That’s very problematic. Perhaps she’d be helped by trying a different dating website. Or …
Variety has announced its annual “10 Comics to Watch” list for 2016, almost two months before they’ll be feted at the end of July at Montreal’s Just For Laughs festival. Without further ado, congratulations to… James Adomian and Anthony Atamaniuk for their “Trump vs. Bernie” mock debate tour and specials …
This is a banner week for Michael Ian Black. Black has a new children’s book that he promoted on Late Night with Seth Meyers (you can pre-order A Child’s First Book of Trump now), his latest stand-up special, Noted Expert, premieres this Friday night on EPIX, and he’s been announced as host …
Comedy Central’s “The Half Hour” moves from Boston to New Orleans and officially announces the 17 comedians recording their stand-up specials this June 1-4, 2016. Congrats to Cy Amundson, Erik Bergstrom, Ahmed Bharoocha, Matthew Broussard, Naomi Ekperigin, Nate Fernald, Noah Gardenswartz, Emily Heller, Martha Kelly, Joe Machi, Drew Michael, Aparna Nancherla, …
Refinery29 announced a slate of new initiatives during their Newfronts presentation on Monday, among them the launch of a separate YouTube channel dedicated to women in comedy. It’s called RIOT. “We need to move away from the idea of selling ‘empowerment’ to women. This generation of women has an innate …
Natasha Rothwell has traded 30 Rock for the Sony lot, writing now for Issa Rae’s HBO series, Insecure. But Rothwell’s own characters in her half-hour special for The Characters on Netflix are quite secure, assured and ready to break down barriers. She had been writing and creating characters for years, …
Aparna Nancherla has performed stand-up on Conan, @midnight and Last Comic Standing, and previously worked as a writer and performer on FX/FXX’s Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell. Nancherla recently started a new gig as a monologue writer for another late-night TV talk show, NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers. Nancherla told me …
Jim Gaffigan turns 49 today, but he has given the comedy scene a big fat birthday present, too, by casting so many comedians in the first season of his new TV Land series, The Jim Gaffigan Show, which premieres July 15. Just look! Of course I had to screengrab the …
“My name is Paul Feig. I directed Bridesmaids, The Heat, the upcoming Spy. And it’s an honor to welcome you all. I have such a love of funny women. And funny women in comedy. And anything that lets them showcase what they do, and I think this festival is so …
