The Definitive Guide to Comedy
For the past couple of decades, Montreal’s “New Faces of Comedy” has represented a watershed moment in the careers of stand-up comedians. Getting invited to Montreal for New Faces meant you had made it. Or maybe you hadn’t made it just yet, but this represented your big break, your chance …
What do they say about New York City: There are eight million stories, and sometimes it seems as though eight million of the people telling them think they’re comedians? No, that’s not it. It is a fact, though, that America’s biggest city is also its biggest comedy mecca. Hollywood may …
Not only is John Oliver’s New York Stand-Up Show returning to Comedy Central this year for a third season, but he and the network are taping the showcases this weekend in NYC. So if you’re in or near the city from March 10-12, 2012, you can ask for tickets to …
When I heard that Pete Holmes wanted to celebrate his 30th birthday by having his friends and fellow stand-up comedians roast him, my first thought was that he had lost his mind. And then I attended the roast last night at the UCB, and was quickly reminded that this is …
Someone asked me if going first in a contest meant certain elimination. That entirely depends upon a few factors, such as: How proficient your host is in warming up the audience and getting them to laugh, what time your show starts (the later, the better, it’d seem), and how quickly …
Big weekends don’t begin on Fridays, but rather on Thursdays, so that’s how I found myself on a bus to Washington, District of Columbia, last week to arrive just in time for the kickoff of last weekend’s DC Comedyfest. Someone joked that night that D.C. really was hosting the Chicago …
If you knew nothing about comedy and turned on NBC tonight, the first few minutes of Last Comic Standing would not help you discern whether Americans actually have a sense of humor. And the celebrity judges from The Office, Kate Flannery and Brian Baumgartner are not helping matters. First up …
The third season of Comedy Central’s Live at Gotham — the show that replaced Premium Blend as the showcase for up-and-coming stand-up comedians and put them in a more intimate comedy club setting at NYC’s Gotham Comedy Club — debuts tonight at 10 p.m. after a not-so coincidental rebroadcast of …
