The Definitive Guide to Comedy
Comedy doesn’t have a Human Resources department, so leave it to The Comic’s Comic to dole out honors and/or discipline accordingly. Our Employee of the Month for September 2022 is Kate Berlant. Congrats Kate! NOTE: This is a feature I introduced on my Substack, Piffany, in 2021, and have transferred over to …
August means comedy has taken over Edinburgh, Scotland. This year, more than 60 of the 3,972 shows playing nightly across the city will feature American comedians. They include college troupes from Cornell and Stanford, the always popular musical improv from Baby Wants Candy, the return of Brendon Burns and Colt …
OK. So I’ve only sat down to podcast with 28 of the comedians performing this week so far as part of the 2017 Just For Laughs festival in Montreal. But that’s a start! Each of these fine, funny folks regales me (and now you) with inspirational stories about how they …
Kate Berlant and John Early are unique characters in stand-up comedy, and yet you almost always see them together, whether it’s in each other’s half-hour specials for Netflix’s The Characters, in their joint project for Vimeo, 555, or on the bill together on shows from New York City to Los …
What would happen if you treated your first stand-up comedy performance on The Tonight Show as a double-act delivering an acceptance speech? We found out Friday night when Kate Berlant and John Early went meta, getting distracted by the moment and by each other to talk about the moment rather than …
Kate Berlant and John Early worked together on each other’s half-hour special episode of The Characters for Netflix, and often collaborate on- and offstage. Now they’ve released a new anthology of five short films — 555 — on Vimeo with director Andrew DeYoung that’s set in Hollywood, telling tales of …
Jason Zinoman is the comedy critic for The New York Times, and has written a new book about David Letterman which will come out April 2017 (pre-order Letterman: The Last Giant of Late Night now!). But first, Zinoman joined me once again to close the book on 2016. Who was the Most …
Funny or Die has assembled a star collection of stand-up comedians to barnstorm up and down California over the next month to encourage residents to register to vote in time for Election Day 2016. It’s called Jokes For Votes, and the tour, which kicked off Thursday night, includes a rotating lineup …
Kate Berlant’s 36-minute special for The Characters series on Netflix opens in a most remarkable way, as she barely appears onscreen in the first few minutes. Instead, one after another, real-life artists, actors and architects sing the praises of the performance artist “Denise St. Roy.” Casey Jane Ellison, Jemima Kirke, Tony …
It becomes painfully clear to everyone around John Early in his 35-minute special for The Characters series on Netflix that the comedian and actor has control issues, whether he’s constantly interrupting the woman he’s coaxing into telling her George W. Bush story, shushing everyone at his wedding rehearsal dinner, or …
