The Definitive Guide to Comedy
Where can the Upright Citizens Brigade go after playing Carnegie Hall? Hollywood, apparently. The UCB4, as co-founders Amy Poehler, Matt Besser, Matt Walsh and Ian Roberts are lovingly called by their students and improv comedy fans around the world, started performing ASSSSCAT in New York City in bars, former strip …
You realize how 2016 is the year for women to exert their political influence. You do realize that, right? And yet, no matter what Queen Beyonce tells us about who runs the world, in America, some very weird laws and customs still go back to men plural (and as a …
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 …
Welcome to Upfronts Week, when each of the broadcast networks march into New York City to meet with advertisers and present their new fall lineups for primetime and hope that advertisers keep buying 30-second spots for the TV, on the TV. So, without further ado, here are the synopses and …
You can look back on a calendar year from many different perspectives and points of entry. Your memories flash in front of you. And then a website comes and calculates how other people viewed your year for you. Or one slice of your view. Such is 2015bestnine.com, which takes an …
Sometimes it takes 15 years to rediscover the origins of something you loved. Over the weekend, we all finally enjoyed the opportunity to turn back the hands of time and jump into the YouTube machine to 1999, when fresh-faced young sketch/improv comedians Rachel Dratch and Tina Fey were about to …
Rachel Dratch recalls watching the first season of Saturday Night Live as a nine-year-old growing up in Massachusetts. “I was sleeping over at a friend’s house. She had an older brother who was watching it. I was immediately clicked into this, ‘What is this?!’ I was just fascinated by it. …
Imagine, if you will, an alternate parallel universe. Watch a few episodes of Fringe or Sliders first, if need be. OK. Are you ready now? Imagine that in this other world, Rachel Dratch is the lead actress in The Girlie Show, the show within the show of NBC’s 30 Rock; …
It’s December 2011, and just like Jimmy Fallon and Saturday Night Live had predicted many years ago, Fallon is back as the host. Fallon has returned a couple of times previously in cameos to join Justin Timberlake in the Barry Gibb Talk Show sketches, but this is different. For one …
Rachel Dratch stars and co-wrote Spring Breakdown, a comedy that has Dratch, Amy Poehler and Parker Posey getting mixed up with the shenanigans of spring break. It's been sitting on the shelf for a while, with little prospects for distribution, so Dratch got her film into Sundance, which ensured not …
