About a month ago, I made my way down to the Lynn Redgrave Theater on Bleecker Street to see Mike Birbiglia’s one man show, Thank God For Jokes. It was awesome. Birbiglia was fantastic as always and I got a glimpse of some other comedians like John Mulaney and a chunk of the cast of The League hanging out in the lobby of the small theater before and after the show. Continue reading “What I Learned From Seeing Mike Birbiglia’s ‘Thank God For Jokes’ Three Times”
Category: Articles
Things I Remember From Seeing The Book Of Mormon A Few Months Ago
I saw The Book of Mormon on Broadway a few months ago. If I tell people that, they’ll always be like, “Oh! What did you think?!” This is what I think.
- Definitely get someone else to buy tickets for you.
- There’s a lot of singing in musicals. Like, most of the time I’d say.
- The characters don’t all talk in South Park voices.
- Every mormon boy in the world is insanely fit except for Elder Cunningham.
- A lot of the performers have comedy-related backgrounds.
- The dudes who play mormon boys are like 57 years old, so theater is more about musical talent than accuracy.
- There are many jokes in it.
- Mormons wear weird pajamas.
- The “The Book of Mormon” props they use on stage are all filled with blank pages – it is a ruse. Here’s an idea: put the script in there. Whoa. You’re welcome, Broadway.
- There’s lots of AIDS in Uganda.
- Typically, there are two main acts in a Broadway musical.
- After Act I, I was like “This is the best thing I’ve ever seen in the entire world.”
- After Act II, I was like “That was pretty good.”
- It’s a satire of a musical that’s still totally a musical, i.e. it’s guilty of things it’s trying to satirize sometimes.
- I liked it.
Being Silly and Being Real: How Writing Comedy On The East And West Coasts Made Me Funnier
I’ve been thinking a lot about how my stand up has changed since I did comedy back in college on the West coast, and so I wrote this thing about one of my old jokes that I ended up adapting after coming to New York City. Before I say anything else, I want to point out that my experience in comedy is limited. I did relatively minimal comedy before coming to New York and I’ve been here for just over half a year. So, in terms of the East/West differences I’m writing about, they only come from my limited personal experiences, which I suppose could have been different for anyone.
Graphic Art, Not Cartoons: An Interview With Kaitlyn Kieronski
It was a rainy, freezy day this past week when I met up with Kaitlyn Kieronski, a fellow alum of the always lovely Avery Coonley School and a current senior at NYU. We rendezvoused at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in the West Village (a venue that offers much more than it’s name suggests) to warm up with a cup of coffee and chat about graphic art – one part of Kaitlyn’s very complicated, self-designed major.
We talked about Walt Disney, voice acting, Cartoon Network, Seinfeld, Pokemon, a brief history of Pixar, Japanese computer games, and a lot of other fun, fantastic, and amazing stuff.
Continue reading “Graphic Art, Not Cartoons: An Interview With Kaitlyn Kieronski”
Are Math Jokes Taboo?
A lot of people hate math. People hate math so much that our word for “complete and utter destruction” is “after–math.” That’s pretty bad. Like, what’s left after a bomb – we compare that…to multiplication tables.
That’s a joke I wrote that pretty much sums up how 50% of people feel about mathematics: it’s the absolute worst thing in the world. Physical torture cannot compare to the mundaneness of arithmetic nor the frustration of solving a system of equations. And yet, there are some crazy, weird people who actually like math.
What?! Who?! Well, I’m one of them! And so is San Francisco/Los Angeles based comedian Sammy Obeid. And if you’re a comedian who likes math, sometimes that can work against you.
The 10 Best “Best Of 2015” Comedy Lists Of 2015
Yeah, so, as implied by the title I have seen a ton of lists out there chronicling the “whatever-est” comedy “whatevers” of 2015.
Here are the best of the best of 2015 when it comes to lists of the best comedy things of 2015:
Continue reading “The 10 Best “Best Of 2015” Comedy Lists Of 2015″
Comedy Throwback: Who The Comedians Of Today Remind Me Of
Sometimes it’s fun to play stupid games like, “Who is the Richard Pryor of today?” So why not? But, before we get into this, I want to make it clear that I’m not trying to argue that any of these modern comedians are on par with the legends I am comparing them to. Nor am I saying they’ve necessarily been influenced by them, either. All I’m saying is that when I watch these comedians today, I can’t help but be reminded of some great old comedians. Maybe they’re just similar comedy souls born at different times.
Not quite sure what that means, but hey it sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? Sure it does. Anyways, I tried to pick some comedian pairings that would be interesting without being too much of a stretch. We’ll see if that’s true, I suppose.
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The Art Of Interviewing: Why It Finally Worked Out For Marc Maron
I’ve listened to enough WTF Podcast episodes to have finally realized, “You know, what? Marc Maron is actually pretty good at this.” A previous coolstuffs I wrote about a Marc Maron article inspired me to go more in depth into what makes him so good at what he does.
Continue reading “The Art Of Interviewing: Why It Finally Worked Out For Marc Maron”
15 Reasons Not To Date A Comedian
I saw this fun little list come up somewhere recently: 15 Reasons to Date a Comedian. And I read it. And it made me think, “eHarmony definitely does not have any comedians on staff.” So, I decided to dispute each of their 15 reasons to date a comedian, hopefully providing people with many more (more realistic) reasons why not to.
Why Don’t People Think Women Are Funny?
I was at a small comedy show recently where a panel of eight or so comedians discussed who they thought would be on the “Mount Rushmore of Comedy.” I listened as all the comics listed their top four comics of all time and only one woman, Maria Bamford, was listed. And she was picked by the host, who went last, who might have thought “Hey, maybe I should throw a woman in there.” (and I only say that because everyone vehemently disagreed with Bamford’s right to be on the Mountain) That’s 8×4=24+ “best comedians of all time” listed and only one female comic came up. Isn’t that weird?
stumelton.com 