Montreal-based comedy festival Just For Laughs announced the lineup for its 2013 gathering yesterday, which will mark the event's 30th anniversary. Sarah Silverman, Seth Meyers, Joan Rivers, Eddie Izzard, Taran Killam & Bobby Moynihan, Nick Kroll, Amy Schumer, Colin Quinn, Colin Mochrie & Brad Sherwood, Kristen Schaal, Bo Burnham, Hannibal Buress, Danny Bhoy, Marc Maron, Pete Holmes, Tig Notaro, Maria Bamford, Judah Friedlander, Scott Adsit & John Lutz, and Brian Posehn will be taking the tage from July 18th to the 27th, alongside tons of more comedians. In addition to those comeidans, Just For Laughs will be premiering CollegeHumor's first movie Coffee Town, starring Glenn Howerton, Steve Little, and [...]
Comedian Mike Birbiglia announced on his website today that he's playing the prestigious concert venue Carnegie Hall this summer. Here's a bit from Birbiglia's announcement:
"The one in New York that’s so famous and you’re still Mike Birbiglia, right?"
"Yes."
"Are you sure there’s not another tiny Carnegie Hall?"
"I’m sure."
Referring to it as the "biggest announcement I've ever made," Birbiglia explains that his June 2nd Carnegie Hall gig will be the final performance of his one-man show My Girlfriend's Boyfriend, which he's currently adapting into a movie. Tickets are on sale now. Ira Glass and the Monica Bill Barnes Dance Company will be the opening act, so [...]
Influential NYC stand-up show Big Terrific is celebrating its fifth anniversary tomorrow with a big ol' show featuring Pete Holmes, Nick Turner, the return of co-host Gabe Liedman, and surprise guests (co-host Jenny Slate will make an appearance via video because she's busy filming a pilot with Kristen Schaal and June Diane Raphael). Time Out New York has a fun interview with Slate, Liedman, and their fellow co-host Max Silvestri that you should totally read if you can't make it to the show like Jenny Slate (probably with a much worse excuse).
There's been a debate raging across the internet this weekend about the UCBeast Theatre in New York's practice of not paying stand-ups who perform there. The whole thing started last month when comedian Kurt Metzger, in his words, "trashed UCBeast" on Facebook for not paying comedians for a sold-out $10 dollar-a-head stand-up show called "If You Build It." Here's some of Metzger's Facebook musings:
"So last week I trashed UCBeast for packing a 120 seat theater at 10 bucks a head for a standup show in NY on a Saturday night, and then not having the decency God gave Jerry Sandusky to peel the performers off a twenty. I'll [...]
2012 was the end of an era for the Los Angeles comedy scene, as Comedy Bang Bang, the influential weekly stand-up showcase co-created by Scott Aukerman, ended its ten year run earlier this month. Comedy Bang Bang (originally titled Comedy Death-Ray) will live in on in the form of the popular podcast and IFC show of the same name, but the live show's impact upon the L.A. comedy scene (and the comedy world at large) is endless. Comedy Bang Bang first started in 2002 when the term "alternative comedy" actually meant something, years before Zach Galifianakis was a major movie star or Louis C.K. was the country's leading [...]
