All-female comedy festival BONERAMA starts tonight

This Thursday through Saturday, the Philly Improv Theater will present the first-ever all-female comedy festival in the city by the name of "Bonerama." It's the brainchild of Alexis Simpson, Artistic Director of PHIT (member of Illegal Refill and Rare Bird Show), Meg Favreau, Managing Director of PHIT (stand-up comic and one half of Meg & Rob) and Tabitha Vidaurri (of The Sixth Borough) and will feature some of the best female improv, sketch and stand-up comedians that Philadelphia has to offer. We recently took a moment to chat with Alexis about the fest.

Why a female comedy festival?
Tabitha and Meg were actually planning on doing an all-female comedian show. I know people like Karen[Getz] and Kelly [Jennings] of from Cecily and Gwendolyn have done it before and it's always a good thing. It really does celebrate the underdog in a boys' club and when they emailed me I said, “yeah that's a really good idea, why book just one show when we have a lot of really awesome female improvisers that can make a three-day weekend out of it?”

Do you see it as an opportunity for these performers to do something different?
I think that BWP and Cecily and Gwendolyn are two-women improv groups that probably won't do anything different and will just do their show which is great, but I think the most different thing will be what Amie Roe (of Illegal Refill) came up with, “Real Housewives of Philadelphia.” It's going to be a chance to see some improvisers do something really different. And the cabaret-style show, “The Bonerama Variety Hour”, which is what Meg and Tabitha originally planned, is a really good chance for people to experiment and maybe go outside of their comfort zone.

“The Real Housewives...” seems to be something ripe for parody...
It writes itself. I'm addicted to the show, I think it's amazing. I got hooked on the New York one. I just love watching these self-important, completely delusional women. They're rich, fine, great, and some of the women on that show actually made their own money and that's cool, but they're delusional and sick and there's so much drama that doesn't matter. Someone was asking me about it and I said “this is what happens when you don't have bigger problems to worry about.” You get mad about who said what about you at the Gucci party because you don't care about paying your electric bill. We're taking little bits and pieces from all of them. Liz Scott (half of BWP) is thinking of challenging herself to speak in only lines from the show. They're great characters, it's just fun to play awful people.

Do you think that these female performers have been limited in what they usually do on stage?
I don't think I've thought of it that way, but I guess that's the way it is. I do think when I watch a lot of comedy, and it goes back to why I feel good about this festival, is that I really feel that women are put into roles by men and allow themselves to be put into roles by men in which they are playing either the wife, the girlfriend or some slut. I've seen a lot of sketches written that way, I've seen a lot of improv sets go that way and I think “come on, do something else!” I do think that I've seen bits here and there that are different. Tabitha and Meg write really great roles for women. And there might be some other women involved that would like to do something more experimental in a show that is just for them.

You can see that limitation in movies too, I'd say...
Yeah, there's some hot girl that they want and usually she's hotter than the guys that's she's dating. I hear The Hangover was a great movie but the girl has the same ten lines like “Where's the groom? If you don't get the groom here I'll be a bitch!” And I see it too if they are not the hot girl that isn't very interesting, they're the crazy chick that's kind of funny.

How does Philly compare to other cities as far as female characters?
I think within the larger context, I think Philly has a really strong driving community and I feel like everytime I turn around I'm meeting more comedians. I feel like New York has some amazing female comedians. I will say, I went to L.A. and [female comedians] are there, but some of the women I saw were in the shadows. I played there and it seemed like they were surprised that a woman could be confident and in the forefront. I thought “Really, this is L.A.! This is a big town.” You see it exploding on the national scene though, so I don't think we're too far behind. I just don't how many other cities are women really in charge where they are running their own companies. And you see Tabitha running The Sixth Borough and Meg being half of a sketch duo that's very prolific and talented...I don't know how much that happens other places.

BONERAMA starts tonight and runs through Saturday. Visit PHIT's website for ticket information.

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BREAKING: Aziz Ansari to perform at the North Star Bar

Ok, so we know we are a little late on the draw with this one but no one else has mentioned it yet, so we will: Aziz Ansari of MTV's HUMAN GIANT will be in performing at the North Star Bar in January as part of his "Glow In The Dark Tour". Tickets are on-sale now.

Aziz has a part in Judd Apatow's new film about stand-up comedy Funny People and he's also got some kind of part in the mysterious The Office spinoff show.
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VIDEO: THE MINISTRY OF SECRET JOKES, 4/30

Ignoring the pleas of Doogie Horner of no recordings, we managed to covertly film the first Ministry of Secret Jokes show April 30th at Fergie's Pub in Center City. The night was full of funny stand-up comics, an Omniana battle between Pat Barker and Kent Haines, and more.

Next week we'll have some video of the battle and some more jokes, none of which are secret.
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RECAP: Todd Barry & Louis CK, 4/26

It was a rare night in the suburban Philadelphia town of Glenside. It's not every day that they get to see two of the country's best touring stand-up comics, Todd Barry and Louis CK.

The Keswick Theatre is a 1300-seat theater that without a balcony looks sort of like an auditorium. Alcohol was served in the lobby beforehand and the lines were long and lively.

After the opener, Todd Barry took the stage. As someone that records his albums in comedy clubs- his new one, From Heaven took place above a Chinese restaurant in Cambridge, Mass.- it was interesting to see him perform in a theater setting. And although the crowd was there for Louis C.K., Barry did well with his jokes about New York, Mick Jagger’s email address and performing in Alabama, amongst many others.

He seemed to enjoy combating with hecklers. Perhaps calling them “hecklers” isn't fair, they were more like guys in the audience yelling out stuff. As he went into a joke about giving food to the homeless, someone in the crowd yelled out “fuck that!” Barry gleefully made fun of the guy, which shut him up for a while. At some points there were multiple people yelling out, probably due to the alcohol served in the lobby before the show, but Barry coolly took care of them.

Last was, of course, the headliner Louis CK. Louis had been announcing the other acts from behind the curtain, so when it came time for him to perform he just walked out cold to loud applause. He had shaved off his beard for his work on Ricky Gervais' 'This Side of Truth'and right as he took the mic, the "fuck that!" guy yelled out asking why he cut it off. Because your mother asked me to, Louis replied, for when I am eating her out. Ok, good, he got that out of the way. There was more yelling out from the crowd later, but Louis easily shot down anything that came up. Witty remarks from the crowd included "you're lucky!" (yes, that was the name of his show, sir) and questions about why HBO cancelled the show (these people must not have known that that he's working on a new show for CBS). Someone yelled out "Billy Burr" at one point and Louis laughed. "You guys have such an institutional memory," he said. "Ben Franklin bombed here in 1762!"

Louis filmed a new HBO special, "Chewed Up", last month and its safe to assume that he performed some of that material Saturday night. His act mostly concerns his family but it is not "family-friendly". Instead, he's talks with piercing honesty about his relationship with his wife after two childbirths and the stress and struggle that come with those offspring. The anger and occasional resentment for his children that brews up has hit a nerve with audiences first with his HBO show "Lucky Louie" and then in his last stand-up special "Shameless" and there's more of that here. The difference now is that the extraneous topics have been cut out- nothing similar to his duck vaginas, Awesome Possum t-shirts or waiting in line material from the past. Instead he talks about mostly himself: how's he's getting fatter, how he doesn't really care about young women anymore as he gets older and his take on The N Word. The later is a far different viewpoint than fellow stand-up Chris Rock in his new act, who will also have a HBO stand-up special airing in the near future.

It all falls under the umbrella of a middle-aged guy that is really aware of where he is in his life, which seems to resonate with his audience. And while the way that he speaks of his daughters (aged 2 and 6) may be shocking to some, it rang true for that mostly middle-aged crowd at the Keswick Theater, when they weren't yelling anything out, that is.
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VIDEO: Comedy at an Art Show

What happens when four comics try to do comedy at an art show? Last month Doogie Horner, Andy Nolan, Chip Chantry and Steve Gerben performed at "Yummy", an art show about food during First Friday at the Nexus Gallery in Philadelphia.

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LIVE REVIEW: Chris Rock

Apparently, it’s time for Chris Rock to conquer stand-up comedy again. It’s been four years since his last HBO special “Never Scared” and for about the last year he’s been working on new material for another tour (dubbed “No Apologies”) and another run on HBO. Last week he was at the classy Academy of Music in Philadelphia for three shows.

Comic Mario Joyner started out the evening with a serviceable 20 minutes before pointing out the two turntables behind him and introducing…DJ Jazzy Jeff! Jazzy’s set with MC Skillz got the crowd amped up until Joyner returned to report, “ok, we’re going to take a 20 minute intermission now.”

The end of Jazzy’s set seemed like the perfect time to bring out Rock, but I’m going to assume he knows what he’s doing. And when he came out after a looooong twenty minutes break with his green “CR” logo on the screen, the crowd was again excited and on their feet. After all, it was Chris Rock.

Undoubtedly the audience was familiar with his stage persona: the pacing back and forth with the microphone in one hand and his other hand guiding the cord. And the sermon-like delivery that gets louder and faster as he gets his point across. But he’s not one to ride on reputation. As he told The New York Times recently, “Maybe for about three minutes after I walk onstage, they’re into my résumé. But after that it’s like, ‘What’s he got?’…”

So he makes sure he has good stuff and comes out right with it. He started out by talking about the upcoming election and quickly went through the candidates: John McCain (“Wasn’t McCain too old 10 years ago? I don’t want a president with a bucket list”), Hillary Clinton (“America is ready for a female president. But does it have to be that woman?), Barack Obama (“He’s cool, he doesn’t play up the black thing. Sometimes it doesn’t seem like he realizes that he’s the black candidate. He thinks he can win this thing fair and square”).

From there he went on to big ideas, broad themes and new rules that were relevant and unforced. Like the idea that there’s a difference between a job and a career, and the people with careers need to shut up about it to the people with jobs. Or on the only time that it’s ok for white people to say The N Word, which is destined to be a classic bit. There are plenty of comics that talk about race and gender relations and Rock is the best of them, but it’s his material on class that was most interesting. Like the rule that “the people with the most shit, get to say the least shit. And the people with the least shit get to say the most shit.” He also had some material about Walmart that was a change of pace for him.

While Rock can talk about broad themes, it’s the details that matter and make him funny. He’s got his delivery and timing perfected and not a word is wasted. His material can be silly when you least expect. And even when he talks about tired topics like steroids, Don Imus and prescription drugs, often he’s got a better take than any other comedian out there. He can do it all and he doesn’t overdo any of it.

He did an hour and a half, which will probably be around the length of next HBO special, and by the end the crowd was tired and satisfied. And even though he doesn’t quite manically prowl the stage in front of a 2900-seat theatre as he would for the Madison Square Garden, he puts on a great show. And he can still be powerful even if he doesn’t throw down the mic at the end like he used to.

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BILL COSBY: Wives, Adam & Eve and Turkey Bacon

There’s a scene in 2002’s documentary Comedian, about Jerry Seinfeld’s re-entrance into the world of stand-up comedy, where he’s sitting in a New York comedy club with Chris Rock. “I saw Bill Cosby three weeks ago,” Rock says.

“Really?”

“The best comedy show I ever saw in my life.”

Seinfeld’s mouth gapes, his eyes bug and he sincerely looks shocked.

“I took like 15 people,” Rock continues. “We had all seen him before. We only knew one bit. He did two and a half hours.”

They both laugh in disbelief.

“The best shit, Jerry,” Rock continues, ”I felt like a fucking fraud. What is this? What, I’m good? Who says I’m good? Who says any of us are good? Sixty-three and embracing it.”

“Did he have an opening act?”

“No.”

“So he took an intermission after…”

“No, he didn’t take an intermission.”

Again, Seinfeld looks shocked. “Two and a half hours straight?”

“Pow, pow, two and a half hours of killer shit,” Rock says. “Killer and it’s so much edgier now and mean. Oh, you’ve got to see it.”


Cosby’s seventy years old now and its been forty-five years since his debut comedy album. And even though he may be known to some for wearing his trademark sweaters on The Cosby Show, the pudding pops or, more recently, for his critical remarks towards African American families, he is, perhaps, a stand-up comedian before anything else.

And he’s still performing live. This past Sunday the 24th, he was at the State Theatre in New Brunswick, New Jersey and he did two shows, three and seven.

In a way, he’s a monologist more than anything else. His act isn’t like most other stand-up acts in the traditional sense of setup-joke because it’s all so flowing and seamless. And, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone as relaxed and confident on stage. He wore a sweatshirt that said “HELLO FRIEND” in various colors and spent most of the show leaning back in a chair with his legs slightly spread - not exactly someone that is worried about what the audience thinks. Surprisingly, there were people in the front that talked to him between jokes, but it didn’t seem to bother him. Rather, he took the opportunity to engage and gently make fun of them. Like “I’m Bill Cosby, go ahead and try to be funny.” The interruption didn’t throw him off at all.


After one bit there was silence, and audience members yelled out topics for him to cover. “Teenagers!” one woman yelled.

“Do you think, if I wanted to go there…”

Instead, he talked about Adam and Eve, wives, turkey bacon, dentists and getting old. That last topic got me thinking about what Chris Rock said about embracing it. Cosby talked about how his wife was going to live to 188 “and still be looking good. Not me, I know I’m going to die. Because I get that feeling, when I walk, I feel people turning the lights out.” Even something so honest and piercing as this got a huge laugh, because at this point the audience was eating out of his hand.

It was the Cosby style. Totally clean and making fun of people (mostly his wife), yet not ever too mean-spirited. Like Richard Pryor, often it's him that's the idiot. Subtle phrases and turns of the story that relied on timing, pacing and the volume of his voice. And there’s no one else that is quite as good of a storyteller.

And yes, he really did five minutes on turkey bacon.

Later in Comedian, Seinfeld goes to see Cosby perform in Newark, New Jersey. Seinfeld is again incredulous that Cosby does two long theater shows in one night.

“Sure, sure, I love it,” Cosby replies. “I just love it.”
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The Onion columnist Jean Teasdale tries stand-up

Comedy Tonight!

I'm still not sure what possessed me to walk into Laughingstock's Comedy Club and sign up for their open-mic night. But I guess sometimes the less...

A sentiment that all of us that have done stand-up at an open mic can relate to, especially if you went up with a red clown nose on.
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VIDEO: Kent Haines at Die, Actor, Die

Live stand-up comedy from Kent Haines at last Monday's installment of Die, Actor, Die at The Khyber.

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ADVICE: Lessons from Improv 201 at UCB

NYC comic Matt Ruby of the excellent blog Sandpaper Suit offers some notes from his Level 2 UCB improv class, some which apply to stand-up. The ones that especially make sense to us:

Whatever scares you, do it.

Specificity is our friend. Add it.

Honesty is our safety net. We can never go wrong if we speak how we honestly feel at the time.

Whatever you feel uncomfortable doing is exactly what you should try doing.

Go from A to C. Leaving the B out is often the interesting part because it lets the audience's brains make the connection.

First laugh line is often the audience telling you where the game of the scene is.

Be ahead of the audience. If you just thought of it, go for it. If they already know where you're going, you've lost.

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Our Top 5 Stand-Up Albums of 2007

We figured two weeks into the new year would be the perfect time to post our list of our five favorite stand-up albums of the year.

In case you didn't know, comedy is in a really great place right now. Websites like Superdeluxe and Funny Or Die are putting out quality videos, blogs like The Apiary are covering the underground scene for people that aren't lucky enough to live in the hot spots and A Special Thing started a great record label. And maybe more importantly, there isn't so much stand-up on television that it is becoming watered down.

This list could've been longer, but after five it became too arbitrary. So honorable mentions include: Steven Wright's I Still Have A Pony, Michael Ian Black's I Am A Wonderful Man, Jen Kirkman's Self Help, Jonah Ray's This Crazy Mixed Up Plumbing (technically an EP) and Flight of the Conchord's The Distant Future (also just an EP).

5. Mike Birbiglia - My Secret Public Journal Live (Comedy Central)

There aren't many good storytelling comedians around, but Mike Birbiglia is one of them. While his first two albums consisted of short, quick jokes, My Secret Public Journal Live is made up of longer first-person stories he started telling on the Bob & Tom radio show. Birbiglia can connect with his audience so well that by the time he says "before I tell you this part of the story, to remind you, that you're on my side", its kind of redundant.

4. Comedy Death Ray (Comedy Central)

It's a little unfair to put L.A.'s answer to Invite Them Up on here because it's a double-disc, but if you were to condense the best tracks down to one CD it would make the cut. My favorite tracks include: PFT (great stuff that wasn't on his album!), Todd Glass, Hard N Phirm, Neil Hamburger, Jimmy Pardo (razor scooter!), Nick Thune, Reno 911 and Andy Daly. The Andy Daly character is so hilarious that it's worth the price of this alone. It should be illegal to just post it on the internet because that would be spoiling the surprise.

3. Patton Oswalt - Werewolves & Lollipops (Sub Pop)

Because he talks about things that no one else does. Who else has material about the 20 birthdays you are allowed to celebrate, crazy chefs of four-star restaurants, or physics for poets and make it hilarious? Plus, "Wackity Schmackity Doo!" is one of the funniest things I've heard this year and the "Gatekeepers of Coolness" really struck a chord with me as there was a guy where I grew up that had the same effect on me. His name was Dr. Rock.

2. Michael Showalter - Sandwiches & Cats (Jdub)

The first time I listened to this album I didn't really get it. Perhaps I'm just not smart enough. I thought it was pretty good, but nothing really jumped out at me. But luckily I listened to it again and it hit me like a ton of bricks in my big, dumb head. Although not all stand-up, songs with his band The Dollies and studio bits are included, there's enough for it to make the list. There are subtle things here that most other albums lack, like the quiet delivery of "jumpy legs" on "Requip". A lesser comic would really play up that line in an attempt to get a big laugh, but for Showalter that's just the beginning.

1. Paul F. Tompkins - Impersonal (AST)

Because everything on here is funny. Lines like "here's how rich I am" and "I'll tell you this for free" get me every time. And because his peanut brittle bit is so incredibly obvious yet hilarious no matter how many times you hear it. And this is all material he doesn't do anymore!




And although we won't make lists for these, The Ten was the funniest movie of the year and Louis CK's Shameless was by far the best stand-up special of the year.
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A Small Piece of Steve Martin, Pt. I

A Small Piece of Steve Martin is a new reoccurring piece in which we analyze a passage from his book Born Standing Up.

Page 181:

"...and the laughs, rather than being the result of spontaneous combustion, now seemed to roll in like waves created far out at sea."

Often the reaction of a large theater audience doesn't sound like laughter but just a rush of energy. In a live recording you may only be able to pick out a few individual laughs, maybe because a guy was sitting close to a microphone. How powerful it must be to have the ability to create the same instantaneous response from thousands of people just from talking. And to have the ability to experience that moment of silence between saying that last word and the noise crashing towards you. And how depressing and draining it may become to have to do so every night.
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DAVE ATTELL is CAPTAIN MISERABLE!

Dave Attell is back with a new hour of stand-up tonight on HBO at 10PM. It was filmed at the Lincoln Theatre Theatre in Washington D.C., so it will be interesting to see if his material changes when he's in a proper theatre. Probably not though.

He talks about vibrators...

Hybrid cars...



Juices and:

- Why you shouldn't drink too much Jägermeister
- His visit to the Middle East
- The "accidental" death of "the Crocodile Hunter"
- Global warming
- whether it's ok to start telling tsunami jokes
- "Fat dreams" about new soups
- dinosaurs and pot smoking (there's a connection)
- And more

SIDE NOTE: Suddenly, there's a reason for everyone to wish they had HBO again. Once Flight of the Conchords ended, there was a lull, but now with Captain Miserable, Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project, the Extras special (12/16) and next January a new season of The Wire (!), it's time to get on your HBO friend's good side again!
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Die, Actor, Die: Pat Barker

We end our Die, Actor, Die! week with the headliner of the evening, stand-up Pat Barker. It was difficult for me to decide what to include from Pat's set as it had a lot of solid stuff, so I made my mind up on his first 5+ minutes.

Thanks again to local comic Kent Haines for helping film this.

This week of video is something of an experiment here, so please email us at comicvsaudience at gmail dot com with your thoughts if you'd like.
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Die, Actor, Die!: Doogie Horner

I told ya there'd be funny stuff! Let's start off with the stand-up comedy of Doogie Horner.

Special thanks to local comic Kent Haines for helping film this.

Coming up tomorrow- sketch comedy from Meg & Rob.
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Friday Night: Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black at The TLA

Friday night Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black will be performing at the The Filmore TLA (yep, I knew it as The TLA before they changed the name. I used to go to shows there all the time. TLA stands for the "Theatre of Living Arts" for all of you young kids coming up nowadays. Oh, this new generation!) and I was going to write a long post about their new albums but it was boring. So I'll just say this instead.

On Showalter's Sandwiches and Cats, a woman sits in the front of one of his sets with a cat that meows throughout the show. Well, my cats Rocky (front of picture) and Sonny will be at the show Friday night and they're even worse. Double worse, in fact.

And they don't yell "Freebird!" or "You suck!", they are intelligent hecklers. So watch out. Now if only I can get Sonny to stop scratching door frames.

P.S. I think you are very funny.
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Philadelphia Comedy: the recent past and near future

Here's a quick round-up of what has been going on lately in Philadelphia comedy. It'll be quick because it's Sunday and I have ten hours of football to watch. Yes, watching guys run with a ball and hit each other is very important to me.



- On Tuesday Mike Birbiglia performed at Helium as a warm up to his taping of new Comedy Central hour the next day in New York City. Being that Helium isn't quite a 850-seat theatre, his set was a lot more subdued than he'd have to be the next day. I'd never seen him live in such an intimate setting before, so it was interesting to see him pace the stage and work the audience. It was all low-key for the most part as he told the stories from his latest album My Secret Public Journal Live (although he had a few new bits as well). While a lot of comedy comes from anger and pain, Birbigs is usually the butt of his jokes ("I was always the kid that things happened to"). Sure, there is some pain there- like a bad jump into a pond in which his friends' laughter was so loud that he could hear it even underwater and how this made him contemplate if they were really his friends- but it's never too depressing and heavy. And because of these self-depreciating stories he can connect with the audience to the point where his "before I tell you this part of the story, to remind you, that you're on my side" line is kind of redundant.

- Last Sunday was the first installment of a new local comedy show, Unwashed Comics at the Walking Fish Theatre in Fishtown. Ten standup comics went up on stage to do about ten minutes of material. It made for a long show (the need for intermission was the first cue), but was overall a success. Every comic had something different to bring so it never got boring and the crowd was ready to laugh. The next one is set for Sunday December 9th and promises to include more than just straight stand-up (maybe some sketch?).

- And tomorrow, Monday, its time again for Die, Actor, Die!. Hosted by Don Montrey, it'll go down at The Khyber in Olde City and will contain a night of stand-up, sketch and magic hilarity featuring:

Pat Barker
Fred Siegel
Kate Bambi
Doogie Horner
Meg and Rob

Later in the week Todd Glass comes back home, but unfortunately I'll missing that because of some family thing. Bah!
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Michael Showalter's Album is Out Today

Michael Showalter's album, Sandwiches & Cats is out today! Do you know what I love about iTunes? It saves me the trip to my local record store to find out that they don't have the CD that I want.

And now I can listen to it on my walk to work! Oh, work. You just aren't funny enough.
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Patton Oswalt vs. Philly Boy Roy

Via Die, Actor, Die!, via Jesse Thorn of The Sound of Young America, via Henry of Chunklet Magazine (!):



Here's visual evidence of Patton Oswalt and Philly Boy Roy together on stage at the recent Comedians of Comedy show at the TLA. The squirrel joke is great, but some of the crowd turns on him with the Allen Iverson joke. How dare he make fun of a guy that used to play basketball for our basketball team!

Also from the Chunklet blog: an archive of Mitch Hedberg sets from 2001-2004! This is like a football nut having access to coaches' footage of all of the games. I haven't listened to these yet, but it will be interesting to go through them to see how his one-liners evolve. Analysis forthcoming...
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Unwashed Comics This Sunday Night

This Sunday, a new comedy night in Philadelphia premieres at the Walking Fish Theatre (2509 Frankford Ave.), nestled in the heart of Fishtown. Unwashed Comics is hosted by former New Yorker Jose Vega and features local comics:

Doogie Horner
Joe Dougherty
Aaron Hertzog
Bob McCormick
Kent Haines
Chip Chantry
and more

More on this next week as this "reporter" will be there.
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