Results tagged “comedy>”

              

In between her mix of song, snark and scatological jokes, Sarah Silverman did a bit at the 9:30 Club on Sunday night where she let audience members ask her for advice, entertaining questions on everything from getting out of credit card debt to making it as a stand-up comic. If we learned one thing from this weekend's impressive Bentzen Ball comedy festival, presented by Brightest Young Things and curated by fantastic stand-up Tig Notaro, it's that no member of the audience is safe from today's top comics. Notaro had an obliging 9:30 Club staffer hold up her mic stand for a good ten minutes. Sarah Silverman Program writer Chelsea Peretti handed out canned dialogue to three audience members and had them perform a skit with her. Three or four different comedians at one Studio Theatre show earlier in the weekend gave a drunken (and later, shoeless) heckler a hell of a time. And of course, no photographer was safe from ridicule.

Over 60 comics are about to descend on D.C. for the Bentzen Ball, a four day collection of comedy performances at venues ranging from the 9:30 Club and the Black Cat to the Studio and Lincoln Theatres, and even Ben's Chili Bowl. Presented by our friends over at Brightest Young Things, and curated by comic Tig Notaro, it surely must be the biggest comedy festival to ever hit the nation's capital.

Mike Birbiglia remembers when the room was a lot smaller. He's headlining Saturday night at the Warner Theatre, where he'll tell some stories he’s considering for inclusion in his next one-man show. But he cut his teeth at the DC Improv in the late 90s, while a student at Georgetown University. By the time he was 25, he'd done the The Late Show with David Letterman , released his first album, and had his own Comedy Central special.

By DCist Contributor Matthew Siblo

While we wait for the results of this full week of D.C. Council budget negotiations, a process that's at least partly colored by the most recent Marion Barry scandals, we thought it might be good for all of us to take a step back from complaining about our city's ineffectual political system ... and laugh about someone else's. DCist tech guru Tom Lee recently circulated these videos, compiled from the open public comment periods at sessions of the Santa Cruz City Council and the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors in Santa Cruz, Calif., and we just can't stop watching them. Every community has its crosses to bear in the form of weirdos and busybodies who like to shove their way into local politics, but Santa Cruz appears to have more than its fair share. We hasten to add that the first 25 seconds or so of the audio portion of this video is NSFW.

We've officially clocked 37 different reader requests to post this admittedly kinda funny rap spoof that's apparently been making the rounds on the interwebs. So by popular demand, DCist presents: "Arlington: The Rap" by YouTube user GoRemy.

If you haven't been watching The Tonight Show since Conan O'Brien took over the show last week, you might have missed a segment that aired Monday night featuring local WUSA-9 TV news reporter Armando Trull. The sketch, which Conan dubbed "Trull Busters," features a clip of Trull reporting on a story outside a Metro station (looks like it could be Silver Spring, but it's hard to make out), only to have a portly gentlemen take a rather exaggerated pratfall directly behind him. You can view the video here; the sketch gets going around the 11:30 minute mark.

Comedienne Wanda Sykes returned to Washington this weekend to deliver the ever-fraught White House Correspondents Dinner host's comedy routine. Sykes grew up in the D.C. area, and famously worked as a procurement officer for the National Security Agency before launching her stand-up career.

Not technically D.C.-related, but given that this may actually be the best local TV news story we've ever seen, there was just no way we could pass on it. WLWT in Cincinnati reports on the "growing trend" of "real-life superheroes" in this piece of pure comedy gold. Make sure not to miss the interaction between Cincinnati's top superhero, "Shadow Hare," and a Cincinnati cop about halfway through. Absolutely brilliant.

Patton Oswalt’s career as a writer and actor has been on an ascending curve over the last couple of years, most notably since he provided the voice (and inspired much of the character) of Remy, the rat who dreams of becoming a gourmet chef, in Brad Bird’s terrific 2007 PIXAR film, Ratatouille. He plays his first on-camera leading role in Big Fan, written and directed by Robert D. Siegel — the former editor of The Onion, and the writer of last year’s critically adored The Wrestler — which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last month.

By DCist contributor Dave Weigel

       

Former GOP presidential candidate and governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee surprised practically all of the country a few months back when he ably and deftly spoofed himself on an episode of Saturday Night Live, proving that he was not only a good sport about his candidacy and didn’t take himself too seriously, but that there were some discernible comedic chops there. Last night at the DC Improv, Huckabee proved his SNL appearance was no fluke, winning this year’s DC’s Funniest Celebrity competition, now in its 15th year and benefiting VSA arts, a non-profit dedicated to providing people with disabilities greater access to the arts.

Oh dear. It's time once again for the awkward, occasionally humiliating ritual that is the annual Funniest Celebrity in Washington Contest. The very notion that Washington has "celebrities" who are in any measurable way "funny" is hard enough to swallow, but this year's line-up looks to be stacked with even more potential for cringe-worthy one-liners than usual.

What we love about this one is imagining the police department meeting that led to this sting. Surely it went something like this:

The good news: You still have almost an hour to catch the D.C. Council Chairman bagging groceries at the Safeway in Southeast. The bad news: you won't be able to get the image of him performing prostate exams out of your mind all weekend.

Most of us have made, or will make, a major career change at some point, but it must have been a shock to those close to her when, in 1997, Vijai Nathan decided to abandon her career in journalism for the dog-eat-dog world of stand-up comedy. Since then, she has appeared on ABC News’ 20/20, PBS, The Oxygen Network, the BBC, and in 2003 was named one of the country's top ten comics by Backstage Magazine. For the past several years, she also followed another path by developing solo theater pieces.

For the last seven years, a renegade group of anti-pants New Yorkers have held an annual No Pants Subway Ride event, which last year attracted over 200 participants. In 2006, it even garnered several arrests. And now a Facebook group has popped up promoting a copycat event here on D.C.'s Metro this Saturday, Jan. 12.

Sure, you picked up a book or two last year. You tore through God Is Not Great, nodding in agreement along the way. You read Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows on the Metro, brandishing the cover proudly and caring little that anyone saw you. You read a lot of graphic novels. And, then, just for grins and giggles, you picked up The Divine Comedy in the original Italian.

Aimee Mann never seemed like one of pop's 500 likeliest candidates to release a Christmas album, but last year’s One More Drifter in the Snow was a tasteful, minor-key treat, and her “1st Annual Christmas Show” at the Birchmere last December was one of the best concerts of 2006. As she promised she would at the end of last year’s freewheeling interfaith revue, she's hitched up the sleigh again this year for a monthlong yule-tour that landed for the first of two shows at the Birchmere last night. As before, the show mingled seasonal fare with secular material from Mann’s deep songbook, music with comedy, and Christmas with Hanukkah. Kind of.

French pianist Alain Planès has made good (and sometimes great) recordings of everything he played on his Sunday recital (see my recent review of the conclusion of his complete Debussy set). The event was sponsored by the Foundation for Advanced Education in the Sciences, as the third concert of what is, regrettably, its last season of concerts presented off the campus of the National Institutes of Health. In an unforgettable juxtaposition, the early start time...

Over in academia, it's finals time, but the receSs improv team over at George Washington University isn't compromising their weekend, which will mark the group's final show of 2007, over it. On their unofficial blog, The Colonialist, they're offering up reasons why their peers shouldn't either. In the past, receSs alums have gone on to pursue real-life comic gigs, including TJ Miller (now on the ABC show "Carpoolers"), Herschel Bleefeld (who landed a role in...

The Onion's regular American Voices segment takes on the D.C. HIV/AIDS epidemic today, proving once again that there is no holy mad cow disease too sacred for America's Finest News Source.

After a long wait, CityDance Ensemble Rehearsal Director Christopher K. Morgan finally gets to see his face on the silver screen. In December of 2003, Morgan was cast as a dancer in John Turturro’s film Romance & Cigarettes. After filming in 2004, the movie faced some setbacks and became what the Associated Press referred to as “the luckless orphan of corporate shuffling.” More than two years after its original release date, Romance & Cigarettes...

FRIDAY: >> Local comic book store Fantom Comics is celebrating the grand opening of their new Union Station store tonight with a party from 6 to 10:30 p.m. They'll be serving up free pizza on the early side and the comedy stylings of the Geek Comedy Tour during the second half of the night. There will also be a trivia contest with $500 gift certificates up for grabs. The party is inside the Union...

It's hard to believe that a musical could get you hooked on phonics. But spelling suddenly becomes irresistible in "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee," the touring production of the Broadway hit, now playing at the National Theater. The pleasing, goofy show takes an amalgam of precocious, oddball kids and makes you root for them all. There are archetypes for sure -- the obsessive Asian kid, the nasal, self-important geek -- but each one...

>> The 1900s are playing the Rock and Roll Hotel, not to be confused with the 1990s. Three Stars alum Shortstack will join them on the bill, along with The Dead Trees and Kitty Hawk. $10, 8:30 p.m. >> Tonight at Blues Alley one of the area's finest jazz drummers, Nasar Abadey, takes the stage with SuperNova, featuring Allyn Johnson on piano, Gary Thomas, Jazz Studies Chair at Peabody, altoist Joe Ford, and bassist...

As it gets closer to Halloween for LAist, a contributer recollects her tale of staring down the serial killer, Richard Ramirez, otherwise known as the Night Stalker. Must think happy thoughts -- okay, free organic chocolate chip cookies for Los Angeles -- now that's a happy thought. Other happy Los Angeles thoughts include an interview with Jack Kehler of The Big Lebowski (he was the Dude's landlord), a beautiful and magical photographic moment in Venice...

Craig Wedren has one of the most distinctive voices in rock. How it is that he managed to avoid becoming a household name is a bit of a mystery. Pony Express Record, his 1994 major label debut with Shudder to Think, the band that he got his start with in D.C. in the mid-80s, should have been a huge breakthrough. It was an adventurous record of inventive, art-damaged post-punk, all shifting time signatures and angular...

Having failed to make their intended satire clear to the George Washington University campus, seven students felt the need to come forward late last night to take responsibility for those "anti-Muslim" posters we told you about yesterday. The Hatchet published parts of the letter after receiving it last night. Among the seven students who admitted their involvement was ubiquitous IVAW poster boy and current GWU graduate student Adam Kokesh. "It is to our great dismay...

>> DC9's hosting a Dubstep party featuring DJs Beatcarnival and Gavin Holland. Get your bass-heavy electro-dance Thursday groove thing on for $8. >> Novelist Porochista Khakpour to discuss her debut, Sons and Other Flammable Objects, at The Modernist Society's event at Bourbon in Adams Morgan. Free drinks from 8 to 9 p.m., then questions from the audience until 10 p.m. >> Tickets are still available to the opening night of the DC Asian Pacific American...