ComedyBeat’s Peter Haas named to Cabaret judging panel

ComedyBeat’s Peter Haas named to cabaret judging panel

December 20, 2010

Peter Haas, who runs Comedy Beat’s Cabaret Corner, has been named to the panel of judges for the Ninth Annual Nightlife Awards. The Nightlife Awards honor the best of New York’s cabaret, comedy and jazz; winners are decided upon by more than two-dozen critics and experts on four different panels.

The Nightlife Awards, to be presented in Town Hall on January 31, 2011, stand out from other award presentations in that the winners perform rather than deliver acceptance speeches. The Awards are produced by Scott Siegel, who also produces Town Hall’s ten-years-running “Broadway By the Year” series as well as “Broadway Unplugged,” in which performers sing un-miked.

 

From ComedyBeat’s Peter Haas: join me at Cabaret Corner

Peter Haas, Cabaret Corner

Dear World –

Join me at Cabaret Corner!

It’s a brand new web site, written for professionals, fans and followers of cabaret. It will feature news, reviews and previews … tips and tactics based on first-hand interviews with performers, directors, musical directors and other pro’s … plus articles and miscellaneous musings about our field.

Cabaret Corner is a new section of the existing Comedy Beat site, which is expanding to cover additional segments of the entertainment industry.

Cabaret Corner is now up and running; stop by at your leisure. You’ll find it at www.comedybeat.com). Scroll down the front page, and you’ll spot us. I’ll be the fellow directing traffic. FYI, I’m also continuing my decade-plus writing relationship with Cabaret Scenes magazine and its on-going growth.

Comments welcome: I’ve got a mailbox at the corner. It’s phaas@comedybeat.com.

Whim Quarterly joins the party

 by Carl Unegbu

Say hello to Whim Quarterly, the new humor magazine featured in Don Bates’s recent article in ComedyBeat. The Quarterly is stepping into the mix at perhaps the best time yet in comedy, a brave new world in which the demand for comedy fare is growing by leaps and bounds not only in the usual places one would expect comedy to be served up but also in places that just a few years ago one would bet against finding comedy. These days, comedy, especially stand-up comedy, that uniquely American invention, seems to be everywhere, from the tightly wound, Islamic Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to Carnival Cruise Lines, which will delight its passengers with stand-up fare in all of its fleet’s 22 ships by the end of this year.

Across the Atlantic in the UK, the fires of stand-up comedy are already raging and British stand-ups are taking their game to the U.S. Recall John Oliver, the British gadfly at Comedy Central. Back home in the U.S., stand-up comedy’s native land, the pain of the lingering recession is helping to set the stage for even more feel good shticking. And get this! even the policy wonks at the World Policy Institute  have discovered the blessings of comedy and will be hosting an evening of international stand-up comedy  at New York’s Comix Comedy Club this coming September.

Given all this, it is obvious that the arrival of Whim Quarterly, a magazine that wants to write about comedy, shows both a great sense of timing as well as a reflection of the surging interest in comedy in all its forms, whether one is dishing it out as a stand-up; listening to it or writing about it.  Their shrewd timing is not surprising given the pedigree of Whim’s founders Paul Underwood, Rick Pecoraro and Brock Mahan who are alums of the Late Show. To be sure, if anyone could has the heartbeat of the comedy industry, it’s them.    

But perhaps the real surprise about them is how they practice journalism at their magazine. 

“We’d rather reject a piece than edit it word for word,” said co-founder Mahan.  In simple language, they let their writers express themselves in their own words and in their own style.  In doing so, they break ranks with the inclination of most editors to literally put words in their writers’ mouths under various pretexts, most commonly the need to maintain standards. Censorship may be a strong word here but this practice can feel quite uncomfortable to many a writer and perhaps even offensive, when editors take their obsessions too far. 

 This fresh, outside-the-box thinking at WQ brings with it the dividends of “authenticity” to a magazine’s writing. There is much to be said for the sense that something being written or said is real, honest and unscripted. Few things can so easily kill the sense of authenticity in writing as meddlesome tweaking by overzealous editors. In an industry like comedy, the quality of authenticity can be incredibly valuable and game changing, given all the intangibles that characterize the very craft of comedy: emotion, attitude, guts, whimsy, and so on.

Yet, for all its new approach, there is also something rather old fashioned about Whim: it is actually a new print magazine in the high noon of online media. And it is printed on “actual (flammable) paper,” as its tagline proudly proclaims. To make a debut in print journalism in an online-oriented era may seem sort of like selling summer clothing in the winter.  But it is a bold move that only a savvy industry diehard would be willing to make for the love of print. “When it comes to print, I’m old school,” said co-founder Underwood. “I have a real reverence for something that lives and breathes on the page.”

So, Whim brings a new and refreshing formula to the table: an outside-the-box journalism that is yet driven by the old vehicle of “print.”

U.S. humor magazine makes debut, seeks writers and cartoonists

Whim Quarterly seeks writers & cartoonists

By Don Bates

Comedy writers Paul Underwood, Rick Pecoraro, and Brock Mahan not only want more humor in the world. They also want to nurture it more formally. So they’ve launched Whim Quarterly, a magazine that gives writers, actors, and comedians—virtually anyone who loves to make others laugh—a place to script satire, test jokes, and generally make more mischief with words.  And they’re printing it on “actual (flammable) paper.”

Each issue boasts contributors from comedy sweatshops such as the The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,  Late Show with David Letterman, The Onion, National Lampoon, and what the editors refer to as “an absurdist broadsheet…called The New York Times.”  Taken as a single entity, Whim Quarterly’s current “board” of contributors have “36 eyes, six Emmy Awards, and a soul crushing amount of personal debt.”

Paul, Brock, Rick and their staff want to tickle the country’s funny bone but they also want to increase their publication’s circulation and readership.  They know that content is the key to their success, so they’re looking for new writers and cartoonists to help them make their magazine a stand-up sensation at newsstands throughout the U.S.—even better, throughout China and India.  (Contributors can submit materials to thefolks@whimquarterly.com.)

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Joan Rivers: a piece of work

By Carl Unegbu

Joan Rivers is back in the headlines.  A new documentary her life and work has been released, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work. In an exclusive interview with Comedybeat’s Emily Wilson, the filmmakers Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern said they picked Joan Rivers because they wanted to tell a story about “remarkable characters in remarkable circumstances.”

All things considered, Joan Rivers truly fits the bill. As a woman, her choice of a career in comedy in the 1960s was an extraordinary move. That was an era when comedy was quite simply seen as a man’s job. Even so, not all kinds of men were welcome. For instance, when the legendary Lenny Bruce dared to breach the rather bland, socially timid boundaries established by the borscht belt and Las Vegas comics of the 1950s and 1960s by introducing social commentary into stand-up “shtick”, he was frequently persecuted with arrests for obscenity. In the last quarter of 1962 alone, he was arrested three times for obscenity in venues from Los Angeles to Chicago. Bruce died in 1966, and Rivers was one of the great admirers of the man and his comedy.

Even a decade later in the 1970s, when women started to be let in, female stand-ups who pushed a tough “shtick” were perceived as too “aggressive” for the taste of powerful industry mavens like Johnny Carson whose approval or disapproval made or marred careers.

Still, Rivers pressed on, eventually winning the respect and friendship of the captains of industry, including Johnny Carson himself and by 1983 she had joined the coveted stable of guest hosts Carson’s Tonight Show.

But overcoming the resistance of the “boys’ club” is one thing. Surviving in the industry described as a “place of extremes” by one of its most successful insiders is quite another. Most people would not forget her nightmare at the Fox Network in 1986 when she attempted to have her own Late Night Show in the 11:00 p.m. time slot, an event that reportedly ruptured her warm relations with her mentor Carson, who had become her rival at that time slot.  As it happened, that expected big career move eventually turned into ashes in her mouth in early 1987 when Fox fired her and her husband Edgar Rosenberg (who was her executive producer on the show). Shortly thereafter, an incredible tragedy got piled onto her heap of misfortunes when Edgar committed suicide in what Rivers believed was the result of his “humiliation” at Fox. Rivers had now paid a huge price for her life in comedy.

Nevertheless, Rivers picked up the pieces of her shattered life and soldiered on in comedy land. And the reason she stuck with comedy is because she loves comedy with all her heart and the proof of her love of comedy has been the story of her life, as aptly captured in the documentary. How else does one explain the grueling work schedule of a 77-year old comic who had already done comedy for over forty years and does not need to keep doing it in order to pay her bills? Certainly, one must admit she was born to do comedy.

And by her own admission, comedy gives her refuge in times of personal adversity: “When my mother died, I couldn’t wait to get back on stage…it was the only place I couldn’t feel the pain.”   Plus, there is a refreshing authenticity to her work, something that should be an inspiration to younger comics: Rivers does not shy away from any of the things make her tick as a comedian. For instance, she admits to the fuel of “anger” in her comedy, despite the squeamishness of contemporary society whose obsession with a touch-feely comfort zone leads to an orthodoxy that “anger” is always a bad thing. Rivers’ work challenges that orthodoxy.

To be sure, not everyone likes Joan Rivers or considers her work particularly valuable. She actually has not a few detractors. Recall the failure of the filmmakers in obtaining financing from certain sources who didn’t think a documentary about Rivers’ work was worth investing in. Some didn’t even think she was funny. But those are their own views and they are entitled to them. Yet, no fair minded person would presume to judge a public figure by the views of detractors. So, the views of her naysayers cannot define Joan Rivers.

In the end, whatever one thinks of Joan Rivers, one thing is certain: she is a trailblazer who entered the comedy world at a time when she was not supposed to be there and she beat the titanic odds. Her place today as a comedy icon has become a question of pure fact. And she truly matters in contemporary comedy. What else is obvious is that she has attained her high station in comedy by a combination of sheer talent; a stay the course-attitude and a heartfelt love of the art form.

So, in looking to tell a story about “remarkable characters in remarkable circumstances” the filmmakers certainly hit pay dirt with this choice. Joan Rivers is a piece of work indeed!

Emily Wilson joins ComedyBeat as staff reporter

Emily Wilson joins ComedyBeat

By Eddie Vega

Emily Wilson, a radio and print reporter who writes about the arts in San Francisco for the Examiner.com, has joined ComedyBeat as a staff reporter. A graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism, she has also done stories for dozens of media outlets including NPR, KQED-FM, Agence France-Presse, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Los Angeles Times, Edutopia and Alternet. She also teaches English and math to adults working on getting a GED or high school diploma at City College of San Francisco.

Her first article for ComedyBeat is about a new documentary on the comedian and television personality Joan Rivers. The filmmakers Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg have made other documentaries, including The Devil Came on Horseback, about Darfur, and The Trials of Daryl Hunt, about a wrongfully convicted man. While the subjects have varied, their main purpose has not, telling good stories of  remarkable characters in remarkable circumstances. Joan Rivers, Emily Wilson found, is no exception.

Emily’s article can be found here in its entirety.

What’s anger got to do with comedy?

The Pit Bull of Comedy, Bobby Slayton

By Carl Unegbu

Bobby Slayton,  the  “Pit Bull of Comedy,” doesn’t like being called “angry,” preferring instead to be described as “edgy” or “brutally honest,” as his interview with ComedyBeat’s Diane Vacca reveals.

But comedians are practical folk with a job to do. So, perhaps Slayton shouldn’t mind being called “angry” either. After all, “pit bull” isn’t a name for the faint of heart, not least in the comedy industry, which another famed comedian Dave Chapelle once described as “a place of extremes.”  Besides, anyone would be disappointed in a pit bull that wasn’t aggressive or ruthless. And how about tapping on some reservoir of anger for some needed fuel?

True, the comic legend Richard Pryor often comes to mind as the icon of an angry comic. And Pryor truly had his big moments in the temper department: stabbing a white soldier in his army days in a racially motivated brawl in Germany when he was a teenager; pulling a gun on a record producer he suspected was stiffing him; beating up an NBC page in 1975 on a Flip Wilson show in Burbank for not letting in some of Pryor’s guests; peeing in the direction of a female audience member in Los Angeles who would not laugh at his jokes on stage; and coming off stage and stabbing a heckler with a fork in a fit of anger.

For all the menace of his anger to his career and even to others, few would deny Pryor as perhaps one of the greatest comics ever. For instance, Lorne Michaels, the creator of Saturday Night Live, so believed in Pryor that he was ready to walk away from it all at the very beginning in 1975 unless NBC allowed Pryor to participate in the show. In the end, NBC relented and Pryor was let in; Michaels stayed on and 35 years later Saturday Night Live is still going strong. And Michaels, who’s also the executive producer of 30 Rock and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, considers Pryor to be as significant to comedy as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were to music.

But Slayton is no Richard Pryor and his anger is of a different brand. For starters, he doesn’t act up as Pryor often times did to the near damage of his entire career.  Slayton’s brand of anger merely excites his creativity as a comedian. And he leaves it at that. In doing so, he leverages the utility of anger as an emotion that is as helpful to creative minds as, say, joy or love.

Hence we see at least two models of an angry comic here and whatever model one roots for, it cannot be denied that anger has its place as a fuel in the production of first rate comedy. And, for that matter, what’s not to like in something that delivers a big win. And young comics need to know that if they get the anger balance right in their craft, they can go from mediocre to major player in short order.

But telling that to the young comics is truly a man’s job–a job for grown-ups like Slayton. Wishing to be called “edgy” and “brutally honest” simply won’t send the right signals that anger isn’t bad at all in comedy.  To be sure, Bobby Slayton’s brand of anger works well and is right for him. What better time to do that than at age 55. Perhaps now’s the time for the “pit bull of comedy” to challenge society’s nervous attitude once more, as he has so often done in his career, by wearing his cool brand of anger as a badge of honor.

ComedyBeat adds NY Post’s Mandy Stadtmiller to blog roll

Mandy Stadtmiller, photo by Carla Roley

As we celebrate our first month of online existence, it feels at times like Ash Wednesday. At other times like Christmas. Today, with the addition of Mandy Stadtmiller to our blog roll, it feels like Christmas. In some ways this is a natural outcome of several weeks of following each other on Twitter and Facebook. We came to appreciate how serious we were about both journalism and comedy. It’s that mix that defines both of us. Welcome to ComedyBeat, Mandy.

How quickly $20 million goes in Hollywood by Carl Unegbu

Nicholas Cage, one of the highest paid movie stars in Hollywood, blames his former business manager for his woes and in his lawsuit he accuses Levin of fraud and mismanagement and seeks damages of more than $20 million dollars from him. But Levin isn’t laying low either and has fired back with own lawsuit against Cage, where he is asking the court to say he didn’t do anything wrong and for Cage to pay him $129,000 for work he claimed to have done. Read more…

Comedy gets greenlight at Brooklyn bookstore by Carl Unegbu

Bob Powers, an organzer of the Steamboat humor series

Comedians and bookstores are not two thing usually found together in the same sentence. But here they are: the Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene neighborhood has created a special program for comedians and comedy writers.  The program, called the “Steamboat Series,”premiered to a standing room-only audience. Actually the audience was larger than that. Some guests were sitting in a semi-circle around the microphone.

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