Performance Picks: Murder Mystery, Spaghetti Puppetry, and Poetry Marathons for the New Year

December 28, 2016 By Cassidy Dawn Graves

WEDNESDAY

(image via Future Forms / Facebook)

Future Forms
Wednesday, December 28 at Throne Watches, 8 pm: FREE

Mary Houlihan, Joe Rumrill, Sam Taggart, and Julio Torres’s recurring comedy show Future Forms is a tasty treat, and probably one of the only shows you can say you’ve seen in a watch showroom. I mean, with the impending closure of spaces like Cake Shop, and DIY spaces getting all hush-hush for fear of getting shut down, perhaps we’ll all soon be watching shows in the aisles of grocery stores or something like that. Which could be fun, but the lighting leaves something to be desired.

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Tags: Beyond, chelsea, comedy, deathbird, evan kaufman, greenwich village, judson memorial church, Lower East Side, poetry, Poetry Project, Rebecca Vigil, stand-up, The Alternative, The Nuyorican Poets Café, Throne Watches, UCB, union hall, Williamsburg

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Performance Picks: Puppet Folktales, Chilean Mine Immersion, and Some Much-Needed Laughs

June 15, 2016 By Cassidy Dawn Graves

WEDNESDAY

(image via Facebook)

Secret
At La MaMa, 66 E 4th Street, East Village. 8pm. Free. More info here.
I can’t say I know a ton about Watoku Ueno’s one-night-only piece at La MaMa, but maybe they’re staying true to their name and keeping all the juicy details a secret… What I do know is that it’s based off Japanese folklore, specifically a story known as “Crane Wife,” where a man marries a woman who is really a crane in disguise and makes money by weaving her own feathers into silk brocade and leaves once her husband finds out she’s really a crane. That is true independence and craftiness, if I do say so myself. Secret includes not only dance and live music but also some glorious shadow puppetry that will bring this odd little tale to life.
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Tags: aparna nancherla, bowen yang, brooke o'harra, comedy, hari kondabolu, i'm bleeding all over the place, Immersive Theater, Janeane Garofalo, jena friedman, la mama, niagara bar, over the eight, slow dance comedy, stand-up, the annoyance theater, theater

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Jiggle With an Unlikely Pair: Pole Dancers and Comics Combine Powers

December 30, 2015 By Nicole Disser

(Photo by Brody Brodo, courtesy of Schtick a Pole in It)

Comics have a lot to compete with in this town– each other, for one– so it’s safe to assume that a stand-up can only be trying to realize some kind of suicide pact if they willingly join a lineup filled with pole dancers. But as Schtick a Pole In It– the monthly show at Drom that brings together comics and pole jockeys (unfortunately not pole dancing comics, yet anyway) whose third anniversary is happening in January– proves, the combination actually makes for a seriously titillating experience that benefits everyone involved.

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Tags: comedy, drom, East Village, entertainment, performance, pole dancing, Schtick a Pole In It, stand-up

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‘I Don’t Want My Mother to Hear That Joke’: a Muslim Comic Showcase

December 15, 2015 By Nicole Disser

Dina Hashem at The Experiment Comedy Gallery (Photo: Nicole Disser)

“Are there any white people here?” Atheer Yacoub asked the audience last night at The Experiment Comedy Gallery. “Can I hide behind you until this election is over?”

Yacoub played host for Hilarious Muslims: a Patriotic Stand-Up Show, the second all-Muslim comedy showcase at Williamsburg’s newest DIY comedy venue, which caught a wave of viral attention recently when owner Mo Fathelbab introduced the “Donald Trump Special” last Friday.

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Tags: brooklyn, comedy, Donald Trump, Mo Fathelbab, Muslim comics, Presidential Race 2016, religion, republicans, stand-up, The Experiment Comedy Gallery, Williamsburg

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'Poopoo Everywhere!' Listen to Prank Calls Patton Oswalt Made With Brian Posehn in Their Early Days

December 4, 2015 By Daniel Maurer

Brian Posehn in Uncle Nick.

Way before Patton Oswalt was hosting awards ceremonies at Cipriani, he was a budding comic making prank calls with his San Francisco roommate Brian Posehn. I know this because, back when I was collecting bootlegs in the mid-’90s, I came on a cassette trader who had something called The Speed Round: “Friends of mine challenge each other on who can make someone hang up the phone faster. Very offensive.”
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Tags: Brian Posehn, comedy, comics, patton oswalt, stand-up

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Williamsburg’s Newest DIY Venue Reimagines the Comedy Club

October 14, 2015 By Nicole Disser

(Photo: Nicole Disser)

While DIY music venues are pretty much done for on the waterfront, a new independent comedy club– run by comics, for comics– has popped up amongst luxury housing and sprawling new developments in Williamsburg. The Experiment Comedy Gallery isn’t located inside a gritty warehouse, but this former furniture store is an equally barebones kind of deal (for now anyway), save for a monochromatic psychedelic window mural.

The space is much closer to the Silent Barn than it is to, say, Caroline’s– and that’s very much intentional– the founder Mo Fathelbab and his artistic director, Eliana Horeczko, are trying to keep ticket prices at a minimum. “If there’s one word to describe what we’re really all about, it’s accessibility,” Eliana explained. “We’re really focused on giving people the opportunity to perform– like, all people, not just a small group.”

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Tags: comedy, comedy venues, comics, Eliana Horeczko, Mo Fathelbab, stand-up, stand-up comedy, The Experiment, The Experiment Comedy Gallery, Williamsburg, Williamsburg Waterfront

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Brooklyn Comic Simeon Goodson is Leaving the Building

July 30, 2015 By Nicole Disser

(Photo: Nicole Disser)

You’d expect someone like Brooklyn-born comedian Simeon Goodson to be straight up freaking out right about now. Depending on who you are, an impending move to Abu Dhabi could strike you as utterly terrifying or worthy of giddy anticipation. The dazzling, conservative Vegas of the Middle East is a polarizing place to say the least. But somehow Simeon’s experiencing these two extremes and managing still to take things as they come. While the United Arab Emirates is hardly the dream home for a guy who enjoys swigging glasses of Hennessy (“OD ice”) and belting out karaoke renditions of “Trap Queen,” Sim sees his impending move there less like a stint in purgatory and more an enjoyable challenge and the chance to be a transplant for once in his life.

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Tags: 169 Bar, Art + Culture, brooklyn, comedy, comics, Lower East Side, performance, Simeon Goodson, stand-up

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5 Live Comedy Shows That Riff On Themes, From Lust to Hate

July 24, 2015 By Sam Gillette

Sure, comics are notorious navel-gazers, but the fun themes at these recurring shows encourage them to dig for more than just belly button lint.

HowILearned The How I Learned Series
July 29, 8 pm at Union Hall: $6 advance, $10 at the door
The latest installment of this series, “You Don’t Have To Go Home But You Can’t Stay Here,” promises to be worth the price of admission. This show about getting kicked out of bars, being the last loser at a party, “the pursuit of fun,” and stupid decisions will feature Isaac Oliver, Ophira Eisenberg, Nancy Balbirer, Kate Greathead, Lynn Bixenspan and host Blaise Allysen Kearsley.

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Tags: comedy, Comedy Central, East Village, george lucas, hate mail, shows, stand-up, the knitting factory, the village underground, tinder live, UCB, union hall, Williamsburg