Lena Waithe’s Queer Comedy ‘Twenties’ Comedy Gets Pilot Order at TBS
From Master of None to The Chi to this latest project, Lena Waithe has made huge leaps and bounds into a name that you need to know in TV and comedy as well as a voice that you need to hear.
We can only hope that TBS orders Twenties to series to see what Lena’s comedy about a queer black girl figuring life out in 20s will look, sound, and feel like.
Kind of like an acid trip just seems to keep going and going and going and going and going, the line-up for the latest edition of Comedy Central’s SF based comedy festival Clusterfest keeps going including the likes of Jon Stewart, Tiffany Haddish, Last Podcast on the Left, Maria Bamford, Desus & Mero, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s Paddy’s Pub, and much, much, much more.
See for yourself in the whole line-up announcement video here (you can see the “drug-free” line-up flyer below.
Clusterfest will happen Fri. Jun. 1st-Sun. Jun. 3rd and 3-Day Admission starts at $282 (including fees). Get more details and tickets here.
Followers of TCB our likely to be familiar with Laurie Kilmartin from her work on Conan, her own stand-up, her special 45 Jokes About My Dead Dad, The Jackie and Laurie Show, and more that we all love dearly.
So, with the release of her latest book Dead People Suck, which is her “guide for survivors for the newly departed”, we ought to think you pick up a copy. Laurie’s particular brand of grounded gallows humor is something we cherish and enjoy thoroughly and is undoubtedly something that would help in any sort of time of strife.
Get Dead People Suck by Laurie Kilmartin here.
Jeffrey Tambor Will Officially No Longer Be Part of ‘Transparent’
Following the internal investigation at Amazon of harassment claims against Tambor, Jill Soloway and Amazon have decided that Tambor’s behavior “could could not be justified or excused under scrutiny,” in a statement to Deadline. Thus, they have decided to sever ties between him and Transparent, the award winning series of which he plays the lead role of Maura Pfefferman.
This is a sign that #MeToo is far from slowing down and the idea that sexual harassment, misbehavior, misconduct, assault, etc. will now have actionable and immediate consequences.
The fate of the show itself has yet to be officially determined, but if they could pull off replacing Kevin Spacey in All The Money in the World with Christopher Plummer, then we’re sure they’ll be able to figure something out.
Join Trish Nelson and The Secret Society of the Sisterhood as well as red hooded capes to hear their own personal stories on the theme of "I thought I was going to die!“
It’s a line-up that features all sorts of wonderful women from all sorts of backgrounds (as you can see on the flyer above). We should also mention that the show takes place in a Masonic Lodge within a cemetery.
https://hollywoodforever.ticketfly.com/event/1640411-secret-society-sisterhood-los-angeles/
Tickets are $25-$30 and you can (and should) get them here.
The rest of our listings for comedy shows, events, open mics, maps, and more can be found at www.thecomedybureau.com.
Chris Fleming made us all feel a little less lonely with this video.
Enjoy and follow(?) these Valentine’s tips for a specific romantic issue from Fleming.
If you know and love Kyle Kinane, you ought to know that one of his purposes in life must be two be the voice of an anthropomorphized dinosaur in a cool jacket and sunglasses just like the one in Jason Merrin’s animated project Action Dinosaur.
They’re looking for finishing funds via Kickstarter, specifically $20K over the next 26 days (as of this post being written).
Here’s their Kickstarter promo to explain the whole project further.
If you can, please support it so the world can enjoy Kinane (whose lovely voice you’ve heard in stand-up and all over Comedy Central) as a rad dinosaur.
Whether you like seeing your comedy performed by people who are or are not high, we’re giving you a chance to win tickets to see some of LA’s finest sling jokes at you.
To win a pair of tickets to The Gateway Show this Friday or Hot Tub with Kurt & Kristen this coming Monday, enter here: http://thecomedybureau.dola.com/giveaways
Seeing Rachel Bloom live is reason enough to get tickets to go see her at a city near you, but an entire live production of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend making 8 stops around the U.S. should give you all the reasons you need to catch one of these shows.
By the way, tickets just went on sale today. Get them here.
Finally, we have gotten a special from a comedy legend (that hasn’t done a comedy special in a very long time) that can live up to the hype.
Tamborine both satisfies the long-held, unsatisfied craving that you’ve probably had for a new hour of stand-up from Chris Rock and offers a more mature, vulnerable, introspective Rock. For instance, he not only hushes the crowd immediately to get to a joke about police brutality and racial inequality without any sort of greeting, but Rock opens up about his divorce and raising his kids in a way that you might have not imagined Chris Rock would ever do. In short, Rock doesn’t disappoint at a time when heroes of all kinds have been disappointing right and left.
Also, one should take note that Rock tapped Bo Burnham (who has directed two of his own specials and Jerrod Carmichael’s 8) to direct his latest special and the result looks subtly slick and very personal (i.e. this special has some of the most extreme close-ups ever used in a comedy special).
When the next awards season comes around, it’d be surprising to not see Rock’s new hour be heavily favorited wherever it can be nominated.
Chris Rock: Tamborine is now streaming on Netflix. So, go watch it (or watch it again) already.
We thought, as it is Valentine’s Day, that it would only be appropriate to share this fantastic story from Comedy Central’s This Is Not Happening of how love twisted Louiz Katz inside out and produced a more hardened, embittered soul after it spat him out.
In a way, this story just shows how powerful love is.
Please enjoy it here.
The annual Lewbowski Fest is coming up in a few months and this year is a special one as it’ll be the 20th Anniversary of the release of The Big Lebowski.
Per usual, there will be parties for both the film and bowling featuring live music (from the likes of Kyle Gass Band), costume contests, special guests and more at The Wiltern and Fountain Bowl respectively.
You can your tickets for both events here!
The rest of our listings for comedy shows, events, open mics, maps, and more can be found at www.thecomedybureau.com.
As Valentine’s Day looms in the coming hours, we thought it’d be kind of perfect to watch Krystyna Hutchinson’s fantastic story from this latest season of This Is Not Happening.
It’s a story of overcoming the odds to not only find true love, but come to peace with your own insecurities and anxities. Also, the co-creator of Guys We F****d’s tale is pretty NSFW.
Enjoy it here.
iO West Will Be Closing Its Doors Next Saturday
“From Charna Halpern:
“Dear iOWEST It breaks my heart to announce that after almost 25 years, I have to close the doors to iOWest. Our last night will be Saturday, Feb 24th. iO Chicago is strong and this is still your home. Love to you all, Charna Halpern."”
While it’s unfortunate to see another LA comedy-dedicated venue/school go away, iO West still has two weeks worth of shows to check out. See our calendar for our picks or take a gander at their entire schedule here.
Power Violence is going to celebrate 7 years of “extreme friendship” this Sunday.
Whether you’ve been party to that or you have no idea of how to even conceive of extreme friendship, it’s an occasion that you shouldn’t miss (a really nice line-up of Mitra Jouhari, Patti Harrison, Johnny Pemberton, Simon Gibson, Steve Hernandez, and more are also going to be there with Whit, Clay, Budd, and Jeramy)
Power Violence 7 Year Anniversary is this Sunday, February 18th 8:30PM at The Satellite LA. Tickets are $8 and you can (and should) get them here (BTW, comics get in FREE).
The rest of our listings for comedy shows, events, open mics, maps, and more can be found at www.thecomedybureau.com.
Atlanta has gotten so much acclaim and won awards that it’s easy to forget that they are only now coming into their second season.
Also, you’ll be watching a young Lando Calrissian navigating the hip-hop business, which is a fun layer that the Internet will undoubtedly have loads of memes to point out.
In any case, Atlanta looks like it’ll be delivering even higher stakes in their second season as you can see in this trailer.
We’re going to go ahead and say that no one came close to guessing that Chris Rock’s first stand-up special in several years was what behind Netflix’s mysterious tamborine announcement a few days ago.
In any case, Chris Rock: Tamborine will drop at midnight on Netflix and, we guess, be Rock’s Valentine’s gift to us all?
Alan Partridge to Return to BBC with ‘This Time With Alan Partridge’
Years from now, Steve Coogan’s two characters that will stand out from his career will be himself from those Trip movies and, of course, his DJ/host creation Alan Partridge.
Coogan has been playing Partridge for a quarter century now and BBC One is looking to extend that run even further with a six-part series where Alan co-hosts a weekday show This Time.
As he is back on TV rather than radio, you can completely expect things to go even more off the rails for Partridge than they normally do.
We can only hope that this series makes its way to the U.S. in a timely manner.
Well, here’s a wish that has been granted that we didn’t even know we wanted.
Conan O’Brien is taking the infamous Jordan Schlansky to Italy, which just so happens to be one of Jordan’s favorite places on earth, and they’re seeing how long they can tolerate each other amidst beautiful architecture, fine dining, and everything else Italy has to offer.
If you need a refresher of why this is important milestone in the canon of Conan O’Brien’s late night history, please refresh your memory/enjoy yourself with an entire Team Coco page dedicated to the remote segments involving Jordan Schlansky here: http://teamcoco.com/jordan
Veep, Will & Grace, Last Week Tonight, and SNL Win at 2018 Writers Guild Awards
More specifically, the comedy winners of the 2018 Writers Guild Awards are
Comedy Series
Veep, Written by Gabrielle Allan, Rachel Axler, Ted Cohen, Jennifer Crittenden, Alex Gregory, Steve Hely, Peter Huyck, Erik Kenward, Billy Kimball, David Mandel, Ian Maxtone-Graham, Dan Mintz, Lew Morton, Georgia Pritchett, Will Smith; HBO – WINNER
Episodic Comedy
“Rosario’s Quinceanera” (Will & Grace), Written by Tracy Poust & Jon Kinnally; NBC – WINNER
Comedy/Variety Talk Series
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Writers: Tim Carvell, Josh Gondelman, Dan Gurewitch, Geoff Haggerty, Jeff Maurer, John Oliver, Scott Sherman, Will Tracy, Jill Twiss, Juli Weiner, Ben Silva, Seena Vali; HBO – WINNER
Comedy/Variety Sketch Series
Saturday Night Live, Head Writers: Chris Kelly, Sarah Schneider, Bryan Tucker, Writers: James Anderson, Kristen Bartlett, Jeremy Beiler, Neal Brennan, Zack Bornstein, Joanna Bradley, Megan Callahan, Michael Che, Anna Drezen, Fran Gillespie, Sudi Green, Steve Higgins, Colin Jost, Erik Kenward, Rob Klein, Nick Kocher, Michael Koman, Dave McCary, Brian McElhaney, Dennis McNicholas, Drew Michael, Lorne Michaels, Josh Patten, Katie Rich, Pete Schultz, Streeter Seidell, Will Stephen, Kent Sublette, Julio Torres; NBC Universal – WINNER
At some point, there ought to be a category for podcasts or, at the very least, ad copy/reads for podcasts.
You can get a full list of the winners here.
That’s right, we’ve managed to round up another bunch of comedians that you absolutely, unequivocally need to keep your eye on for another edition of The Comedy Bureau Most Wanted List.
It’s our personal picks of LA’s best stand-ups that deserve way more shine than they are currently getting and we sincerely hope that you come to see the brilliance that we see.
You can RSVP here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-comedy-bureaus-most-wanted-list-tickets-42658754483
You can also RSVP on the phone by calling (323) 960-5519.
The rest of our listings for comedy shows, events, open mics, maps, and more can be found at www.thecomedybureau.com.
Michelle Wolf Is Getting Her Own Late-Night Show on Netflix
In the way that 2017 was the year of Netflix getting specials from Jerry Seinfeld, Dave Chappelle, and Amy Schumer, 2018 seems to be the year that Netflix will be getting into late night/talk shows in full force with David Letterman’s My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, The Joel McHale Show with Joel McHale, and now, a late night show from fast rising star Michelle Wolf.
Just in a few years, Wolf has hopped from Late Night with Seth Meyers to The Daily Show while propelling her stand-up career all the way to an HBO special, Nice Lady.
Exact specifics (including the show’s name) of Wolf’s show have yet to be announced, but we have a pretty good feeling that this is going to work out quite well for Michelle and Netflix.
Of the people that have no filter when speaking their mind, Nicole Byer is one of the most fun ones of the bunch.
Just see her interview on Conan from last week for proof.
Also, if you dig her, you should probably watch her revived series Loosely Exactly Nicole on Facebook Watch.
From a mere segment to a full fledged show on a premium cable network where they can really let the satire fly, Our Cartoon President is set to have network series premiere at 8PM on Showtime.
Even though the series hits close to home for us all due to the time that we’re live in, the fact that it’s animated makes the jokes funnier and the satire a little easier to handle as you can see in this Ep. 2 clip.
Always balancing a bouncy, spirited energy with a bit of cynicism, Bonnie McFarlane proved once again that she is one of our favorite people to watch do stand-up on late night with her set on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
Please enjoy it here.