ucb

It was only a few years ago when the fate of comedy juggernaut, The Upright Citizens Brigade, seemed vastly unsure. The COVID-19 Pandemic wreaked havoc throughout the comedy world, but it definitely forced UCB to reckon with how it extended itself and with its very own structure and integrity as a comedy institution/brand/school. In 2020, UCB was reduced to one physical venue, their original LA location in Franklin Village, then, subsequently, sold off as entire brand from the original UCB 4 to its current multi-party ownership.

By the end of the year, UCB will have two mainstay locations as they’ve officially locked in a lease at 242 E. 14th St., New York, New York. Yes, UCB NY will be a thing once more and brighter days are ahead (especially with UCB LA already having returning to their stacked 7-night-a-week programming and configuring a way to pay performers). That puts this new UCB in Gramercy Park, which is on a whole other side of Manhattan from Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen, former UCB locations. The old spot of UCB East won’t be too far as will NYC comedy havens, The Stand (just four blocks away) and Club Cumming (9 blocks away).

UCB aims to have shows going by this Fall and, with that in mind, are already taking submissions for their house teams including Harold (improv), Maude (sketch), and Betty (characters). Deadlines/dates are as follows:

Harold:
deadline to submit: 8/16
auditions: 9/21-24
callbacks: 9/29-10/1

Maude & Betty:
deadline to submit: 7/26
auditions: 8/23-8/27
callbacks: 9/8-9/10

Get more details and submit at ucbcomedy.com/auditions.

Otherwise, look forward to Manhattan getting a little less clubby in a few months.

(via Vulture)

Announced today via e-mail by UCB, The Upright Citizens Brigade’s venue in Hell’s Kitchen and their dedicated NYC Training Center will stay closed once the stay-at-home/lockdown orders are lifted in NYC. As an organization, it apparently became too much of a financial stress on their entire organization during this pandemic to keep all of their schools and theaters afloat while they are relying pretty much on online classes right now to pay their leases. It’s truly heartbreaking to hear of these closures as the Upright Citizens Brigade made their bones with their own theater first in NYC and now there is no brick and mortar UCB venue in the five boroughs.

The fate of the rest of UCB, which includes the LA theaters and schools at UCB Franklin and UCB Sunset have yet to be officially determined (though we wouldn’t be surprised to see UCB revert to operating solely out of UCB Franklin if they have to have to keep cutting costs to save the entirety of Upright Citizens Brigade).

A comment was added that the closures of the NYC venues doesn’t mean that UCB’s presence in NYC is over, but to what that might specifically mean in the future is unclear at this time, especially with UCB already having lots of financial strain before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States.

We will keep you updated more on the status of UCB’s venues as we hear and we can only hope that other comedy clubs, theaters, schools will get to stay open when all of this is over.