The pals of Power Violence celebrate their monthly show of comedy and friendship at The Satellite this Sunday. Get tickets here.
The rest of our listings for comedy events/shows and open mics along with corresponding maps are embedded at www.thecomedybureau.com.
Poster by Evan Mays
Stand-up comedians Hampton Yount, Josh Sharp, Nick Rutherford, Greg Barris, Andrés Du Bouchet, Kiran Deol, Clare O’Kane, and more join host Ryan Singer and guest co-host Dave Waite in not only doing anything that isn’t stand-up, but getting delightfully weird about the whole affair.
(via Variety)
Did it take the success of a few live TV musicals to convince executives they should finally pull the trigger on this one?
Talk of a variety show fronted by Maya Rudolph at NBC, then later sharing top billing with Martin Short, have been around for years now. In fact, Rudolph already did a solid one-off special as a sort of proof-of-concept of the show. Yet, movement on the show from where we’re standing looked minimal at best.
Finally, this variety show with two consummate all around comedic talents (sing, dance, be funny, etc.) is going to series starting sometime in May, probably right around when Saturday Night Live has its season finale.
Speaking of which, we’re really anxious to see how a Maya and Martin variety show will fit in NBC’s comedy slate along side SNL.
(via TV Line)
For those of you hoping, praying, having your fingers crossed, etc. in the hopes that Maya Rudolph’s variety special would indeed turn into a full fledged series, it would seem that you could take a break.
Maya Rudolph hosted a variety special last year that was being thrown into consideration into being picked up for a series at NBC. After the premiere, progress for the series was kept quiet, but it turns out that it’s not only alive and well, but it might get the likes of Martin Short as a co-host who will be sharing top billing with Maya.
If this keeps going forward into a weekly series, we’re curious if it’ll take the months that SNL takes off or run concurrently with it. Either way, Rudolph and Short doing big, funny musical numbers should be fun and will probably be a big hit online.
Yes, Drew Spears, Ele Woods, and Matthew Brian Cohen actually bought a used car that needed a smog check for their audience this week.
A photo posted by Ele Woods (@elewoods55) on Aug 11, 2015 at 11:05am PDT
There’s a great new experimental variety show at UCB called Cool Shit Weird Shit hosted by Spears, Woods, and Cohen where comedians get to perform things that are best presented without precedent and can’t really be tacked on to most shows that are just stand-up, sketch, or improv.
The hosts themselves also do something cool and weird and in the interest of besting, relatively, Oprah’s car giveaway to her audience all those years ago, they actually bought a car to give to the entire audience in attendance at UCB Franklin this past Monday night.
As they could only afford a single car, the crowd will have to share and there was a calendar that was passed around in order to reserve a day to drive the free car.
According to them, there will be some sort of log they’ll be keeping as to the progress of the car. We’ll keep you updated as we get more details.
We can only hope that it fares a better fate than Hitchbot.
NBC has done well to give one-man-show-spectacular Neil Patrick Harris his own variety show.
As you can clearly see in this brief promo, NPH will have bits, numbers, and more in his series set to premiere this fall.
Well, he’ll have as much as he can before they run out of airtime.
(via Deadline)
NBC might be just getting a shot in the arm in the department of live variety shows as they have just ordered 10 episodes of a Neil Patrick Harris hosted variety show.
The show stopper of a host can really do it all, sing, dance, act, do comedy, which will all be on display when he hosts The Oscars next year.
We’ll be curious to what time slot it gets, specifically in relation to that other live variety show on NBC, Saturday Night Live.
Greg Barris’ traveling variety show Heart of Darkness that features comedy, music, ideas, and spirituality(?) now has its own TV trailer.
We’re not sure what that means other than that it might be a TV show. What channel or network it’ll be at and when it will premiere has yet to be announced, but it’s still good news as far as we’re concerned.
Last night, big stage production, dance numbers, comedy bits, sketches, singing, and more all got wrapped up in The Maya Rudolph Show. On top of good ratings, Rudolph and company showed that the old school format of a comedy variety show can work in 2014.
Watch the opening number and “small dancing” to what we’re talking about.
In less than two weeks, Maya Rudolph will premiere her variety show special on NBC, The Maya Rudolph Show, specifically May 19th at 10PM.
There’s finally a short teaser for what we’re expect, which seems very much like an old school variety show complete with musical number, several costumes changes, and comedy throughout. Watch it here.
NBC Passes on David Koechner Variety Sketch Show
With the announcement of Maya Rudolph’s variety sketch special, you might have guessed that the David Koechner variety sketch show that NBC ordered a pilot of was unfortunately done for at NBC.
Hopefully, it can find a home elsewhere. Perhaps, it might even find that home at 11:30PM at Comedy Central that will be open next year.
Maya Rudolph’s Variety Show Special Premiering in May on NBC
Indeed, The Maya Rudolph Show is premiering on NBC on May 19th at 10PM and is set to have Fred Armisen, Chris Parnell, Craig Robinson, Kristen Bell and more. Musical guests such as Janelle Monae will be on the special as well making for what could be almost an SNL episode from 10 years ago.
NBC Orders Maya Rudolph Variety Pilot For Post-Olympics Special
This means simultaneously, after The Olympics, Jimmy Fallon will take over The Tonight Show, Seth Meyers will take over Late Night, and Maya Rudolph will do a variety show special that hopefully, possibly could include her Prince cover band, Princess.
We’re hoping this will top whatever the closing ceremonies are.
Networks Are After Maya Rudolph and Her Variety Show
Let’s hope that means it’ll skip a few steps in the development hell process if any or all of these networks really want in the very funny Maya Rudolph.