Will Durst

Last updated
Will Durst
Born (1952-03-18) March 18, 1952 (age 71)
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States
Medium Stand-up, television, radio, writing
Nationality American
Genres Observational comedy, satire, political satire, black comedy, surreal humor, sarcasm
Subject(s) American culture, everyday life, human behavior, American politics, popular culture
Website willdurst.com

Will Durst (born on March 18, 1952) is an American political satirist. He has been likened to Mort Sahl and Will Rogers. [1]

Contents

Early life

Durst was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He went to 14 different schools before graduating from Waukesha South High School, in Waukesha, Wisconsin. [2] He then attended Waukesha County Technical Institute, University of Wisconsin, Waukesha County Campus, Marquette University, and the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee, but never graduated. [3]

Career

In 1974, he started performing stand-up comedy at a weekly open mic at a bar in downtown Milwaukee called the Rusty Nail. He also gained onstage experience sharing a stage with various sketch groups such as "Same Player Shoots Again," "Better Than a Sharp Stick in the Eye," and "Will Jon Rip Marian?" After studying with director Paul Sills in Milwaukee for two years at the Century Hall theater complex, Durst moved to San Francisco in 1979. [3]

In 1987, he unsuccessfully ran for mayor of San Francisco. [4]

In 1992 Mr. Durst performed for a SRO crowd at FCI Sheridan in Sheridan, Oregon.

Durst composes a weekly political humor column that is contributed by Cagle Cartoons. He also co-hosts a monthly talk radio show with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown called 'The Will and Willie Show' which for a year ran as a morning show on San Francisco's progressive talk radio station, KQKE. [5]

He has performed at events starring Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush, and Al Gore. He also performs stand up comedy at many events as a keynote speaker including a Governors Conference and a Mayors Convention. He was a correspondent for The Comedy Channel during the 1992 political conventions. His humor and commentaries accentuate his perspective of illogical and absurd aspects of politics, leadership, and human behavior.

He pens down several Internet columns, contributes to Independent Media Institute's Alternet.org and the Huffington Post consistently, is a former contributing editor to National Lampoon and George, and has contributed to various periodicals such as the New York Times , Funny Times and San Francisco Chronicle . His weekly podcasts can be heard on various radio stations and his website, willdurst.com. He also writes a bi-monthly column for The Progressive Magazine, published in Madison, Wisconsin.

Will premiered his one-man show—The All-American Sport of BiPartisan Bashing—in August 2007 at New York City's New World Stages Off Broadway. In 2012, he premiered his one-man show focused on the presidential election, Elect to Laugh, which ran for 41 weeks at the San Francisco Marsh Theater. In 2013, Durst wrote a show based on being an aging baby boomer called BoomeRaging: From LSD to OMG. Since then, he has performed it in over 50 different cities, mostly in Northern California. [6]

In 2016, he updated his Elect to Laugh show and performed a post-Trump one-man show called Durst Case Scenario every Tuesday at the Marsh (a theater complex in San Francisco) since July. He has also taken the show to many Northern California theaters and venues in Wisconsin, Washington, Nevada, and Colorado. He is working on an updated version of the show called Durst Case Scenario: Midterm Madness.

Durst has written three books, including Elect to Laugh and The All-American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing. He has also released five audio recordings, None of the Above, You Can't Make Stuff Up Like This, Warning, Raging Moderate, and Elect to Laugh, the last two on the Stand-Up! Records label. Along with Larry Bubbles Brown and Johnny Steele, Durst is one of the titular characters in the feature documentary 3 Still Standing directed by Robert Campos and Donna LoCicero, which focuses on the San Francisco comedy scene of the late 1980s and beyond. [6]

Television

Durst has been fired by the San Francisco Examiner twice and PBS cancelled three of his shows, two of which he hosted and created, The Durst Amendment and Citizen Durst. [6]

His pilot A Year's Worth with Will Durst was nominated for a CableACE Award after airing on A&E during New Year's Eve 1994, but it was never picked up.

On February 24, 2000, Durst was contestant Rudy Reber's phone-a-friend lifeline on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire . [7] Durst wrote an article for TV Guide on the incident.

A five-time Emmy nominee and host/co-producer of the PBS series Livelyhood, he is also a recurrent commentator on NPR, CNN, and C-SPAN. He has appeared on television over 800 times including Late Night with David Letterman , Comedy Central, HBO, and Showtime. He received seven consecutive nominations for the American Comedy Awards Stand Up Comedian of the Year.

Personal life

Durst lives in San Francisco with his wife Debi Ann Pickell Durst, an actress, improviser and director. She is an executive producer of San Francisco's annual Comedy Celebration Day in Golden Gate Park. [8]

On October 7, 2019 Durst suffered a hemorrhagic stroke, backstage before a performance at the Presidio Theatre. [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robin Williams</span> American actor and comedian (1951–2014)

Robin McLaurin Williams was an American actor and comedian. Known for his improvisational skills and the wide variety of characters he created on the spur of the moment and portrayed on film, in dramas and comedies alike, he is regarded as one of the greatest comedians of all time. He received numerous accolades including an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and five Grammy Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ComedySportz</span> Improvisational comedy organization

ComedySportz (CSz) is an improvisational comedy organization started in 1984 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, by a group of local comedians including Dick Chudnow, Bob Orvis, Brian Green, and others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Willie Brown (politician)</span> American politician of the Democratic Party (born 1934)

Willie Lewis Brown Jr. is a retired American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as mayor of San Francisco from 1996 to 2004, the first African American to hold that office.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Caliendo</span> American comedian, actor and impressionist

Frank Caliendo Jr. is an American comedian, actor and impressionist, best known for his impersonations on the Fox Network television series MADtv, and as the in-house prognosticator for Fox NFL Sunday. In 2007 and 2008, he performed his impersonations on his own show, Frank TV, which aired on TBS. He is known for his impressions and for his frequent appearances on The Bob & Tom Show. He has released six solo CDs. From 2009 to 2011 he had a show at the Monte Carlo Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Metcalf</span> American actor

Mark Metcalf is an American television and film actor often playing the role of an antagonistic and aggrieved authority figure.

Steven Craig Banks is an American actor, musician, comedian, and writer of television, plays, books and cartoons, including CatDog, Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, and SpongeBob SquarePants.

The Holy City Zoo, which called itself "the comedian's clubhouse", was a small but influential comedy club in San Francisco that operated from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s.

Ryan Matthew Stout is an American stand-up comedian and television host.

Jim David is an American stand-up comedian, actor and writer. He is originally from Asheville, North Carolina, and lives in New York City.

Marga Gomez is a comedian, writer, performer, and teaching artist from Harlem, New York. She has written and performed in thirteen solo plays which have been presented nationally and internationally. Her acting credits include Off-Broadway and national productions of The Vagina Monologues with Rita Moreno. She also acted in season two of the Netflix series Sense8. At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Gomez pivoted to adapting and presenting her work for live streaming. She has been featured in online theater festivals from New York to San Diego, as well as a five-week virtual run for Brava, SF where she is an artist-in-residence. She is a GLAAD media award winner and recipient of the 2020 CCI Investing in Artists grant.

Waukesha South High School is one of three high schools located in Waukesha, Wisconsin. It was opened in 1957 as a southern campus to Waukesha High School, then in downtown Waukesha. The downtown campus is now Les Paul Middle School - Central Campus.

Donald Gene Reed is an American actor, writer, producer, director and comedian.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Curtis (broadcaster)</span> American journalist

Mark Corrigan Curtis is an American broadcast journalist, author and political analyst. He is currently Chief Political Reporter for the Nexstar Media Group stations in West Virginia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nikol Hasler</span> American screenwriter

Nikol Hasler is an American internet content creator, producer, writer, and filmmaker known best for her work on Midwest Teen Sex Show, and her frank, direct, dark humor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moshe Kasher</span> American comedian, writer (b. 1979)

Mark Moshe Kasher is an American stand-up comedian, writer and actor based in the Los Angeles area. He is the author of the 2012 memoir Kasher in the Rye: The True Tale of a White Boy from Oakland Who Became a Drug Addict, Criminal, Mental Patient, and Then Turned 16. In 2009, iTunes named Kasher "Best New Comic" and his comedy album Everyone You Know Is Going to Die, and Then You Are! was ranked one of the top 20 comedy albums on iTunes that same year. He was also named "Comic to Watch in 2010" by Punchline Magazine.

Daniel James Dion is an American photographer and comedy producer. He is best known for his location portraiture of comedians, and was the house photographer of the legendary San Francisco venue The Fillmore for twenty years.

Marc Yaffee is a Native American comedian, writer, actor, and podcast host. Marc began doing stand-up comedy in 1999 after attending a comedy workshop at Laughs Unlimited Comedy Club in Sacramento, CA. Since then, he has performed in 43 states and 11 countries.

Doug Ferrari is an American stand-up comedian and comedy writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is often called Dougzilla due to his large stature.

Dhaya Lakshminarayanan is a comedian, performance artist, TV host, and storyteller. She has performed at venues such as San Francisco's Asian Art Museum, the San Jose Museum of Art, the Siren Theater, San Francisco's Punchline Comedy Club and Cobb's Comedy Club, the Brava Theatre, Throckmorton Theatre, and others. She has also performed at comedy festivals such as SF Sketchfest 2015 and SF Sketchfest 2020; the Desi Comedy Fest, America's only South Asian comedy festival; and the Out of Bounds Comedy Festival. In 2019, Lakshminarayanan, Will Durst, and W. Kamau Bell appeared as guests on KQED in regard to the controversial proposed closure of the historic San Francisco Punchline Comedy Club. The same year, she regularly opened for Greg Proops at the Punchline.

Dwight York is an American stand-up comedian and writer originally from Wisconsin.

References

  1. ↑ "Will Durst". PBS .
  2. ↑ Rothstein, Betsy (July 20, 2005). "Will Durst Still pissed off after all these years". thehill.com. Retrieved January 6, 2018.
  3. 1 2 Holden, Stephen (April 5, 1988). "Comic Sees Politicians As Good for Nothing Except His Jokes". New York Times. Retrieved January 6, 2018.
  4. ↑ "Will Durst". Castproductions.com.
  5. ↑ "WILLIE BROWN AND WILL DURST INTERVIEW JOE D'ALESSANDRO ON "WILL & WILLIE SHOW" BROADCAST". sftravel.com. Retrieved January 9, 2018.
  6. 1 2 3 Weisman, Brad (June 9, 2015). "Will Durst Focuses His Satiric Gaze on the Endangered Boomer Generation". Westword. Retrieved January 6, 2018.
  7. ↑ Farhi, Paul (March 25, 2000). "A Friend Worth His Weight in Gold". The Washington Post. Retrieved January 6, 2018.
  8. ↑ Bartlett, Jean (August 13, 2016). "Pacifican Debi Durst in the Durst, Durst, Bossier and Mari comedy night in Redwood City". The Mercury News. Retrieved January 9, 2018.
  9. ↑ Whiting, Sam. "Will Durst suffers stroke, cancels comedy shows for first time in 30 years". sfchronicle. Hearst Communications, Inc. Retrieved 12 May 2022.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.