William Melvin Hicks was an American stand-up comedian and satirist. His material—encompassing a wide range of social issues including religion, politics, and philosophy—was controversial and often steeped in dark comedy.
Stand-up comedy is a comedic performance to a live audience in which the performer addresses the audience directly from the stage. The performer is known as a comedian, comic, or stand-up. It is usually a rhetorical performance but many comics employ crowd interaction as part of their set or routine.
Steven Alexander Wright is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and film producer. He is known for his distinctive lethargic voice and slow, deadpan delivery of ironic, philosophical and sometimes nonsensical jokes, paraprosdokians, non sequiturs, anti-humor, and one-liners with contrived situations.
Alternative comedy is a term coined in the 1980s for a style of comedy that makes a conscious break with the mainstream comedic style of an era. The phrase has had different connotations in different contexts: in the UK, it was used to describe content that was an "alternative" to the mainstream stand-up of the day which took place in working men's clubs, and was characterised by unoriginal gags often containing elements of sexism and racism. In other contexts, it is the nature of the form that is "alternative", avoiding reliance on a standardised structure of a sequence of jokes with punch lines. Patton Oswalt has defined it as "comedy where the audience has no pre-set expectations about the crowd, and vice versa. In comedy clubs, there tends to be a certain vibe—alternative comedy explores different types of material."
The Improv is a comedy club franchise. It was founded as a single venue in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of New York City in 1963, and expanded into a chain of venues in the late 1970s.
An open mic or open mike is a live show at a venue such as a coffeehouse, nightclub, comedy club, strip club, or pub, usually taking place at night, in which audience members may perform on stage whether they are amateurs or professionals, often for the first time or to promote an upcoming performance. As the name suggests, performers are usually provided with a microphone plugged into a PA system so that they can be heard by the audience.
Jeff Altman is an American stand-up comedian and actor who has appeared as a guest on Late Night with David Letterman and Late Show with David Letterman a combined 45 times. Altman mesmerized contemporaries like David Letterman and Jerry Seinfeld, and inspired future comedians like Judd Apatow.
Gregory Carlos Giraldo was an American stand-up comedian, television personality, and lawyer. He is remembered for his appearances on Comedy Central's televised roast specials, and for his work on that network's television shows Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn, Lewis Black's Root of All Evil, and the programming block Stand-Up Nation, the last of which he hosted.
Ted Alexandro is a stand-up comedian from New York City. He has appeared on most late night talk shows and has had his own half-hour specials on Comedy Central.
Elayne Boosler is an American comedian, writer, and actress.
Norman Gene Macdonald was a Canadian stand-up comedian, actor, and writer whose style was characterized by deadpan delivery and the use of folksy, old-fashioned turns of phrase. He appeared in many films and was a regular guest on late-night talk shows, where he became known for his chaotic, yet understated style of comedy. Many critics and fellow comedians considered him to be the ultimate talk show guest, while prominent late-night figure David Letterman regarded him as "the best" of stand-up comedians.
Allan Havey is an American stand-up comic and actor. He started his career as a comedian in New York City in 1981.
The Dennis Miller Show is an American syndicated late-night talk show created by and starring comedian Dennis Miller. The show launched in January 1992 and was hosted by the former Saturday Night Live Weekend Update anchor as an attempt by syndicator Tribune Entertainment to carve out a niche in the late-night television landscape; an opportunity to do so was anticipated due to Johnny Carson's retirement from The Tonight Show that May and his replacement by Jay Leno. Miller's show was unable to build a significant audience, however, and was cancelled after seven months.
Mitzi Shore was an American comedy club owner. Her husband, Sammy Shore, co-founded The Comedy Store in 1972 and she became its owner two years later. Through the club, she had a huge influence on the careers of up-and-coming comedians for many decades.
The ECNY Awards were created by Derrick Gordon to honor rising stars in the New York Comedy world in various genres, including sketch, stand up, improv, musical comedy acts, and video. The awards ran from 2003 to 2011, with the exception of a hiatus in 2006. Nominees are selected by New York audiences and an Industry Committee, and the general public votes online to determine the winners, who are announced at an awards show gala each year.
Jimmy Brogan, sometimes credited as Jim Brogan, is an American stand-up comedian, writer and actor. He has made numerous standup appearances on the talk show circuit including The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and Late Night with David Letterman. He was a writer on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno for 9 years. As an actor, he starred in the ABC sitcom Out of the Blue.
Dying to do Letterman is a 2011 documentary film, directed by Joke Fincioen and Biagio Messina, and produced under their Joke Productions banner. The documentary follows the journey of Steve Mazan, a stand up comedian with the lifelong dream of performing a comedy routine on the Late Show with David Letterman.
Adrianne Tolsch was an American comedian. Tolsch's comedy style is bold, conversational, and covers broad topics. She made jokes about life as a middle-age woman, her sex life, her Jewish identity and Jewish family, and life experiences. She was long associated with the Catch a Rising Star comedy club in New York City, as a performer, club manager, and the club's first woman emcee. She was a headliner at many major comedy clubs in the United States and toured domestically and internationally. She also performed on Broadway and in cabaret shows and was a graphic artist. She was married to fellow comedian and writer Bill Scheft. The two toured together in the United States and co-produced the documentary film Take My Nose... Please!
Barry Katz is a television producer, film producer and talent manager. He was the owner and founder of the Boston Comedy Club in New York City and helped launch the careers of many successful comedians, including Bill Burr, Dane Cook, Louis C.K., Kevin Brennan, Bert Kreischer, Wanda Sykes, Dave Chappelle, Whitney Cummings, as well as Saturday Night Live alumni Jay Mohr, Jim Breuer, Darrell Hammond and Tracy Morgan.
The roots of modern stand-up comedy began in 1840s minstrel shows that perpetuated racist stereotypes in the United States. American vaudeville emerged around the same time and along with the later developed Chitlin' Circuit, produced the founders of this form of entertainment. Early stand-up comedians spoke directly to the audience as themselves without props or costumes, which distinguished these acts from vaudeville performances. These comics stood in front of the curtain during their shows, like early 20th century "front cloth" stand-up comics in Britain and Ireland whose numbers allowed the stage behind them to be re-set for another act.
