Punchline Magazine Celebrates 5th Anniversary with Comedy Showcase Oct. 5 at Comix in NYC

PunchlineMagazine.com, an online publication devoted to comedy, celebrates its fifth anniversary this month with two star-studded stand-up comedy shows, in NYC and L.A. First, on Tuesday, Oct. 5 at Comix in NYC, comedians Michael Ian Black, Christian Finnegan, Todd Barry, Hannibal Buress, and others will perform to toast one the of the best online resources for comedy news, reviews, interviews, and more.

“I wanted to launch a site that was covering stand-up comedy the way other arts have been covered for decades before,” says Dylan Gadino, Punchline Magazine Editor-In-Chief. “I’m really proud of it. It’s gotten increasingly popular each year. I get the sense, for sure, that comedians like what we’re doing and respect what we’re doing.”

Gadino’s mission is to encourage audiences to appreciate comedy the way it should be: as an art form, the craft of practiced and talented performing artists. My thoughts exactly.

Christian Finnegan at Punchline's 4th Anniversary Show

“Writing about comedy always has its pitfalls,” says comedian Christian Finnegan, who is hosting Punchline’s 5th Anniversary Show at Comix on Tuesday.  “But there are people out there who love stand up comedy — it’s true, I’ve met them! — and they’ve been under-served for so long.  There are hundreds of magazines devoted to music, film, and literature.  But because the prevailing feeling has been that stand up comedy isn’t capital A ‘Art,’ it hasn’t been included in the discussion.

“Part of this is the nature of comedy itself,” Finnegan adds. ”The main goal of most comedians is to make what we do appear effortless.  So we can’t then be shocked when the world assumes it requires no effort.  Sites like Punchline highlight the fact that great comedy, the kind that lasts, is about more than just making fart sounds and sexually harassing bachelorette parties.”

Comedy Q&A with Andy Engel, Director of New Talent at Comix

Andy Engel is the Director of New Talent for Comix comedy club in NYC. Engel has been producing comedy shows in the city for more than two decades, including at Carolines on Broadway. In addition to his current role at Comix, Engel is also the founder and owner of the Manhattan Comedy School.

I spoke with Engel for the Comedy section of the Back Stage “Guide to New York Acting Markets,” which was published earlier this year. But he had a lot more to say about the New Talent Show at Comix. Read my Q&A with Engel to learn the importance of a good stand-up demo DVD, how stand-up comics can jumpstart their comedy careers in New York City, and why funny people need to keep getting funnier:

Is the Comix New Talent Show essentially an open mic?

Andy Engel: No, it’s not an open mic. I get referrals, and I screen people. Before we go any further, I’d like to say that actors can do my show. A lot of actors, and a lot of people taking improvisation, don’t necessarily want to pursue a career in comedy. But they realize the value of getting a great DVD doing stand-up.

So even though you encourage actors to perform at the Comix New Talent Show, they do have to have some proven stand-up talent.

They’d have to call me, so I would get a sense as to where they’re at. I mean, if somebody’s done five years of improvisation at UCB, I’m going to give them a chance to do stand-up. If I get somebody on the phone who has trouble speaking clearly and is only 18 or 19, I’m not going to put them up. But if they’re 18 or 19 and they can tell me the difference between Bill Hicks and Lenny Bruce, and they’ve really done their homework, I’m going to give that some consideration too when I give somebody stage time.

To talk specifically about comedians who are focusing on comedy as their career, a comedian just arrives in New York from somewhere else, what do you think is the first thing they should do?

Get a great DVD. A great DVD is going to be their calling card, their comedy resume in terms of getting an agent, getting a manager, getting casting people to look at them, getting into a comedy festival, getting noticed by the major college booker, getting comedy club owners to look at you. A DVD is the be-all, end-all. It’s rule number one: you have to have a great one.

New York’s Funniest Honored at ECNY Awards

Tom Shillue

The ECNY Awards, celebrating the best of the comedic performing arts in New York, were presented Monday night, March 8, at the city’s Comix comedy club. Fifteen awards were given out, in categories ranging from best male standup comedian to outstanding achievement in the field of tweeting.

For the third year in a row, Jon Friedman (“The Rejection Show,” “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon”) hosted the show. “It’s weird to choose a winner in comedy,” Friedman said before the ceremony, comparing the ECNY Awards with the previous night’s Academy Awards. “Comedy is so subjective, and any comic can simply have an off night on any given night. Or, as a comic, you can connect with certain people and not at all with others, no matter what day or night it is. Whereas with a film—say, for best picture—that film is exactly the same every time it’s shown.”

Among the past ECNY winners presenting awards were Kurt Braunohler (BBC’s “Penelope Princess of Pets”), Sara Benincasa (Sirius Satellite Radio), Leo Allen (“Saturday Night Live”), Pat Baer (UCB Theatre), Reggie Watts, Kumail Nanjiani (“Michael and Michael Have Issues”), and Michelle Collins (BestWeekEver.tv). Other presenters included Michael Musto (The Village Voice) and Andrew W.K., with a special video greeting from Michael Ian Black (The State).

Upon accepting his award for best one-person show early in the evening, Tom Shillue said of the raucous event, “The future of comedy is community. And that’s what this is.” Shillue then exceeded his 30-second acceptance-speech limit, was played off the stage with “Me So Horny” blaring from the speakers, and cursed everyone he had just thanked.

Last Night at the ECNY Awards

The ECNY Awards

“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again,” Jon Friedman began when he took the stage in front of a standing room-only crowd at Comix comedy club to host the sixth annual ECNY Awards last night. “The way to get a sold-out show is to nominate everyone you know for an award.”

The ECNY Awards (which used to stand for “Emerging Comics of New York,” but now means nothing — or, as Friedman suggested: “Elephants Can Not Yawn. But I googled it, and they totally can.”) were celebrated March 8 at Comix, honoring the best, funniest, and most creative performers, shows, and producers working in comedy in New York City. Nominees and winners were determined by a combination of public online voting and votes from a small group of industry professionals.

“What I enjoy most about hosting the ECNY Awards,” Friedman told me before the show, “is the energy and enthusiasm from the audience. The biggest challenge and drawback that I find is that there actually has to be winners and losers. It’s weird to chose a winner in comedy. It’s fun, and we work on it for three quarters of the year, and it all culminates in one night. That’s exciting. It’s a higher-stakes night than a lot of our usual backroom performances. It feels special.” Friedman hosted for the third year in a row, and past ECNY Award winners presented this year’s awards.

Kumail Nanjiani

Kumail Nanjiani, last year’s winner for “Best Male Stand-up Comedian” and “Best One-Person Show,” put the awards in perspective: “Last year, I couldn’t be here because I was in L.A. to audition for a part I didn’t get,” Nanjiani explained. “This year, I’m here, but I was in L.A. two weeks ago, to audition for a part I didn’t get. So things have just been happening much faster in my career ever since I won an ECNY Award.”

Guide to New York Acting Markets: Comedy

Kumail Nanjiani

Standup comedian Kumail Nanjiani relocated to New York City from Chicago in 2007 to jump-start his career. Fast-forward just two years, and Nanjiani has been named a comedian to watch by Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and New York magazine, writes for and performs on the Comedy Central series “Michael & Michael Have Issues,” has appeared on “The Late Show With David Letterman,” “The Colbert Report,” and Comedy Central’s “Hot List,” and is touring his standup act. This year he’s also developing a sitcom pilot for NBC.

And he did it with a little help from his friends. Nanjiani knew other Chicago transplants in New York, such as comedian Pete Holmes, and he’d opened for Zach Galifianakis on tour before moving to the city. As soon as he landed in New York, Nanjiani started performing regularly at open-mike nights, where he met and built relationships with more-established comics like Eugene Mirman and Michael Showalter.

“It was sort of lucky, where I had known the right people coming here, and then once I did shows, I always had the right people seeing me,” Nanjiani says. His rapid success is the exception rather than the rule, of course, but his career suggests the many opportunities available for comic performers in New York, whether their goal is standup, improvisation, or sketch comedy.

Etch a Sketch

Why comedy groups are descending on Gotham in June.

The competitive nature of acting in New York “puts this shield around you where you’re just ready to go out there and fight all the time,” says Jason Kalter, who is half of the sketch comedy duo Rue Brutalia. “But with comedy, if you see someone that’s funny and you like their stuff, you think, ‘I wish I could go there.’ Your first impulse is, ‘I gotta do something with them. I wanna make noise with them.’ “

Rue Brutalia is one of almost 30 sketch groups that will converge on New York’s Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre to make lots of noise at the fourth annual SketchFest NYC, running June 12-14.