Results tagged “show”

Monday nights have long been mentioned on LAist as, surprisingly, a great night for comedy. There’s Harold Night at UCB, the Armando Show at iO West, and plenty of other random shows around town to assuage your already work-weary brain. But there’s one show, in the heart of Los Angeles, that doesn’t really fit the Monday bill. It’s as established as the improv shows mentioned above, and has bigger names attached to it than any random show you’re likely to find. And yet, it still flies under the radar. Or, rather, it’s tucked away, both figuratively and inside the Hollywood Studio Bar & Grill at the Gower Gulch on Sunset / Gower. Hell, even the stage is tucked not-so-neatly into a corner, right by the entrance. But you’re not coming for the ambiance or even the food; you’re coming for the world class stand up. This is Tiger Lily.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was on tonight's episode of Jeopardy and interestingly enough, a full category was dedicated to his alma mater, UCLA. To say the least, he got a little too excited when answering the first question. Good times, good times.

              

It's been a busy couple of weeks for Pasadena's Armory Center for the Arts, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary year with the exhibition Installations Inside/Out. It began with skywriting art last week, followed up by eight public art installations around the city, an hour-and-a-half theatre show performed in a busy intersection during 15-second crosswalk-intervals and a large gallery show featuring and supporting Southern California artists.

       

I feel like I can't help but use a phrase from the lyrics to Brooklyn-based Chairlift's most well-known song to describe how I feel in putting together a write-up of their show this Wednesday night at the Troubadour: "I tried to do handstands for you."

Lately, at iO West on Tuesday nights, a strange thing has been happening: they’ve been stacking the deck. With Monday nights as their cream-of-the-crop Armando shows and Saturdays reserved for Beer Shark Mice or some other formidable team, it would be entirely possible for iO to experience a bit of the mid-week improv doldrums. But instead, with the last three Harold Competition champion teams running back-to-back-to-back, Tuesdays at iO are becoming a great go-to for improv in Los Angeles.

For over twenty years, when Culver City-based theatre collective The Actors’ Gang has spoken, Los Angeles theatergoers have listened, and with good reason. The shows that are produced in the tiny Ivy Substation are often on par or well above the other high-gloss production shows you can pay twice as much money for around town. Not that their works are expansive (or expensive) shows with all sorts of modern theatrical trickery; in fact, the Gang just lets their acting do all the talking for them. And, again, we listen.

This week's Last Laugh is a good mix of stand up, sketch, and improv. There's a couple not-very-often shows you should get involved with, as well as some stuff that just sounds great or is always worth it, like Benson Interruption. California is giving out IOUs because we can't pay our bills, but that shouldn't stop you from maxing out your credit cards with some comedy this week. And, as always, hit a guy up if you want to see your comedy listing here.

A lot of what is often missing from sketch shows, as opposed to improv, is that organic moment of discovery. With lines, there’s security and safety... which explains why half the hosts of Saturday Night Live manage to make it through without looking like COMPLETE douches. If you want the dangerous side of scripted live comedy, you’re really going to have to look towards UCB’s show Sketch Cram, where they write and perform the show in only 12 hours. But that’s once a month and is wholly comprised of veteran writers and improvisors. Try doing a live show where you get your lines two hours before the lights go up, your teleprompters are only 50% reliable, and you’ve got a host performer for the evening who may not have ever done a sketch show in their life. And it has to be good. Sweating bullets yet? Good. Welcome to Fries On The Side.

If you live in Los Angeles and you like to see cheap comedy, more than likely you’re spending your time and money in the ‘alternative comedy’ scene, for better or worse. Now, I’ll be the first to promote the benefits of lesser known comedians in more intimate venues, but every once in a while it’s nice to take a step back towards more mainstream comedy, just to retest the waters and see if you really still find the same things funny. Enter Adam Ferrara. As a stand up comic, Ferrara has been around for years, honing his craft on stage in front of larger and larger audiences and, as of late, working on the the FX show Rescue Me. On June 12th, Ferrara will be taking a slice of airtime on Comedy Central to show his new stand up special, Funny As Hell.

This week is a great one for comedy, as a lot of heavy hitters are performing all over town. the Comedy Central Stage is getting a lot of love, as is Largo with back to back nights featuring Aziz Ansari and Sarah Silverman. Beer Shark Mice is back at iO, and Harold Night tonight at UCB promises great things. I will too, if you send me a link to the show's you're interested in and want to hype. Hit me up.

Around Los Angeles, Largo has long been known as a solid comedy spot to see great people doing exactly what made you love them in the first place. Six months ago, you probably wouldn’t have found as much experimental comedy going on there as you do know, and that is certainly a good thing. Lately, it seems, Largo is undergoing another comedy renaissance; with the arrival of the Doug Benson Interruption, the emergence of Largo from a once-or-twice-a-month spot into a weekly venue for great laughs is becoming unavoidable, and completely welcome. The Reno 911! Benefit Show last Wednesday is a great example of where Largo is headed, and the future looks bright.

iO West, formerly of the ‘ImprovOlympic’ namesake, has been a true comedy institution in Los Angeles for more than a decade, and it’s heritage with the original Chicago outlet goes back much further. From Chris Farley to Bill Murray and every Tim (Meadows), (Andy) Dick, and Del (Close) in between, iO has been an instructional springboard for many famous names and thousands more who just want to learn the art of improv.

Next Saturday in nearby Sin City the legendary pairing of Siegfried and Roy will take to the stage in an event billed as both "a comeback and a farewell," explained LA Unleashed on Friday. The duo have not performed since Roy was mauled by one of the tigers in their show in 2003. Although there will be magic inside the Bellagio, there will be protesting outside, thanks to PETA, who have plans to "gather outside the Bellagio holding signs that read 'Retire the Tigers' and 'Make Animal Acts Disappear,'" in the hopes of urging the retirees to send their animals to a sanctuary. PETA elaborates: "Siegfried and Roy have made a fortune, and they owe it all to their exploitation of these tigers. The least that they can do is retire the animals to a sanctuary where they can live out their lives in peace and never be beaten, mistreated or caged again."

As Tall As Lions have been in town recording an album they hope to wrap up in the next few weeks, and are going to play some new stuff--and old--at a free show this Wednesday night at the Troubadour.

Don't let the rain get you down this week. Get out there and enjoy yourself some comedy! There's Sarah Silverman, Andy Daly, Brendon Burns, Maya Rudolph, Jon Lajoie, John Pinette, just to name a few. Hit me up here to promote your own show.

       

I went to the Troubadour on Tuesday night on a mission. I was going to try and solve once and for all one of rock n' roll's great mysteries. Why is Razorlight so huge in Europe? Razorlight first emerged on the scene in 2004 with their debut album Up All Night. That album reached number three in the charts in the UK and barely cracked them here despite good reviews. So while in Europe, Razorlight sells out stadiums, in Los Angeles they can still play at the Troubadour.

Improv, if you're not familiar, is a pretty scary thing; both for the audience and the improvisors. It's sort of an agreement between the two groups who fully acknowledge that SOMETHING is going to happen, but nobody's quite sure what, and in this regard it is unique to other forms of conventional comedy. And even within improv, short-form (a series of small games - think Whose Line Is It Anyway? or ComedySportz), is much less dangerous than long-form, where only a few suggestions (or perhaps just one) spur an entire non-stop unscripted show. This is real pass or fail sort of stuff. And I am happy to report that Friday night iO West house team Roberto Alomar does quite a bit better than just pass. Often times, they soar.

While Alex Berg, Todd Fasen, and Alex Fernie would probably hesitate to call themselves heroes in any capacity (that is, unless they somehow saved a baby riding a puppy from getting run over by a truck full of hate and fireworks), the moniker does have a certain amount of applicability. In a staggeringly short amount of time, the three-man improv juggernaut named Convoy has risen through the ranks of the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre (UCB), going from weekly improv battle competitors to big-name Thursday night draws. 44 consecutive Cagematch wins in a row will do that for you.

Be sure to check out some of the great shows around LA this weekend, including Nick Swardson, Drew Carey, and Andy Daly. Definitely email Farley if you’d like to recommend any shows to get some love on LAist, and keep on tagging those Flickr photos in our pool with ‘lastlaugh’ to make sure it gets seen. Thanks!

We caught this photo of the car with images of women wrapped around it being installed into an art gallery earlier this week and had to find out more. The best source? Why the curator, of course. Kristine McKenna, a critic and journalist, curated SHE: Images of Women by Wallace Berman and Richard Prince, which opens tonight at the Michael Kohn Gallery on Beverly.

              

Dubbed as the World's Largest Tattoo Expo, the Body Art Expo took place last weekend in Pomona at Fairplex. Lots inking was to be seen--here's a little of what piqued LAist Photographer Tom Andrews' interest. The Expo will return to San Francisco in March.

Monday 12/29

Happy Hanukkah everyone! And Christmas is on its way, too! You're probably getting enough awkward laughter mileage out of your families this time of year, but if not, take a look below for some interesting tidbits that could keep you rolling through this most festive of weeks. And since things are slowing down for the holidays, be sure to let us know about your own shows in the comments section, or email Farley.

Gear up for a series of holiday-themed comedy shows and benefit events in the coming weeks. Luckily, there are also plenty of heathen shows for us ne’er-do-wells to give our money to for no good cause. And if you’ve got one you’d like to see here, email Farley or leave it in the comments below. And don’t forget to tag those big ol’ Flickr photos in the LAist Featured Photo Pool with ‘lastlaugh’ so we can slap them up here each week.

Latino Night, 8p Laugh Factory. Spice up your stand up. tml

It’s turkey week, so make sure you work off some of those cranberry sauce pounds by laughing extra hard. If you need help getting started, try checking this out. And don’t forget to add to Flickr’s LAist Featured Photo pool with any pics you want to run for the weekly LAst Laugh segment. Just tag it with ‘lastlaugh’ so we can find the hilarity and showcase it on the site.

Another stellar week of comedy in the Los Angeles area. If you know of / are in a comedy show you think we should be covering, leave it in the comments section.

Monday 11/10

This Sunday, October 26th, from 3:30pm until evening, the Los Angeles chapter of INCITE!, hosts SISTERFIRE LA, a Women of Color and Trans People of Color multimedia art performance showcase against violence, featuring local artists, musicians, and other creative souls.

The Black Crowes announced today that five concerts, including the ones at the Greek Theatre, The Bowl in Santa Barbara and at San Diego's Street Scene, have been canceled due to illness. "Despite our efforts, it is not possible to reschedule the canceled shows at this time. However, efforts are being made to reschedule these markets in early 2009. Fans are encouraged to obtain refunds from their original place of purchase," The Black Crowes wrote in an e-mail (posted in full here). Thank you to all who entered the contest to win tickets, we're sorry for the inconvenience. Another contest has been posted for this Sunday's My Morning Jacket show.