Jenny Gorelick
The Comic's Comic Presents Last Things First
Jenny Gorelick is a comedian, author, actress and former Jersey girl based in New York City. She performs monthly at Club Cumming at her signature show Love, Sex, & Magic and played an adoring fan of “THE Che Diaz” in And Just Like That. Her personal essays and humor pieces have appeared in The New York Times' Modern Love, Cosmopolitan, McSweeney's, and the New Yorker's Shouts & Murmurs, all of which led to a book deal for The Book of Red Flags. Gorelick joined me over Zoom from Edinburgh to talk about what she learned from her first Fringe production — the two-hander Billy &...
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Kimmy Gatewood
The Comic's Comic Presents Last Things First
Kimmy Gatewood is a comedian, actress and director whose newest project is directing the 2026 movie Descendants; Wicked Wonderland, the fifth installment in Disney’s musical cinematic universe following the teenage children of classic Disney villains. She previously has directed episodes of Ghosts, Girls5Eva, Going Dutch, and Sesame Street, the latter of which earned her a Daytime Emmy win in 2021. In front of the camera, Gatewood’s credits include multiple appearances on Conan, a small role on the film adaptation of Jersey Boys, a recurring role on Netflix’s Atypical, and three seasons...
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Michael Cruz Kayne
The Comic's Comic Presents Last Things First
Michael Cruz Kayne is a comedian, actor and writer based in NYC. He wrote for the last six seasons of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where he’s an Emmy nominee again in 2026. At the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, he co-wrote and starred in Terrible Babysitters, a 2013 webseries with D’Arcy Carden, and directed Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson in their two-person musical, Fucking Identical Twins, which ultimately became the 2023 feature film, Dicks: The Musical. You may have seen Michael Cruz Kayne in a supporting role on Severance, or seen him tell jokes on Late Night with Seth...
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Jourdain Fisher
The Comic's Comic Presents Last Things First
Jourdain Fisher is a Brooklyn-based comedian who has written for 50 Cent’s BET sketch comedy series, 50 Central, appeared on After Midnight, and performed stand-up on both Comedy Central and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. His debut self-produced hour Bits & Pieces premiered exclusively on 800 Pound Gorilla’s new streaming service, , in May 2026 with a worldwide YouTube release slated for June 2026. Fisher sat down with me over Zoom to talk about the economics of stand-up comedy today, how much the comedy landscape has changed in the decade since...
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Emmy Blotnick
The Comic's Comic Presents Last Things First
Emmy Blotnick is a New York-based comedian who has written for and performed on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. You may also have heard her joking multiple times on NPR’s Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! or seen her performing stand-up on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Conan. Her writing credits are even longer and more varied, including not just Colbert and Fallon, but also The President Show, Mel Brooks’s History of the World: Part II, English Teacher, Bust Down, Pause with Sam Jay, Nikki & Sara Live, Not Safe with Nikki Glaser, plus a few...
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Leslie Liao
The Comic's Comic Presents Last Things First
When Netflix held its first-ever Netflix Is A Joke festival in Los Angeles 2022, stand-up comedian Leslie Liao was working for Netflix in human resources and had to buy tickets to see shows in the festival. For the second Netflix Is A Joke fest in 2024, Liao had just quit her day job, and her former Netflix co-workers paid to see her headline a festival show. In May 2026, she was already booked elsewhere, and celebrating the release of her debut comedy special, Silky Smooth, out now through 800 Pound Gorilla Media. She caught up with me over Zoom to talk about the art of writing hyperlocal...
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Nish Kumar
The Comic's Comic Presents Last Things First
If you listen to Pod Save The UK or The Bugle, or you watch Taskmaster, then I don’t have to explain Nish Kumar to you. The British comedian — twice nominated for Best Show at the Edinburgh Fringe — sat down with me over Zoom to talk about his new stand-up special, Nish, Don’t Kill My Vibe, out now via 800 Pound Gorilla Media. Kumar spoke about how this special allowed him to experience America in a new way, how Chris Rock inspired him as a teenager, how podcasts have distorted the economic reality of making a living as a comedian, algorithms as the new gatekeepers, and how it...
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Kelly MacFarland
The Comic's Comic Presents Last Things First
Kelly MacFarland is a stand-up comedian with TV credits on NBC, Comedy Central and AXS Gotham Comedy Live. MacFarland also has performed at Denis Leary’s Comics Come Home at Boston’s TD Garden, and more recently put out a half-hour with Dry Bar Comedy and a set with Don’t Tell Comedy. Along the way, she also has released three comedy albums — her newest, Hot Gnome, she self-financed as a video special on YouTube in 2025, with the album released in April 2026 via Blonde Medicine. Kelly and I caught up over Zoom to talk about why and how she has so many newer projects — another...
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Joe Dombrowski
The Comic's Comic Presents Last Things First
Named one of Variety's Top 10 Comics to Watch in 2025, Joe Dombrowski first broke through in 2017 when he went viral for pranking his fourth-grade students and landed multiple appearances on Ellen. Now with more than 1.3 million Instagram followers, and another 1.6 million on TikTok, Dombrowski released his first hour special, Dad On Arrival, in April 2026 through 800 Pound Gorilla Media. The comedian sat down with me over Zoom to talk about those pre-Ellen years, when he was moonlighting as a spin instructor, and summer coordinator at the Detroit Zoo in addition to developing his stand-up,...
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Troy Walker
The Comic's Comic Presents Last Things First
Troy Walker is a writer for Jimmy Kimmel Live! who also wrote for Kimmel’s turns hosting the Oscars, but he came up through the Denver comedy scene while also graduating from law school and working in money laundering compliance. Walker returned to Denver to record his debut comedy album at Comedy Works. Esquire debuted in February 2026 via Blonde Medicine, with Walker joking about growing up in Colorado and eventually making his way in LA. Walker sat down with me over Zoom to talk even more about that, explaining what has made the Comedy Works in Denver one of the nation’s premier comedy...
info_outlineNamed one of Variety's Top 10 Comics to Watch in 2025, Joe Dombrowski first broke through in 2017 when he went viral for pranking his fourth-grade students and landed multiple appearances on Ellen. Now with more than 1.3 million Instagram followers, and another 1.6 million on TikTok, Dombrowski released his first hour special, Dad On Arrival, in April 2026 through 800 Pound Gorilla Media. The comedian sat down with me over Zoom to talk about those pre-Ellen years, when he was moonlighting as a spin instructor, and summer coordinator at the Detroit Zoo in addition to developing his stand-up, sketch and improv chops in the Detroit-area comedy clubs; how he convinced Louis Faranda at Carolines on Broadway to take a one-nighter chance on him as a headliner; the importance of establishing “My Straight Friends” as a monthly showcase at The Comedy Store in Los Angeles despite living in Seattle; and how much it meant to him to perform stand-up on the final season of Late Show with Stephen Colbert. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!