The Comic's Comic Presents Last Things First
Last Things First asks comedians and funny performers about the historic lasts and firsts in their lives as their comedy careers have blossomed.
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Ruby Karp
10/14/2026
Ruby Karp
Ruby Karp made her debut on the Upright Citizens Brigade stage when most kids her age were barely out of kindergarten. By the age of 8, Ruby had appeared on Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls at the Party webseries and had become a regular monologist for the UCB’s premier improv showcase, ASSSSCAT. At 10 she began writing columns for the website, Hello Giggles, and at 13, she went viral for writing about how kids her age were most definitely not on Facebook. Now 26, she has released her first comedy special, Ruby Karp: I Don’t Trust Adults, on VEEPS. She caught up with me over Zoom to talk about how the grown-up comedians at the UCB turned out to be better role models than other adults, how she realized her childhood was different even from traditional child actors, how she eventually left New York City for college, then jobs making videos for Betches, CBS’s After Midnight with Taylor Tomlinson, and a supporting role on camera for The Charlie Puth Show on the Roku Channel. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
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Alaina Bamfield
10/07/2026
Alaina Bamfield
Alaina Bamfield is a Brooklyn-based stand-up comedian from Lansing, Michigan. She self-financed and filmed her debut comedy special, Untouchable, at The Independent Comedy Club just north of Detroit. Untouchable, which debuted on on June 7, 2026, is a half-hour of jokes that almost exclusively touches upon her experiences as a survivor of sexual abuse, one of 139 victims who took former USA Gymnastics physician Larry Nassar to justice. Bamfield was a 13-year-old cheerleader with a skeletal condition when she was directed to Nassar’s medical offices, and 19 when Nassar was charged in court and she realized the extent of what had happened to her. She caught up with me over Zoom to talk about how she initially found comfort and catharsis in stand-up comedy, finding a comedy friend and mentor in Sam Tallent, why she decided to focus solely on turning her tragedy into comedy for her debut special, and what she jokes about onstage now to make sure her trauma doesn’t define her as a comedian or as a person. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
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Garry Starr
09/30/2026
Garry Starr
Blink and you might’ve missed Damien Warren-Smith’s Netflix debut, making a brief cameo onstage during the Stamptown variety comedy special. But New Yorkers can see all of him in the fall of 2026 as he has made his Off-Broadway debut with Garry Starr: Classic Penguins, a hit show at the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe and winner of best show at the 2025 Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Classic Penguins began its run September 3, 2026, at Studio Seaview just off of Times Square on West 43rd Street. Before becoming Garry Starr, Damien Warren-Smith was a young TV actor in his native Australia and a theatre actor in the UK. He sat down with me over Zoom to talk about finding his inner clown both during and after his time at École Philippe Gaulier, lending his name and money to the ISH Edinburgh Comedy Awards, and why he enjoys living without social media, whilst still having a social media team so he’s not distracted from the process of making new shows and art. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
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Elf Lyons
09/23/2026
Elf Lyons
Elf Lyons is a British comedian and writer who performs in both the worlds of stand-up and clown, having studied in France with the late Phillippe Goulier. Her 2017 show, Swan, received a nomination for Best Show at the Edinburgh Fringe, while her 2024 show, Horses, earned Best Show from both The (ISH) Edinburgh Comedy Awards and The Comedians’ Choice Awards. Her newest show, The Woman on The Edge, was the best-reviewed show of the 2026 Edinburgh Fringe, and earned her “Spirit of the Fringe” honors from The List, Scotland’s biggest arts and entertainment guide. Lyons is making her American debut with an off-Broadway run at New York City’s SoHo Playhouse, starting Sept. 24, 2026. She’s also teaching intensive workshops on clowning and bouffon techniques this fall at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. Before all of that, though, Lyons sat down with me over Zoom to discuss why she compares herself to an A24 film, her shows to concept albums, the importance of a strong work ethic, and how the Fringe has changed since the pandemic. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
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Stuart Goldsmith
09/16/2026
Stuart Goldsmith
Stuart Goldsmith is a British stand-up comedian who has performed on BBC’s Live At The Apollo (BBC), Conan, and Russell Howard’s Stand Up Central. He began his career as a street performer at age 17, and over the course of 32 years at the Edinburgh Fringe, has evolved into one of the world’s preeminent climate comedians, speaking at global conferences about our world’s ongoing climate crisis through his humorous perspective. His first climate-based comedy hour, Spoilers, won Best Show at the 2023 Leicester Comedy Festival, and his newest show, Canary, relates to his role as the proverbial canary in the coal mine. He’s taking Canary on tour across the UK this autumn. And he’s also more than 500 episodes into his own podcast, “The Comedian’s Comedian.” So what happens when the host of The Comedian’s Comedian podcast meets The Comic’s Comic’s podcast? Thankfully, we spend more time learning how not to compete, how to love comedy, and how to know that while we may not be famous, we can still be very special. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
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Dan Wilbur
08/17/2026
Dan Wilbur
Dan Wilbur is a comedian and author of two humor books, “How Not To Read” and “Never Flirt with Puppy Killers.” He released his first stand-up comedy album, Husband Material, in 2023, has been featured on CollegeHumor, McSweeney’s and Someecards, where he also worked as the Ecards editor. Wilbur sat down with me over Zoom to talk about the thrill and agony of getting a Tumblr book deal, how he disliked JD Vance even before realizing he could pull off a great Vance impersonation during the 2024 presidential campaign, and how his comedy life has changed because of it. In August 2026, he’s launching a new one-man show, “Hillbilly Allegedly,” that fills us in on the stories you haven’t heard about Vance with a town hall format to take your pressing questions. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
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Chloe Radcliffe
08/10/2026
Chloe Radcliffe
Chloe Radcliffe is a comedian and actress most recently seen on the big screen playing a comedian and magician opposite Will Arnett and Bradley Cooper in the film, Is This Thing On? Radcliffe is based in New York City but came up out of the Twin Cities comedy scene in Minnesota. Over the past couple of years, she landed on a bunch of comedy watch lists, from Just For Laughs’ New Faces to Deadline to Vulture. Her TV credits include The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and After Midnight with Taylor Tomlinson. She hosts her own comedy chat series, In Tandem, where she interviews a comedian who’s sitting behind her while riding a tandem bicycle. A second season of In Tandem is forthcoming later in summer 2026. Radcliffe sat down with me over Zoom to talk about all of that, as well as her one-person show, CHEAT, which she first brought to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2023 and is developing for an off-Broadway run in 2026, as well as for a TV adaptation. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
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Jenny Gorelick
08/03/2026
Jenny Gorelick
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 & The Situation with fellow comedian Gabby Bryan — as well as what she learned from launching a comedy dating podcast in March 2020 with a then-unknown Devon Walker, and how her work on the Safe For Work side of OnlyFans speaks to the financial difficulties of making it as a working comic today, including putting up the money for her solo Edinburgh Fringe debut, Sorry, which plays all of August 2026 at the Monkey Barrel in Edinburgh. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
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Kimmy Gatewood
07/27/2026
Kimmy Gatewood
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 on the Netflix series, GLOW, where she co-starred as one of “The Beatdown Biddies” with her tag-team partner Rebekka Johnson. Gatewood, Johnson and Sarah Lowe’s own comedy partnership goes back two decades to when they started a musical comedy throwback trio, The Apple Sisters, at The PIT in New York City. Gatewood sat down with me over Zoom to talk about her life and career, including her work as a digital producer for Nikki Glaser, directing a big franchise, and what comes next. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
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Michael Cruz Kayne
07/20/2026
Michael Cruz Kayne
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 Meyers. Ten years after one of his sons died shortly after childbirth, he went viral on Twitter writing about how he realized a decade later he needed to talk about his grief all the time — that ultimately led to an off-Broadway run with Audible for what became Sorry For Your Loss, released as a comedy special on Dropout in March 2026. Michael Cruz Kayne sat down with me over Zoom this past week to talk about his life and career and what comes next, even if the heat wave fried our Zoom in the process. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
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Jourdain Fisher
06/08/2026
Jourdain Fisher
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 he moved to New York City from North Carolina, how his Tonight Show debut led to a writing gig for Fallon inside 30 Rock, how the pandemic brought him back to Carolina but also gave birth to his social-media character, “Gangster Chef,” and why he doesn’t do Southern accents much in his stand-up but will pull out a killer Trump impersonation. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
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Emmy Blotnick
06/01/2026
Emmy Blotnick
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 roasts, including Netflix’s most recent live Roast of Kevin Hart. Her new stand-up special, What’s Her Secret?, premiered in May 2026 exclusively on the new streaming service, , and will be available on YouTube starting June 16, 2026. Blotnick caught up with me over Zoom to talk about her experiences behind and in front of the camera, how her new hour evolved over the course of four years, and how this special finally got her posting on Instagram again. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
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Leslie Liao
05/25/2026
Leslie Liao
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 comedy routines while performing on the road in far-flung places from Maine to Alberta, how she put aside fears of starting comedy at 30, and what it was like trying to balance her day job at Netflix with her nights and weekends developing her stand-up voice. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
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Nish Kumar
05/18/2026
Nish Kumar
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 makes a difference when comedians making fun of each other are friends versus foes. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
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Kelly MacFarland
04/27/2026
Kelly MacFarland
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 special, Wit Happens, is available for rent on Prime Video — how her career ambitions have changed since losing both of her parents, the ramifications of appearing as a contestant on the inaugural season of NBC’s reality-TV weight-loss series, The Biggest Loser, and what keeps her going in stand-up while living in the suburbs of Boston. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
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Joe Dombrowski
04/20/2026
Joe Dombrowski
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, 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!
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Troy Walker
04/06/2026
Troy Walker
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 clubs in the eyes of headliners and new comics alike, how he balanced one-nighters in Wyoming and Colorado with law school, and how seeing his peers enjoy success helped convince him to try to make it in Hollywood, too. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
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Maggie Winters
03/30/2026
Maggie Winters
Maggie Winters is a South Side Chicago comedian who came up in improv with iO and as a stand-up through Lincoln Lodge’s FemCom program, and she first found a wider audience online with millions of views for her front-facing character videos on TikTok and Instagram. 2023 was a breakthrough year for Winters, as she appeared as a recurring character assisting the youth group in HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones, as well as a “New Face” at Montreal’s Just For Laughs. That same year, she debuted her one-person show, Marguerite, which she took to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2024, and filmed in 2025 at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Los Angeles. The show combines onstage storytelling with video clips from her life growing up on the South Side of Chicago. Marguerite premiered on St. Patrick’s Day 2026 on the UCB’s YouTube channel, co-produced by Abso Lutely, and Winters sat down with me over Zoom to talk about her comedy start, adapting her show for people outside of Chicago, and what comes next. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
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Mark Vigeant
03/23/2026
Mark Vigeant
Mark Vigeant blends clown, improv, physical theater, and multimedia to create interactive comedy shows such as The Best Man Show, which he took to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2024 and 2025, and released as a special on Dropout in February 2026. Vigeant is based in Los Angeles, but started his career with the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York City where he performed improv and sketch, played Trumpet Boy for The Special Without Brett Davis, hosted a series online for Seriously.TV, and earned himself a screen-test audition for Saturday Night Live. Vigeant caught up with me over Zoom to talk about how his brushes with near-stardom, as well as his 2021 documentary about the “Pizza Rat” phenomenon, influenced his views on fame and ambition; how he was inspired by seeing other Fringe shows by the likes of Moses Storm, Natalie Palamides and The Umbilical Brothers, and how releasing a Dropout special has influenced what he’s doing next: a 2026 Fringe show about a YouTube survivalist called Out There. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
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Jamie Lee
03/16/2026
Jamie Lee
Jamie Lee is an Emmy-winning writer and producer on Apple TV’s Ted Lasso who began her comedy career in the press office of Comedy Central. Her first break in front of the camera came via panel shows, most notably MTV’s Girl Code, as well as performances on both Conan and The Late Late Show with James Corden. As a writer, her credits have included HBO’s Crashing, TV Land’s Teachers, Peocock’s Killing It, Hulu’s Chad Powers, and of course, Ted Lasso. Her book Weddiculous, led to her starring in the Netflix series, The Wedding Coach. But her current passion project is a stage show, My Friend Katy, investigating how and why her childhood friend died suddenly and mysteriously while Lee was in college. Lee took the show to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2025, and she caught up with me over Zoom in March 2026 between shows at Union Hall in Brooklyn as she prepares to adapt her stage show into a special. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
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Matt Koff
03/09/2026
Matt Koff
Matt Koff is a Brooklyn-based stand-up comic and Emmy-winning TV writer who has spent more than 13 years writing for The Daily Show. His own stand-up was featured on Adam Devine’s House Party on Comedy Central, and earned him the title of New York’s Funniest in 2023. In addition to his writing for The Daily Show, Koff also has written for The Onion, Trevor Noah’s keynote at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, and he co-wrote the former Twitter account, @. His new hour special, Cat Man, premieres March 10, 2026, on VEEPS, with jokes about divorce, middle age, and of course, cats. Koff sat down with me over Zoom to talk about his first big break in TV via the Game Show Network, an even earlier live theater project he worked on called Saturday Night Rewritten (which proved to be a great training ground for his writing for The Daily Show), and how he separates his often political comedy day job from the comedy he pursues in the clubs at night. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
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Steve Sweeney
02/13/2026
Steve Sweeney
Steve Sweeney is a comedian and actor from Boston’s Charlestown neighborhood who has performed on big stages and bigger screens for more than four decades. His newest project is Townie, a documentary-style stand-up film making its North American premiere at the New York Comedy Film Festival in February 2026. It’s executive-produced by Peter Farrelly, one of the Farrelly Brothers who previously have employed Sweeney in memorable supporting roles in films such as Me, Myself and Irene and There’s Something About Mary, where he played a cop confronting Ben Stiller’s zipper scene. Sweeney, who has his own intimate comedy club in Quincy, shared stories with me reminiscing about his performance on the HBO Young Comedians Special hosted by John Candy, attending USC with Judd Apatow, what he learned working with and befriending legends such as George Carlin and Rodney Dangerfield, how Colin Quinn pushed him to become more vulnerable onstage for Townie. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
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Kumail Nanjiani
01/09/2026
Kumail Nanjiani
A dozen years removed from his debut stand-up special, Beta Male on Comedy Central, Kumail Nanjiani’s fans can finally see him in a new hour, Night Thoughts, which premiered in December 2025 Hulu and Disney+. In between, he and his wife Emily V. Gordon received an Academy Award nomination for their screenplay for The Big Sick (and won Best First Screenplay at the Independent Spirit Awards). On his own, Nanjiani has earned two Emmy nominations (first for guest acting in The Twilight Zone, the second for his lead performance in a limited series for Hulu’s Welcome to Chippendales). He also shared in a Screen Actors Guild Award win with the cast of Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building. Night Thoughts finds Nanjiani in contention for his first Golden Globe, for Best Performance in Stand-Up Comedy on Television. His performance catches fans up on how fame has and hasn’t changed him, most strikingly by how the public reacted to his body transformation for Eternals, and then for their reaction to the Marvel movie itself. I caught up with Nanjiani over Zoom to see whether all of that therapy has translated into better mental and emotional health for him in receiving both validation and criticism from strangers online, and how he’s slowly become more comfortable putting himself out there in bigger and bigger pop-culture franchises. In 2026, you’re already guaranteed to see him in the second season of Amazon Prime Video’s Fallout, as well as the upcoming season 21 of Taskmaster. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
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Comedy MVPs of 2025 with Jason Zinoman of The New York Times
12/26/2025
Comedy MVPs of 2025 with Jason Zinoman of The New York Times
It’s the end of 2025, which means it’s time once more for my annual December to remember the year in comedy with my friend and colleague in comedy criticism, Jason Zinoman from The New York Times. Which funny people met the moment to become Comedy’s Most Valuable Performer for 2025? Late-night TV certainly faced a political crisis on top of its existing existential crisis this past year, with CBS jettisoning both of its late-night franchises, and ABC threatening to follow suit with Jimmy Kimmel. We also saw major push back within and outside of comedy regarding the inaugural Riyadh Comedy Festival in Saudi Arabia; the end of an era with Marc Maron closing the loop on his WTF podcast coinciding with the WTF-ness of video podcasting reigning supreme; the eccentric choices from the likes of Nathan Fielder and Tim Robinson; and a year in stand-up specials that smiled upon relative newcomers big (Hulu) and small (Dropout), with an uncertain future for HBO. As always, there’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
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Mike Bridenstine: author, director, and GM of the Lyric Hyperion
12/19/2025
Mike Bridenstine: author, director, and GM of the Lyric Hyperion
Mike Bridenstine appeared on this podcast three years ago in Episode 417. Since then, he has written and published his second book about comedy, “Kansas City Comedy: The Unbelievable True Story of Stanford & Sons, Its Outlaw Owners and the Most Infamous Stand-Up Sets of All Time.” Brido also has begun working behind the scenes as general manager of a cherished Los Angeles comedy venue, the Lyric Hyperion in LA’s Silver Lake neighborhood, where he and his team also have launched their own production arm, Spesh!, filming and distributing comedy specials. Brido directed the first Spesh! special, Emily Browning: Temporary, Beautiful, which came out in September. On the weekend before Thanksgiving, I sat in on the Lyric’s taping of a new hour from Ahmed Bharoocha, then met up with Brido the following day in Lyric’s green room to talk about where his own path in comedy has taken him, and what he has learned about talking with other comedians and working with them more closely. Brido — who appeared this year on an episode of High Potential — he has come a long way from Iowa and iCarly. Which means there’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
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Xhloe & Natasha
12/12/2025
Xhloe & Natasha
Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland met in high school in Maryland and have been making magical two-handed theater shows ever since. Now based in New York City, they have taken three shows to the Edinburgh Fringe since 2022, winning The Scotsman’s Fringe First Awards for writing for each of them: And Then The Rodeo Burned Down; What if They Ate the Baby?; and A Letter To Lyndon B. Johnson or God, Whoever Reads This First. At the end of 2025, they also began debuting their latest work-in-progress, The Doctor Was His Mother, which ditches their usual narrative arcs and sociopolitical commentary for some simply silly and laugh-out-loud physical comedy. Their work always blends absurdist clown work, modern dance and satire in a way that separates them from most of their peers working onstage today. In December 2025, they’re enjoying an encore run of What If They Ate The Baby? at the SoHo Playhouse in Manhattan, and joined me over Zoom from their dressing room backstage to talk about their writing process, how they had to gamble on themselves in Edinburgh before gaining any real exposure in the States, and what sets them apart from the rest of the clowns currently influencing the comedy scene in the mid-2020s. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
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Jono Zalay
11/22/2025
Jono Zalay
Jono Zalay began his standup career in Boston while simultaneously earning his Doctorate in Neuroscience, where his research work included giving cocaine to rats. Since dropping his science hobby to pursue comedy full-time, Jono has done standup for The Late Late Show on CBS, Netflix is a Joke, and LMAOF on OnlyFansTV. He also has worked behind the scenes as a story producer or consulting producer on Peacock’s Stormy Daniels series, CNN’s The United States of Scandal, and Amazon Prime Video’s This Giant Beast That is the Global Economy. Jono sat down with me over Zoom to talk about all of that, how he has pranked the DMV, and what made his latest comedy album so special. On Beat Life to Death, he jokes about reaching his midlife years and tells stories about his dad — which makes this extra special, since he recorded this, his third album, just days before his father had quintuple bypass surgery. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
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Jamie Linn Watson
11/14/2025
Jamie Linn Watson
Jamie Linn Watson is an NYC-based actor and comedian. You may have seen her as Joanna Roscoe in season 5 of What We Do in the Shadows, a judgy church girl in Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain, or as the Sprintern in many national commercials for the company formerly known as Sprint. Watson performs with the Upright Citizens Brigade on one of their house character teams, with former SNL cast member Chloe Troast on the improv team A Crazy Amazing Friendship, with the sketch group LISA, and goes on tour with the Story Pirates. She’s also the star of a new movie about the early days of online content creators — SKIT debuts November 14, 2025, on Tubi. Watson sat down with me over Zoom to talk about her own experience with YouTube and social media over the years, what she has learned from watching her peers succeed, and what kind of characters she loves to portray the most. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
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Saaniya Abbas
11/07/2025
Saaniya Abbas
Saaniya Abbas grew up in New Delhi, attended an all-girls Catholic school in the Himalayas, and only discovered herself once she found herself divorced in Dubai and starting a new life as a stand-up comedian. She amassed a half-million followers on Instagram hosting live videos in the pandemic, and as a comedian has toured the UK and India, and took her first one-woman-show, Hellarious, to the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe. Abbas and her furry cat ears have come to America in November 2025 for the New York Comedy Festival, but first she took some time out over Zoom to tell me about what she has learned from cosplay, social media and experiencing different environments around the world. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
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Lou Wall
09/29/2025
Lou Wall
Lou Wall is an Australian comedian whose two most recent shows were both nominated for Most Outstanding Show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Wall has appeared on Australian TV panel shows, and also appeared in the ABC Australia and Netflix series, Fisk. I’ve seen and reviewed all three shows Wall has taken thus far to the Edinburgh Fringe, from their breakneck breakthrough performance about their best frenemy in Lou Wall vs. The Internet, to 2024’s The Bisexual’s Lament – an hour of deranged PowerPoints, gay (derogatory) musical comedy and mentally ill hot takes. One of their bits from that show went viral, prompting them to write this year’s show, , which sold out its Fringe run and has brought Wall to New York City to perform for the first time in an Off-Broadway run at SoHo Playhouse. Wall eventually found a wall-free space where they could connect with me to talk about their life, career and how truth fits or doesn’t fit when it comes to great comedy. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
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