From The Comic's Comic

Catch up on Episodes #351-354, and everything else maybe

A three-day holiday weekend sounds like a grand time to catch up on my podcasts, and since it’s also time to ring in the Jewish New Year with Rosh Hashanah, even more so?!

I’ve kept up to date with Tuesday Transcripts for my paid Substack subscribers. If you’d like to read my podcast interviews along with bonus commentary, please consider upgrading!

For everyone else, please continue to enjoy listening to my podcast, Last Things First.

And if you’re not already subscribed to my podcast, seek it out and subscribe to Last Things First on the podcast platform of your choice! Among them: Apple Podcasts; Spotify; Stitcher; Amazon Music/Audible; iHeartRadio; Player.FM; and my original hosting platform, Libsyn.

Episode #354: Julie Seabaugh

Julie Seabaugh grew up on a farm and discovered stand-up when Dave Attell performed during her senior year at the University of Missouri, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism. In 2003, after moving to New York City, Seabaugh launched her earliest independent effort into comedy journalism with the online magazine, Two Drink Minimum. A career with alt-weeklies followed, with stops across the country from the Village Voice in NYC to the Riverfront Times in St. Louis, Las Vegas Weekly and LA Weekly. In 2018, she published her first book, Ringside at Roast Battle: The First Five Years of L.A.’s Fight Club for Comedians, and her love of Mitch Hedbergled to producing/hosting 2020’s Hope on Top: A Mitch Hedberg Oral Historyfor SiriusXM’s Comedy Central Channel. Seabaugh caught up with me over Zoom to talk about her latest project, co-directing and producing the documentary Too Soon: Comedy After 9/11, which premieres on VICE TV on Sept. 8, just before the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that took down the World Trade Center. Her film also will have a commemorative screening on Sept. 11, 2021, at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. Seabaugh spoke with dozens of comedians for the documentary, and now she speaks to me.

Episode #353: Tone Bell

Tone Bell is an actor, writer, and comedian from Atlanta who began his comedy career in Dallas before going Hollywood. Since winning the NBC Stand Up For Diversity competition in 2011, he has co-starred or starred in multiple sitcoms, starting with Whitney on NBC and including  Bad Judge, Truth Be Told, Disjointed, and Fam. His film credits include Sylvie’s Love, Little, Dog Days, and The Weekend. Bell also has gotten to portray the legendary comedian Richard Pryor in the BET series, American Soul, and recently co-starred in the award-winning movie, The United States vs. Billie Holiday. which he jokes about on his second comedy album, One Night in Austin. Bell caught up with me over Zoom to talk about all of this and more.

Episode #352: Michael Hartney

Michael Hartney is an actor, writer and comedian who was the final artistic director for the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre when it shuttered its New York City operations in 2020, and one of the founding members of the nonprofit Squirrel Comedy Theatre. Hartney created the roles of Stanley and Mr. Williams in the original Broadway cast of School of Rock the Musical, and on TV, he has appeared on 30 Rock, The Politician, The Break with Michelle Wolf, and Throwing Shade, where he also served as a staff writer. He has been a Comedy Central Comic to Watch, a New Face at the Just For Laughs festival in Montreal, and he can be seen every Wednesday night hosting Characters Welcome, a streaming character comedy show. Hartney joined me over Zoom to talk about how he has navigated through the end of the UCB in NYC to the launch of the Squirrel Comedy Theatre, and everything in between.

Episode #351: Phil Wang

Phil Wang was one of only two comedians from outside the United States to be invited to perform as part of Netflix’s The Comedy Lineup series in 2018. Born in England but raised in Malaysia until he returned to the U.K. at age 16, Wang graduated from the University of Cambridge with an engineering degree and the prestige of serving as a president of the Footlights, the legendary campus comedy troupe whose other past presidents have included Peter Cook, Eric Idle, Hugh Laurie and Douglas Adams. For his part, Wang’s credits have focused mostly on stand-up, releasing two previous specials for free on YouTube, making the rounds of the British comedy panel series, and guesting on series seven of Taskmaster. Philly Philly Wang Wang broke ticket-selling records at the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and he intended to film it for Netflix in May 2020, but had to put it off for a year due to the pandemic. Wang sat down with me to talk about his career and comedy philosophy.