February 2011 Archives

Benjamin Walker has at least three excellent reasons to look on the bright side of life: (1) He scored a personal triumph and was acclaimed as a new Broadway sex symbol for his title-role performance in Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson; (2) he's now poised to become a movie star, having been selected to play yet another bizarro version of a U.S. president in the upcoming film Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Killer; and (3) he's engaged to Mamie Gummer, a talented young actress who happens to be Meryl Streep's daughter.

So it makes sense that Ben is in a mood to preside over mirth-inducing festivities as the host and creator of the monthly comedy showcase Find the Funny. Joe's Pub at The Public Theater is where you'll find him and his friends on Tuesday evening, March 1 at 9:3pm, all of them doing their best to chase away whatever blues you may have and get you groaning with laughter. I recently grabbed a few minutes with Ben to discuss this project, about which he is very passionate.

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BROADWAYSTARS: I'm all jazzed-up for my first experience of Find the Funny! Joe's Pub sounds like a great venue for the show, but you didn't start out there.

BENJAMIN WALKER: That's right, we started at a little bar in the East Village called Jimmy's Number 43. We hopped around to a number of different places; we were at The Tank. And then we had an opportunity to move to the Pub.

STARS: What exactly is your role in the proceedings, aside from hosting?

BEN: I do a little stand-up and some videos with collaborators, and I book the show. It's really just a community of young, funny people. I've been doing comedy since I was in college at Juilliard.

STARS: Before your acting career took off, did you ever consider going into comedy full-time?

BEN: Not really, but I've always been interested in actors who do comedy. At Juilliard, they don't allow you to perform for the public for the first two years, and that really started to wear on me. So I started doing open-mic nights and I started getting booked in comedy clubs over a period of time. I found that there's no real community for funny people and comics in New York, so I've been trying to build one for myself and the comics I admire.

STARS: Can you describe the content of a typical show, for those who haven't seen it?

BEN: We do a lot of multimedia. We also have clowns, stand-up, sketch artists, musicians. It's important to us to keep the ticket prices low. Comedy shows in New York are so expensive that it's hard to work material, because if you're at a club that charges a lot of money, you need the material to be really polished. Find the Funny is meant to be a place where people can try different things. And because we keep the price of admission so cheap, it can be a little more on-the-edge and a little more progressive than what you find at most comedy clubs.

STARS: Your tickets are $10. That's not funny -- it's fantastic.

BEN: It's not bad for Joe's Pub, and certainly not bad for comedy in New York.

STARS: Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson was hilarious, but some of the other shows you've done had precious few laughs in them: Inherit the Wind, an early workshop of Spring Awakening...

BEN: That's a very good point! A real comic goes on the road or finds his way through comedy in a very different way than I have done. I definitely think I'm an actor masquerading among comics, doing my best impression of a comedian.

STARS: I imagine that when you're in a heavily dramatic show like Inherit the Wind, there's probably a lot of joking and fooling around offstage to break the tension.

BEN: Oh, sure -- but that happens with the funny shows, too. There's a lot of shenanigans offstage in a show like Jackson. And in that show in particular, the shenanigans usually found their way onstage.

STARS: I'm guessing that even serious actors like Christopher Plummer and Brian Dennehy can be silly and funny offstage.

BEN: Absolutely. The great thing about Find the Funny is that it lends itself to new people trying standup comedy and sketch comedy as a forum. There's a cross-pollination that goes on: What you learn in doing plays like Inherit the Wind can be applied to comedy, and what you learn doing stand-up can be applied to stage work. It's a honing of skills and an expansion of self-expression.

STARS: Who are some of the up-and-coming comics on your radar at the moment?

BEN: There's a young guy named Reggie Watts who really pushes the envelope in a very exciting way. He's done our show several times. I also like Barron Vaughn, Nick Kroll, Carmen Lynch, Pat Dixon, Stevie Robinson. I could go on and on. The thing is, it's hard for younger comics to find a younger audience. If you charge more than ten bucks, and you tack a two-drink minimum onto that, most people under 30 can't afford it. We think it's important to keep our show inexpensive, so it's accessible to as many people as possible.

STARS: By the way, do you subscribe to the famous opinion that "Dying is easy; comedy is hard?"

BEN: No, I guess I don't. I rather subscribe to the opinion that if you separate the death from the comedy, you're not funny. There has to be a healthy marriage between the bitter and the sweet.

STARS: Even before I heard about Find the Funny, I was struck by how amusing you were in some interviews you did to promote BBAJ. I remember one interviewer asked a question along the lines of, "What do you hate most in the world?" and your answer was, "Banana flavoring."

BEN: [laughs] Well, that's just truth as comedy.

STARS: What current things in the zeitgeist strike you as funny?

BEN: I'm really interested in advertising. TV commercials seem to be the way that big corporations tell American consumers what they think of us -- and, apparently, they don't think very much of us. I'm working on a bit about Pizza Hut's new campaign: "People love pizza, they don't love math." The campaign is all about how they've simplified their menu by rounding off the numbers, as if to say it's the complication of the math that's been keeping people from ordering their pizzas. I mean, it makes me laugh, but it's mildly insulting.

STARS: Are you a big fan of political humor?

BEN: I am, and the comics I like have very strong points of view, whether I agree with them or not. I think Jon Stewart is on a wonderful path. So many people look to him for their news, not to news organizations anymore. He had Donald Rumsfeld on his show the other night...

STARS: I saw that. Wasn't it amazing? Stewart still managed to be funny while making all of his points in such an intelligent way.

BEN: It was astounding. But that's what he does, intelligent comedy. It's comedy that comes from an awareness of self and American society. That's more important now than ever before.

STARS: Before I let you go, I have to ask about Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Killer. It sounds like a hoot. Do you think the movie will be at all similar in tone to BBAJ?

BEN: Frankly, we're in the early stages of it, so I'm not sure. It's definitely a stretch for me in the sense that it's going to be a large motion picture with a lot of action scenes. But ultimately, it is a movie about Abe Lincoln killing vampires. If there isn't comedy in that, I don't know where you'd find it.

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[For more information on Find the Funny at Joe's Pub, click here.]

A really fun party always seems shorter than it actually is, so I shouldn't have been surprised to hear that Jim Caruso's Cast Party has been going on for eight years. Stop in at Birdland (315 West 44th Street) any Monday night around 10pm and you'll be part of a unique open-mic event that showcases some of the world's top entertainers alongside talented newcomers.

On Thursday, February 17 at 8pm, Cast Party will migrate to The Town Hall for a one-night-only "best of" show that will benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. In addition to such regulars as Natalie Douglas, Jenna Esposito, and William Blake, the evening will be sparked by the talents of Chita Rivera, Liza Minnelli, Larry Gatlin, Marilyn Maye, and other stars of equal magnitude. Tickets are priced at a very reasonable $75, $50, and $25, which means that you can see the original Spider Woman and friends for only a small fraction of what you'd have to pay to see Spider-Man. I recently spoke with Jim Caruso about this red-letter event.

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BROADWAYSTARS: Cast Party at Birdland is always a blast. You must be jazzed about bringing your act to a large concert venue.

JIM CARUSO: It's very exciting. We've never done a "best of" night like this before. Scott Siegel called me and offered me a night as part of his series at Town Hall, and I thought, "I can't believe we've come to such a point in eight years that this is even a possibility." I'm so proud of the way Cast Party has taken off. You know, I tried to have a singing career my whole life. I beat the bushes, and I certainly did some nice things with my trio, but it wasn't till I turned the spotlight on other people that my career sort of took off. I never planned to host a weekly open-mic event; I threw a party at a nightclub that I was helping publicize, and everybody came and sang till three in the morning. The next day, the manager called me and said, "Would you do that every week?" I said, "No!" And here we are.

STARS: You've been at Birdland for seven of the eight years, but you did some venue-hopping before that.

JC: We started at The Supper Club [in the Edison Hotel]. Then they slammed their doors on us and we had to find another place really fast, because I also had concerts booked there. So we did Cast Party at Ars Nova for a month, and then for a month at a place called The Pink Room. Then we found our place at Birdland, and it was home sweet home right from the start. Evidently, there was a need for this. Who knew? I think what makes us unique is having musicians like Billy Stritch and Tedd Firth at the piano, and Steve Doyle on bass -- plus the fact that we're at Birdland, a world-class music room with an extraordinary piano and sound system. I certainly didn't create the open-mic concept, but we do it with extremely high quality. And because of my Rolodex, we have superstars coming in and mixing with housewives who get up and sing songs they've written about varicose veins. I always say that "some of the greatest singers in the world perform at Cast Party -- also other people." In a way, the "other people" are what make it fantastic. If it were all Broadway stars, they wouldn't seem so special individually.

STARS: There have been some awesome drop-ins at Cast Party over the years. People like, umm, Tony Bennett.

JC: Yes! He came to see a vocal group that performed for us, and he stayed all night. At one point, he got up on stage and said, "You kids are keeping the American Songbook alive! I can't thank you enough!" People in the audience were fainting. It was unbelievable. We've had other crazy drop-ins, like Phoebe Snow and Janis Ian. Nichelle Nichols from Star Trek showed up one night. She had been on The View that day, which was Martin Luther King Day; she talked about her friend and mentor, Martin Luther King, then she sang a gorgeous version of "Summertime." Thrilling. Oh, and Betty Comden made her last public appearance at Cast Party; she got up and sang "100 Easy Ways (to Lose a Man)." I'll never forget that.

STARS: I was happy to read that some of Cast Party's "usual suspects" who aren't necessarily household names are going to be featured in the Town Hall event.

JC: Absolutely. We only have a certain amount of time, and we needed to have a lot of big names to sell tickets. I'm over the moon that Liza and Chita are doing the show, and Larry Gatlin, and Marilyn Maye. But we are definitely going to have some of our regulars -- people like Jenna Esposito, who's been a regular pretty much every Sunday for seven years. And William Blake: He came in from Dallas and sang at Cast Party one night. Michael Feinstein was there, and he called me the next day and said, "Do you think that incredible guy would want to do Carnegie Hall with me?" I said, "Umm, I'll bet he would!" That was a huge thing to happen to William during his first year in New York. He's got an extraordinary voice.

STARS: Who else will be in the show?

JC: We're going to have Countess Luann de Lesseps from The Real Housewives of New York. She's the one who had a big dance hit with a song called "Money Can't Buy You Class." Now she wants to start a singing career -- and she's going to start it at Town Hall, sharing the stage with Liza and Chita and Marilyn Maye. We also have some unique acts: Rudi Macaggi is a comedian-slash-acrobat who was on America's Got Talent last season. He does the most bizarre act; he balances himself on five chairs, with his head on top of a basketball. There will definitely be some Ed Sullivan moments in this show. All we need is Topo Gigio.

STARS: I'm sorry to say that I'm old enough to get that reference! I can't let you go without talking about the one-and-only Miranda Sings, who's also on the bill.

JC: I saw her YouTube videos before she became a big deal. I started sending her hilarious videos to everybody I know, and they started sending them to everybody they know. She went viral and now has millions of hits. Anyway, I emailed her in California and said, "I think you're incredibly entertaining. If you're ever in New York, it would be great if you'd come to this Cast Party thing I do." I got an email back from her about seven minutes later. She said, "Oh my God, I know who you are! Just so you know, that's not me in those videos, it's just a crazy character I made up. I'm a pretty girl, and I can really sing!" About three weeks later, she got on a plane and came to Cast Party. I hooked her up with Danny Reichard, and she gave him a "voice lesson" on stage. That was the first time she performed live as Miranda Sings. Then she did a solo concert at Birdland, and now she works all over the world, packing theaters. She's a great person to have at Town Hall because she really started at Cast Party, and now she actually has a career -- much better than mine.

STARS: Well, the whole thing sounds pretty fab. Do you know yet what the big-name stars are going to be singing in the show?

JC: Yes, but I'm not going to tell you! Suffice to say that they're going to do things you want them to do. Nobody will be disappointed. We're still putting this together. I'm not sure if Liza and Chita are going to perform together, but wouldn't that be historic? Billy and I have talked, and we really want to keep this evening as informal and impromptu as it is at Birdland. We'll have some special guests who don't want to be announced, and I think there may some people who come right up from the audience like they do at Birdland. That's part of the fun. I don't want it to feel slick, because that's not who we are.

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[To purchase tickets for The Best of Jim Caruso's Cast Party at Town Hall, go to TicketMaster.com, call 800-982-2787, or visit The Town Hall box office at 123 West 43rd Street.]