Comedy Issue

W hen Morgan Jay was cast on a prime-time TV show, he thought he’d finally gotten his big break.  A musical comic since 2007, Jay was sure his 2019 multi-episode appearance on NBC’s Bring the Funny would take his career from long nights and low pay to ticket sales and maybe even the hour-long comedy special of his dreams. While singing about the intricacies of modern dating and strumming along on guitar made fans of judges Chrissy Teigen and Kenan Thompson, it didn’t even “move the needle” on his career,…

T he first time Ethan Edenburg, Eric Jackowitz, and Tom McGovern hung out, they wrote a song. It was March 2022, and they were in Los Angeles, toying around with their instruments, when the conversation turned to what it would be like to have a midlife crisis while visiting Las Vegas.  “It’s a Sunday on the Strip. My divorced-ass moved to Vegas,” McGovern started singing as he played piano. “My wife left and took the kids. And it’s a good thing that she did ’cause they were annoying as shit.” Edenburg…

Comedian Catherine Cohen had a hole in her heart, and there was only one thing that could mend it: a visit from Dr. Love. Actually, any number of cardiologists probably could have helped, but it was Dr. Love at Mount Sinai on the Upper East Side who came to Cohen’s aid when she suffered a mini stroke last summer, which led to the discovery that she’d had a hole in her heart since birth, a condition called PFO. That her doctor’s name sounds like it belongs in a made-for-TV movie about a charming comedian stumbling…

W HEN KEVIN HART tells you to “stop being a bitch,” you listen. “He was like, ‘Put the grind in. Put the hustle in,’” says Druski, a viral comedian known for racking up millions of views on his made-for-social sketches. “‘Do the hard work, do the stand-up.’” But even though this legend of the craft was telling him how to advance his career, it wasn’t for him. “I didn’t have a love for it,” the comedian, 29, says from the Los Angeles rental where he’d spent the past six months, as he packs up to head home…

In stand-up comedy, silence typically equals death. You tell a joke and the audience laughs? Great. You tell a joke and they groan? Well, at least they were interested enough to respond. Tell a joke and … nothing? You may have lost the room altogether.  For Ramy Youssef, though, a joke greeted with silence allowed him to find his comedic voice, which has expanded beyond his stand-up to include creating and/or starring in a pair of acclaimed comedy series — Ramy on Hulu, Mo on Netflix — a juicy supporting role in…