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Some twenty-odd years ago, a then-unknown comic named Richard Lewis graced the stage at Zanies, introducing a stand-up style that continues to lean on random tangents, lovable self-loathing (his 2000 book is titled “The Other Great Depression”) and Woody Allen’s fidgety neuroticism. Lately, it’s been pure joy to watch Lewis in a constant state of bickering with Larry David on “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” as the two basically play extensions of Lewis’ stand-up persona and of their real-life friendship. Riffing without direction on penis fatigue, hypochondria and his futile attempts for the bastards at Bartlett’s to recognize him for coining the phrase “[blank] from hell,” Lewis has turned his misery into comic delight. Returning to the intimate Zanies stage, he’ll have little room to pace freely with his usual restlessness, but there’s nonetheless something nostalgic and profound to see a legend return to his roots. (Andy Seifert)

April 15-16 at Zanies, 1548 N. Wells, (312)337-4027, at 7:30pm.

Nick Hoff

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As their name might imply, the Walk of Shame collective embarrassingly traverses from city to city without a change of clothes and in a persistent state of being hungover, smelling worse and worse after a month and a half without a shower. OK, it actually just implies this quartet of comics are irreverent kind of guys, disheveled at times but mostly telling jokes aimed at the college-aged audience (even hitting on subjects apart from vomiting and penises!). The tour features the sarcasm and skepticism of L.A.-based Brendan T. Gleason (who observes that apples and oranges are really quite similar, if you think about it), the easily excitable Nick Hoff (a much funnier, actually witty version of Dane Cook), Seattle-based Kevin Richards (Todd Barry-esque absurdity, but with hair) and the raucous, party-loving Law Smith. Four up-and-comers, four guys who could hit the big circuits and four times the nasty smell from living in a van for two months. (Andy Seifert)

April 5 at Zanies, 1548 N. Wells, (312)337-4027.

RECOMMENDED

Sometimes stand-ups claim artistic liberty to fabricate certain chapters of their autobiography or make overblown caricatures of their family members. But you don’t get that feeling from New York’s Ross Bennett, who can conceivably tie most his routine back to the quarrelsome relationship with his curt, simpleminded drill-sergeant father. Bennett’s delivery sounds like honest confession—a David Sedaris kind of storytelling without the irony—as he explains to you how he dropped out of West Point to become a comedian, a decision his father considered like “dropping out of the human race to be a cloud.” Another confession is his retelling of the day JFK was assassinated, when his weeping third-grade teacher dismissed the class, saying, “‘Children, go home, your parents will have something to tell you.’ I went up to my father and said, ‘Dad, Mrs. Lamb is crying, and she says there is something you want to tell me.’ And my father said, ‘she’s a liar and a whore.’” (Andy Seifert)

March 31-April 5, at Zanies, 1548 N. Wells, (312)337-4027.

RECOMMENDED

Remember that “Whose Line is it Anyway?” show? That British improv import hosted by Drew Carey that virtually always ended with Wayne Brady flailing around for cheap laughs? Well, as I recall, there were some pretty decent sketches once in a while, and most involved comic journeyman Greg Proops, whose unrelenting sarcasm and brash attitude constantly shattered the fourth wall. As a stand-up, Proops has a social/political bent; he timidly identifies himself as a San Franciscan with liberal leanings, willing to poke fun at hippies and stoners and derisively slam conservatives and fundamentalists. Delivery-wise, Proops uses gesture-ridden flamboyance to rip into what ails him, occasionally unleashing Dennis Miller-esque ramblings, like this bit on steroids in baseball: “There are a lot of fat white people who say, ‘rahr, Barry Bonds was a cheater, I like the old days.’ Oh yeah, the old days were great, where giant, obese, overfed, underpaid, mustachioed walruses clogged up the base paths like a pork rind in Dick Cheney’s arteries, yeah those were glorious days.” (Andy Seifert)

March 26-27, at Zanies, 1548 N. Wells, (312)337-4027.

“Y’know what I mean?” is one of those quick interjections comedians like to throw in for rhythmic purposes, but Norm Macdonald says it so often (it feels like approximately seventy times in a twenty-five-minute interview) that maybe he’s unconsciously asking, “Do you understand the joke?” See, Norm’s biting, occasionally offensive and/or incoherently mumbled style has been known to go over the heads of TV execs (see “The Norm Show”) and mainstream audiences (see his coldly received David Hasslehoff one-liners on SNL’s Weekend Update). So when douchebags and dimwits don’t get your jokes, you take ‘em someplace else: stand-up clubs.

“In terms of comedy, it’s preferable,” Macdonald says of the stand-up scene. “Travel sucks. Like I would do one room forever, I don’t really care where I am. But the only place you can do that is Vegas, and then they make you do the same material every time. Read the rest of this entry »

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The pride of La Crosse, Wisconsin, up-and-coming stand-up Shane Mauss (who now considers Boston home) packs non-sequitur nourishment into virtually every joke with a delivery style that sits somewhere between deadpan and Midwestern nonchalance. Expect Mauss to touch on his utter lack of machismo (“If ever I heard someone breaking into my house, I would just try to pretend that I was also breaking into my house”), the absurdity of death-predicting felines (“I think I could predict death, too, if I was a murderer”) and the intensifying homophobia existing within American pickup-truck marketing campaigns. “Every truck commercial is the same,” he says. “It’s like, ‘Hardcore just got harder-core. You can’t pull a 747 up a mountain with that gay turd hybrid of yours.” Already with three Conan O’ Brien appearances under his belt, Mauss has big-time comic headliner written all over him. Catch him while he’s still a relative nobody. (Andy Seifert)

March 12-15, at Zanies, 1548 N. Wells, (312)337-4027.

RECOMMENDED

As a twenty-plus-year veteran who’s done all the late-night shows from Carson to Conan, Jake Johannsen has built a career on being extremely likable and accessible. Observational humor mixed with Midwestern charm (funniest guy to come out of Iowa?) is the norm for Johannsen, who commentates on infomercials, gay marriage and Lance Armstrong’s fight against “nut cancer” with such casual delivery that you frequently think, “dude, I was thinking the same thing about nut cancer!” Johannsen seems most comfortable in the midst of longer, anecdotal monologues, able to roam in and out of subplots with ease. In telling a pretty straightforward story about a visit to the emergency room, Johannsen manages to throw in a joke or two about driving safety tips, the overall crankiness of nurses with clipboards, celebrating over a friend’s impending death, and the embarrassment of owning a flask. So, if nothing else, Johannsen has an uncanny ability to derive a plethora of jokes based on his plot. Unlike, say, a typical “Family Guy” episode. (Andy Seifert)

March 5 & 6, at Zanies, 1548 N. Wells, (312)337-4027.

RECOMMENDED

Of exaggerated and theatrical political satirists, few are as lovable and relevant as Will Durst, the fast-talking, quick-witted stand-up/writer, who’s stated he’s “too old for comedy clubs” (pshaw!). Like any bipartisan political humorist, Durst spreads the love, deprecating Republicans and Democrats alike (well, possibly a little more for the Republicans) and conveying his general dumbfounded incredulity at American social absurdities. At 56 years old, Durst may be the wise man of political humor, but he’s just as prolific as ever, contributing numerous columns to political blogs, magazines, putting up “Burst of Durst” YouTube clips, and spearheading a one-man off-Broadway show, “The All-American Sport of BiPartisan bashing,” featuring an exhausting, two-minute sentence expressing his parting thoughts on the George W. Bush administration (and, evidently, his love for compound modifiers). Here’s a taste of that sentence: “constitution-shredding, Halliburtoning, bicycle-falling, brush-clearing, monkey-faced, hunchbacked, pretzel-choking, draft-dodging, Hurricane-disregarding, oil-company-fellating…” And that’s before the first breath. (Andy Seifert)

February 24-March 1, at Zanies, 1548 N. Wells, (312)337-4027.

You don’t easily forget a persona like Brian Posehn’s, a nerdy, balding, unabashed metal lover who occasionally sports the beard of a reclusive woodsman and lovingly accepts the “creepy janitor” roles in films. Putting the face to a name, however, was another story. Despite twenty-two years of doing stand-up and a lengthy movie career, it’s only been recently that Posehn has emerged from anonymity. “For a long time it was ‘Hey, that guy is that guy,’” he says.

Not anymore. Now, only half of the gawkers vaguely recognize him. Posehn’s starting to get some name recognition, and for good reason—the guy works his ass off. His roles as the mail clerk on “Just Shoot Me” and as the homosexual-in-name-only Brian on “The Sarah Silverman Program” are just the beginning. Posehn’s resume includes a just-finished stint with the popular “Comedians of Comedy” tour; a 2006 stand-up record, “Live In: Nerd Rage,” featuring the satirical metal anthem, “Metal By Numbers,” and an upcoming just-recorded stand-up album (that could include a metal version of Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler”); a post-apocalyptic comic book, “The Last Christmas”; a music video director credit for glam-metal parody band Steel Panther; and an upcoming, uh, unique role in Rob Zombie’s animated feature, “The Haunted World of El Superbeasto.”

“I’ve known Rob for a couple of years now,” he explains. “I did ‘Devil’s Rejects,’ one of his live-action movies, and he just mentioned, ‘Hey, I’m doing an animated thing. Do you want to play a horny robot?’ Uh, pretty sure I was born to play a horny robot.”

“Horny robot” may be his role of a lifetime, but stand-up is still his most comfortable act, and—aside from his early Sam Kinison-inspired comedic style (which was “a lot of fake energy… yelling my punchlines and yelling my setups”)—Posehn has mostly made a career just by analyzing the loves of his life: metal, marijuana, horror movies and his wife.

“It’s changing and it’s going to change even more,” he says. “My wife just got pregnant, so already the act is transforming, I’m becoming one of those guys. I always said I wouldn’t. But I’ll try to still be funny when I become that guy.” (Andy Seifert)

January 29 at Zanies, 548 N. Wells, (312)337-4027.

What makes Chicago’s theater world special? We picked up the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly for clues. In the cover story, “CSI” star William Petersen explains his decision to leave his role as one of the top paid actors in television, earning a rumored $600,000 an episode, to move back to Chicago and Chicago theater: “It was too safe for me at this point. So I needed to try and break that, and the way to do that, for me, is the theater.” EW went on to credit Petersen for much of the show’s success, notably bringing a theatrical ensemble philosophy to play in its production. Or consider the runaway success of Steppenwolf’s “August: Osage County,” which transferred to Broadway,  receiving critical acclaim and multiple Tony Awards, not by shaking it up with Broadway “names” but instead by virtually transferring the Steppenwolf production intact, with the addition of lead producer and fellow Chicagoan Steve Traxler. What makes Chicago theater—or for that matter, Chicago dance or any other form of performance practiced on our stages—special? We’d contend it’s the power of the ensemble, the spirit of collaboration that champions artistic risk-taking and subordinates the commercial. And so, in that spirit, the critical ensemble responsible for Newcity’s ongoing stage coverage presents our take on the most influential people on and offstage in Chicago. Read the rest of this entry »