An intimate evening with Ilana Glazer (and friends)
June 1, 2018 Nicole Morra Features, Reviews
Photo: Comedy Central
A month ago, the 31-year-old Broad City co-star Ilana Glazer announced she would be doing two solo stand-up performances as a warm-up for her shows in Australia in June, and for once they were not in NYC. You heard it right, Miss Yas Kween Yas came to little old Providence, RI, and New Haven, CT with friends Petey Deabreau and Shalewa Sharpe to do some long awaited stand-up.
Glazer’s show had attracted a crowd of variety to the historic, opera house esque, Columbus Theater. Every orient, race, and an age range between early 20s and mid-60s filled the 200 seats to the first out of two sold-out shows of the night. These are actual #facts seeing how Iliana took a literal poll of the crowd’s demographics before coming out and surprising the waiting audience while also tricking them into thinking she would be doing a two-hour act, but was just giving a killer introduction for two opening comedians.
Bronx native Petey Deabreau was the first to deliver some comedy goodness of the night. Within seconds of walking onto the stage, he connected with the audience and laughs were on repeat. As he has never been to Providence before, he shared some googled fun, but questionable, facts about the city, life in the Bronx, and his new ways of living. Deabreau’s set served an energy that got the crowd absolutely ready for the rest of the night. People throughout the theater immediately started to google his name post set in search for his podcast, Hope of the Hood, wanting more.
Fellow queen Shalewa Sharpe who has walked the stage of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon was next to keep the crowd going, and she did. Sharpe hit the crowd with jokes everyone was thinking but didn’t have the cojones to say out loud. She left not only the crowd, but the ghosts of 1920’s Columbus Theater’s past laughing at her realness.
The theater walls were shaking from applause and excitement when it was finally time for Ilana Glazer to bless the crowd with her curls of encouragement, her contagious giggle, and goddess given talent to make a crowd forget their problems, be happy and probably fall in love with her. She was serving the crowd jokes that the longer you thought about the set up the harder you’d laugh, to jokes that you didn’t even know you could relate to. Her set ran a little on the short side at just about 40 minutes, which to the crowd’s reaction, was not long enough. Ilana delivered more than just Broad City live, but a memorable night that hopefully opens up more opportunities for her solo stand-up side to shine.
