New York Comedy Festival Day 2: Jay Pharoah, Time Out Live, Set List, Julian McCullough and a sweet party
November 8, 2013 The Laugh Button Staff Features, Reviews
Day two of the New York Comedy Festival just kept on giving us access to some of the best comedy the city has to offer including NY vets and a peak at how the other end of the coast is living with Paul Provenza bringing his highly popular Set List to the East Coast for one night. We were at both UCB Theaters to see some of NY’s newest voices as well as spent some time with Julian McCullough who used to hang out in NYC all the time but recently made the move both to the West Coast and became a new father. We capped the night with a great hang with everyone at Comedy Central’s NYCF party where way too many friends were in attendance. New York, we love you.
TIME OUT LIVE @ UCBEAST
UCBEast was where Time Out New York’s Comedy Editor Matthew Love helped cultivate some of the city’s unique voices. For the NYCF he hosted his annual show of people that are established/budding stand-up comedians, unique performers or storytellers that are on the verge of breaking. This year TONY played host to voices like Totally Biased’s Aparna Nancherla and Guy Branum as well as great spot from Seaton Smith as well as the terrifically wacky Erin Markey. The night was topped off when Julian McCullough dropped in for a spot. McCullough was back in town after recently moving to the West Coast and becoming a dad. Good to see McCullough grace the NYC stages once again. But more on that later. – Matt Kleinschmidt
AN EVENING WITH JAY PHAROAH @ CAROLINE’S
Caroline’s on Broadway was where Saturday Night Live’s Jay Pharoah took the stage in front of a sold out crowd. Of course, impressions were in order and Jay did not disappoint. He did a lot of his characters from SNL including Obama, Shannon Sharpe and Shaquille O’Neil but also covered some of his influences including Eddie Murphy, Katt Williams, Bernie Mac, Charlie Murphy, Chris Rock, and Dave Chapelle. At one point he even pulled out his white girl impression!
He then spent a good amount of time discussing how in hip-hop today rappers can make an album about an omelet while impersonating Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Drake, and of course Jay Z. Jay’s most impressive impersonation however was of Wesley Snipes. I would describe it to you but I don’t want to ruin it so you will need to see it for yourself. If you haven’t seen Jay do stand-up, please do. The show stayed alive the whole time, there was crowd interaction and I didn’t see one person that wasn’t loving every minute of it.
Jay truly is a man of a thousand voices and it is incredible how spot on each and every one is. Apparently it pays not to be the outcast growing up and practicing voices on all of your imaginary friends. – Tim Hager
