Comedy Archives - Chicago Reader

Liz Miele, a young woman with long dark hair, is shown onstage, crouching with a microphone in her hand,

Liz Miele breaks it down

by Jack Helbig October 4, 2023October 4, 2023

Stand-up used to be a very white man domain. And the jokes you heard there were just the kind you would expect from a world dominated by verbally adept, passive-aggressive—or just plain aggressive—heterosexist white men: dick and sex jokes; ex-girlfriend jokes; racist, sexist, or homophobic jokes; jokes about getting bad service from waiters, baristas, airline […]

Arts & Culture

Comedic meditations

by Cristalle Bowen July 12, 2023July 12, 2023

Since making her network television debut in 2015 on Last Call with Carson Daly, Marcella Arguello has been annihilating crowds with her stand-up. A native of Modesto, California, who now resides in Los Angeles, Arguello is one of the hardest working comedians around. In 2023 she made her HBO Max half-hour special debut with Bitch, […]

Arts & Culture

‘Did you hear about this?’

by Dan Jakes June 14, 2023June 20, 2023

We don’t want to jinx anything, but when it comes to live performance, have the vibes this summer felt a little . . . dare we say . . . better? For a lot of queer comedic writers and performers, the answer is likely a resounding, “God, no,” which would be a fair response to […]

Bruce McCulloch stands center stage, wearing black trousers, a white T-shirt, and a long-sleeved unbuttoned plaid shirt. Behind him is a green tape reading "Sleep is remembrance."

Arts & Culture

Don’t ask why it’s funny

by Dan Jakes March 9, 2023March 9, 2023

A lot of funny people would call Bruce McCulloch a comedy legend—just none of them named “Bruce McCulloch.” For more than 30 years, the writer, director, actor, musician, and founding member of The Kids in the Hall has been an influential voice across comedy mediums. A punk aficionado with a love of the inexplicable, McCulloch […]

Arts & Culture

A whole mess of comedy

by Kerry Reid January 9, 2023January 9, 2023

When I was in theater classes at Columbia College Chicago back in the Pleistocene era (i.e., the late 1980s), certain reverse-snob assumptions came out from time to time about the Theatre School at DePaul (which had changed its moniker a few years earlier from the Goodman School of Drama). DePaul was, to us, the high-toned […]

Arts & Culture

The Sklar Brothers—like you—would like to ring in a better, happier New Year

by Matthew Sigur December 27, 2021January 1, 2022

The last time the Sklar Brothers performed stand-up on New Year’s Eve was more than a decade ago in Sacramento, according to Randy Sklar. Known for their quick banter as seen on cult TV show Cheap Seats on ESPN Classic, and as co-hosts of the podcast Dumb People Town, the twin brothers who perform together […]