Bleav in The Comedy Bureau Field Report

Plenty is said about "safe spaces" and the effects they have on social discourse and, very specifically, comedy, but it isn't often that you actual hear from a legitimate safe space and the folks that built something to directly address rampant, systemic issues in the art form and community of comedy such as misogyny, exclusion, and even hack writing. Bobbie Oliver has spent several year...

We’re at the doorstep of 2023 and it’s only natural that we take a look back at what 2022 hath wrought in comedy. With such a task at hand, we are thrilled to have the one and only Megan Koester, both a treasured comic’s comic and a crucial voice in indie comedy, to do one of these annual wrap-up things that everyone does. Take a listen as TCB’s Jake Kroeger and Megan riff through 2022 with sarcas...

Sean Casey has successfully made LA comedy's coziest room with The Glendale Room and is now about to launch a brand new, NEW era of Silverlake staple, The Lyric Hyperion. Casey's long time experience in the LA comedy scene will absolute get Lyric Hyperion it back to being a jewel of Hyperion Ave. He already has so very many great things in store for the coming weeks and months (and changing up the...

While older, stodgier comedians (some of whom just came out with a Netflix special this week) will get hung up on pronouns, there is an ever burgeoning crowd of Non-binary comedians that eschew the gender binary and, consequently, have the best jokes about using they/them. Sammy Mowrey is a bright and shining example of this as they have carved out their place in LA comedy between a handful of the...

Whether it be MENA, MENASA, or SWANA or any other acronym, the several Middle Eastern, African, and Asian countries that constitute a version of "brown", so to speak, are coming more and more in prominence. This is evidenced with LA local favorite Lynn Maleh and her MENA based stand-up show Hilarious Habibis that she runs with Gena B. Jones at the Hollywood Improv. We talk with Lynn abou...

Johnny Gold, the oldest friend we have in comedy, is someone we hold dear not only because he gave us our very first laugh when attempting stand-up, but has been so purely his hysterical himself on stage and has such a reverence for the art form of comedy. For decades, Johnny has been honing his craft all over the Greater LA Area stretching from Long Beach to the Inland Empire to the Sunset Strip,...

Ariel Elias has been steadily worked her way up through the comedy scene in NYC for several years and was well on her way on the strength of her jokes. Then, a funny thing happened when playing a club in South Jersey that happen to go viral and then resulted in her having network TV debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live . We talk to Ariel about that whole amazing blaze of a journey and where she is now for t...

The look and feel of a comedy special has been largely subtle, unadorned, and stripped down for a long time. Thankfully, that is starting to change thanks to folks like Bo Burnham and this week's TCB Field Report guest, Hasan Minhaj. Fresh off the release of his latest, fantastic special  The King's Jester , we get into the finer points of how to redefine stand-up through reimagining how a special...

Comedy already doesn't lend itself to a typical lifestyle/routine, but it can become even more tricky when you, inevitably, take on multiple hats within comedy itself. We talk to beloved NYC comedy staple Chloe Radcliffe on balancing time between the journeys of doing stand-up comedy and comedy screenwriting. It's not so easy to juggle all of those AND get the doctor recommended amount of sleep al...

There is a narrative in the world of comedy that one must be going up as much as possible to be and maintain status as an amazing comedian. Jane Harrison stands in defiance of this notion as she is still one of the funniest people telling jokes in and around LA despite doing so rarely. In fact, she made sure to note to us that she hasn't been doing comedy a lot at this juncture in her life when we...

Curtis Cook , despite his own protestations and sometimes self-identifying as petty in own comedy, is truly one of the most thoughtful comedians around on top of being so damn hysterical and writing for several hit shows, the latest of which just happens to be This Fool on Hulu. This week's Comedy Bureau Field Report goes into the ethos of comedy and the relationship between one's intended joke an...

One of the oldest and most mysterious comedy clubs in LA is the revered Comedy & Magic Club in Hermosa Beach. Alternatively, one of the newest and yet also, incredibly mysterious comedy clubs is The Stand Up Comedy Club in Bellflower, CA. They exist on either extreme of LA County and one man books both of them, Richard Barrett. We talk to Richard about how exactly he pulls that off and what go...

Joel Mandelkorn remains as both the frequent guest of this podcast and one of the most highly regarded comedy producers out there. One of the most notable shows he produces, Hot Tub with Kurt & Kristen, is still in hiatus, but we catch up with him in what he gleefully calls the "slow apocalypse" and eek out some hot takes on what's going on in comedy at large including The Daily Show...

Born from the roughs of a chance meeting at an open mic, NYC comedy darlings Dylan Adler and Kelly Bachman found both peace and an indelible comedy partner. Together, they made, for our money, one of the best hours of comedy this year and certainly one of the best albums/specials about trauma,  Rape Victims Are Horny Too . This week's TCB Field Report talks to the freewheeling duo of survivor come...

It's a very small group of folks that manage to tape a special at one of Australia's most heralded landmarks, the Sydney Opera House. One of those esteemed comedians, Simon Taylor, joins us for this week's TCB Field Report to talk how Australian comedy got on during quarantine and lockdown, a bit on how Australian comedy operates differently from American comedy, and what it takes to do a stand-up...

There is so much focus on the craft of comedy these days that one might look past how the economics of it often contribute to just how hard it is to do comedy as either passion or a career. Being aware of both is necessity and both rising stars in the LA comedy scene and the face of splendid monthly show Funnilingus, Ellory Smith and Dana Donnelly, sit down with TCB's Jake Kroeger on this week's T...

At this point of the pandemic, we're so glad to find many of our favorite things in comedy surviving in tact and coming out thriving on the other end. One of those things is one of the best comedy festivals around, Denver's High Plains Comedy Festival , founded by one of the funniest working comedians/podcasters/authors/actors today, Adam Cayton-Holland . We talk with Adam about keeping the very b...

One of the great things about comedy in LA is that there is literal space to create your own niche and do what you want. Brett Davis is exemplifying this with the ultra underground venue he co-runs, Little Secret , and his dedication to experimenting with slow burning bits and characters, almost exclusively. Davis breaks down his philosophy on doing such characters on stage as well as being DIY wi...

No matter the art form, the folks who push boundaries and blaze trails are a rare breed. That's why we were thrilled to get into the big comedy swings that one Blake Rosier has made a name for himself by taking. Whether it's living on stage for 5 days or creating an entire live show in an afternoon with someone he finds on Craigslist, Rosier's imagination and commitment seems drawn to unexplored r...

Not only is Roz Hernandez one of the folks that you should absolutely be watching while they ascend to comedy stardom, but she has one of the most fascinating comedy journeys that we've ever come across. From comedy to drag to doing both, then, in the midst of lockdown, opting to transition from the drag queen Roz Drezfalez to Roz Hernandez and being her most hysterical self to waves of raucous la...

The venerable Todd Glass joins us on this week's Comedy Bureau Field Report to break down the state of comedy between generations and just exactly how you can still say whatever you want in comedy. Glass is a guiding light both with his very own signature, beloved comedy and is a champion of the newer classes of comedy that, perhaps, might be incomprehensible to comedy purists of yesteryear. Glass...

Even after almost 50 years of being around, one of the best ways to get in at The Comedy Store to get your name on the wall is working the door at the world famous comedy club. Alex Hanna is one such comedian on his way, starting from every indie crevice in the LA scene and then chancing upon one of the few open spots to both develop at The Comedy Store and work the door. From his vantage point, w...

Hailing from the Bay Area, Hayley Beacon is gracing LA with their undeniably charming irreverence. As they intersect between Gen Z and being a millennial, we venture into what the nuances of all cultures, mainstream and sub- and everything in between, come into play into their comedy and what they ultimately want to do (run Taco Bell's Twitter account). Also, we get an inside perspective on what c...

When it comes to producing a comedy show, it's ideal that you have someone who loves comedy just as much as the performers do, but, for their own reasons, would rather not take the stage and just work behind the scenes. Olivia Amerling has emerged as a go-to NYC comedy producer with three weekly shows on her plate, Seance Comedy at Easy Lover , I Made You a Playlist at Three Diamond Door and Drule...

MC Chris has dedicated his life to both being a nerd and being a rapper and has brilliantly and hilariously married the two for his own self-made rap career. He has been such "the guy" when it comes to rapping about Star Wars or the MCU or Ghostbusters or Nightmare on Elm Street that his fans have made an entire community around his nerdy rap canon and supported each other, found partner...