Comedy

A new age of government gaslighting, corporate feminism and manic male terrorism calls for a new language—and a writer with guts. Enter Amanda Duarte, the #pussygrabsback founder and downtown luminary here to make sense of the bullshit, at great personal risk. With her new Joe's Pub show Staying Alive, she calls on the music of the Bee Gees (from a truly bizarre Saturday Night Fever sequel) to reconcile with her divorce and the aftermath of #metoo. We spoke with Duarte about the creation of her harrowing, heartbreaking and hilarious new show.  What is your connection to the movie Staying Alive? When my whole life fell apart—when my husband and I separated, my dog died and I was in the darkest of darkness, I just wanted to check out and watch the worst movies that I possibly could, because you’re really not capable of doing anything else. I was looking around on HBO on demand and I saw Staying Alive. I love a good ’80s New York City movie, but I really love a bad one. So I watched it when I was in this horrible darkness, and it is a terrible movie, and what really struck me was: I’m looking at 1983 New York City, and everything about New York City has visually changed, all the businesses have changed, the streets have changed so much. But this horrible misogynist story at the heart of this movie is still happening to me and everyone I know. So how is it that there’s been so much change in this city and this country since then, and yet the garbage that men do to women is still

Though downtown NYC has been reduced to a pigpen of Duane Reades and Chase Banks, its essence endures in the outsize, cinematic characters that still hold court onstage. Ruby McCollister stomps through the city’s comedy, fashion and indie-film scenes like a diva from an age that feels both bygone and imminent. Before launching the new season of her beloved cult web series, Zhe Zhe, and bringing her So Fashionating podcast to Caveat on April 3, we spoke with the oracle about escaping Hollywood and performing in New York.  

Since she started in stand-up, Marcia Belsky has never shied away from a fight, whether calling out the misogyny of the comedy community, getting kicked off Facebook for posting “men are scum” on a friend’s post about harassment or going in with her fellow firebrand Rae Sanni on their podcast Misandry (which hits Union Hall on December 27). In 2018, as Belsky and Melissa Stokoski launched and toured their brilliant parody, Handmaid’s Tale: The Musical, the private battles that women comedians face became more public—and the backlash was brutal. We spoke with Belsky about Louis CK, engaging with trolls and the next generation of comedy. 

It’s no secret to my beautiful fans that I live an incredibly glamorous life...

Sydnee Washington may be one of NYC’s most in-demand stand-ups, but living the dream isn’t always lucrative. In her one-woman show, Death of a Bottle Girl, the ferociously funny cohost of The Unofficial Expert podcast returns to the wild decade she spent as a high-earning cocktail server.