New York Comedy Festival founder previews the best of what’s to come this year
By Mia Johnson
New York Comedy Festival’s founder Caroline Hirsch shares what you can look forward to this year. With over 100 acts and over 200 comedians, it’s definitely a festival worth getting excited about.
The countdown for the New York Comedy Festival has begun once again. All across New York, over 200 comedians will participate in the week-long comedy festival starting Nov. 4. Comedians like Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah and Jenny Slate are part of the all-star lineup, and the performances are certainly going to be a must-see for all comedy fans in New York.
Among the lineup of comedians will also be Nailed It’s Nicole Byer, who FanSided got in touch with via email. Sharing her enthusiasm for taking part in the festival, Byer wrote to FanSided: “I’m excited. I get to play to a lot of people, and that’s new and fun. I usually do clubs, and getting to graduate to a larger venue is such a dream… a real treat, if you will.”
For someone who has idols who are the “queens of comedy,” including Whoopi Goldberg, Tina Fey and Jane Krakowski, it really does seem to be that Byer’s dream is coming full-circle as she prepares to take the stage next week.
FanSided also caught up with the mastermind behind it all, festival founder Caroline Hirsch, who has helped bring together the biggest names in comedy since the festival’s beginning in 2004. Read on to see FanSided’s interview with Hirsch as she reveals how she founded the festival, what she’s excited about this year, and which big-name stars she’s worked with over the years.
FanSided: What are you most looking forward to for this year’s festival?
Caroline Hirsch: The big center of the festival is Stand Up for Heroes, which happens on Monday night. I’m looking forward to that… then I get to see all my headliners again. And [I] get to work with Trevor Noah again because he’s performing at Madison Square Garden, and I get to see Bill Maher again… But it’s a week of just being around everybody that you are familiar with!
This festival is uniquely New York. What makes New York special when it comes to the comedy scene?
Not that New York is the birthplace of comedy, but… remember from the early 20th century, [comedy] kind of really started in New York with Vaudeville. Which, in Vaudeville acts, they always had a comedian on the show. So I think it’s grown out of that. And of course, New York is the melting pot of the United States. People come here from all over — from Chicago, from Florida, from Texas, and from L.A. — to New York, and it’s kind of this great mixing pot, and out of that comes great comedy.
And how did you get your start founding this festival?
Right in 2003, we had a 20th-anniversary party for Carolines, and we did it at Carnegie Hall. And we have a lot of the people that used to work the Carolines… come and do the show, like Lewis Black, Denis Leary, and Jon Stewart… So they came back; we did this anniversary show, and it was so much fun to do. We said, “You know, we got to do more of this.” And hence, the festival was created around that.
You’re not a comedian yourself, but you’ve been on the scene for many years. What gave you the idea to get into the business?
I was working in retail. And then, I was working for a chain of department stores that were closing. So I wasn’t working and had some friends that owned a lot of bars in the city. And they wanted to open a cabaret, and I was friends with them and they said, “Come on, we’ll open the cabaret, name it Carolines, and why don’t you be a partner with us?” And that is how it started.
So it started by the seat of my pants, learning all about comedy and believing in it. It was like, David Letterman went on the air at 12:30 at night. And he would have all of these young comedians who we were then hiring. And it was the start of something which started this young observational humor… Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, Garry Shandling even Billy Crystal at the time were coming through.
And there was a whole new group of 30-year-olds that loved this. So that’s really how it started. And every time these guys would go on to David Letterman’s show, they’d say they were at Carolines, which gave us sort of like a national platform.
Is there one comedian you were especially excited to book for Carolines?
I think it was Billy Crystal… Billy kind of had some fame with Soap. But he was on this sitcom called Soap, and he was just brilliant… I knew from the standup world, and then he was on Soap and he rarely was doing anything, and we didn’t think we could ever get him. And we did get him! And you know what happened after that? We got him in New York, and the producers of Saturday Night Live saw him and after that, put him on. So it was like kind of a good luck charm.
And then, finally getting to meet Robin Williams. Robin would come in and see some of the performers there. And he would come in and do guest spots, and then I got to know him more. It was sort of just a nice relationship with Robin.
Do you have any final thoughts you’d like to share about the festival?
I think it’s a great mix of people. It’s actually been classified: It’s the most diverse comedy festival in the United States, which we’re really proud that that turned out to be that way this year. It doesn’t always turn out to be that way. Some people are not available. It just worked out to be a very diverse group of talented people that we are so happy to be working with this year.
The New York Comedy Festival runs Nov. 4-10. Check out the festival’s website for more details on how to attend shows.