Comedian Mike Birbiglia brings his custom blend of standup, theater and spoken-word to the boards of the Count Basie Friday night.
To call Mike Birbiglia a “standup comic” is like calling that smartphone you waited in line for a “phone” — yeah, it most certainly does phone stuff, but on the other hand, hey.
While other young comedy veterans seem to sleepwalk through their act after so many years on the road, Birbiglia hit comic paydirt with Sleepwalk With Me, a monologue on the comedy lifestyle and its discontents that he adapted as a one-man, Off Broadway smash in 2008. A 2010 companion book scored big on the New York Times Best Seller list; a 2011 Sleepwalk album went all the way to Number One on the Billboard Comedy Charts — and in 2012, the native of Shrewsbury (Massachusetts, that is) wrote, directed and starred in a screen version that collected film-fest honors from Sundance to Nantucket. All that, plus his frequent-favorite appearances on This American Life with Ira Glass, make the man a veritable King of Most Media.
When Birbiglia takes the stage of the Count Basie Theatre Friday night, he’ll be telling jokes — or telling about jokes, more like, as he brings Thank God for Jokes to Red Bank for the first time.
In the show on the subject of “jokes, and how they can get you in trouble,” the star relates painfully awkward stories of how he got “arrested in New Jersey, screamed at by a famous director, heckled by Statler and Waldorf, and attacked by zombie rodents.”
Tickets for the 8 pm show ($20 to $49.50) can be reserved right here.
