High-Status Characters: How The Upright Citizens Brigade

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High-Status Characters: How The Upright Citizens Brigade Stormed A City, Started A Scene, And Changed Comedy Forever

By the early â€˜90s, comedy was no longer cool. The stand-up bubble had burst, sitcoms had become more formulaic than ever, and Hollywood studios were pumping out soulless, star-driven schmaltz. There were signs of hope in shows like Seinfeld, The Simpsons, and The Larry Sanders Show, all of which favored cranky hard-truths and giddy pop-culture references over glib punchlines. But for the most part, anyone looking for a laugh had no choice but to wade through hours of predictable, risk-averse corporate comedy. Things just werenâ€™t that funny anymore.

Enter the Upright Citizenâ€™s Brigade: a sketch-and-improv collective born in early-â€˜90s Chicago. When the group relocated to New York City in 1996, its core membersâ€”Amy Poehler, Matt Besser, Ian Roberts, and Matt Walsh (a.k.a. â€œthe UCB Fourâ€), brought with them a punk-meets-Python comedic sensibility unlike anything found on TV or in stand-up clubs. Shortly after their arrival, theyâ€™d turn an abandoned Manhattan strip-club into a hot downtown theater, attract big-name fans like Conan Oâ€™Brien, and amass a legion of eager students; many of whom would go on to create (and populate) a kinetic new wave of TV shows, movies, and stand-up comedy.

For more than twenty years, the UCB has been at the forefront of a slow-burn comedy coupâ€”one that hasnâ€™t been documented until now. In High-Status Characters, Brian Raftery chronicles UCBâ€™s evolution from a down-and-dirty D.I.Y. comedy playground to a highly vaunted (if still scruffy) institution, drawing on interviews with more than 80 of the theaterâ€™s founders, alumni, and friends, including Amy Poehler, Conan Oâ€™Brien, Ed Helms, Aziz Ansari, Aubrey Plaza, Seth Meyers, Aziz Ansari, and Janeane Garofalo. The result is a giddily exhaustive insiderâ€™s look at a genuine artistic revolution, replete with on-stage meltdowns, off-stage hook-ups, and some unexpected celebrity cameos. Itâ€™s a comedy with no shortage of drama.

Country	USA
Author	Brian Raftery
Binding	Kindle Edition
EISBN	9780989528412
Format	Kindle eBook
IsAdultProduct
Label	Megawatt Press
Manufacturer	Megawatt Press
NumberOfPages	137
PublicationDate	2013-08-07
Publisher	Megawatt Press
ReleaseDate	2013-08-07
Studio	Megawatt Press

High-Status Characters: How The Upright Citizens Brigade Stormed A City, Started A Scene, And Changed Comedy Forever

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