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BACK ISSUES INTERVIEWS Stand-Up Comedians Jim Norton Robert Kelly Donnell Rawlings Brad Stine Tammy Pescatelli Leighann Lord George Sarris Nick DiPaolo Russ Meneve Shang and more By Tasha Harris, NYC Comedy Journalist STAGE TIME The Magazine That Stands Up For Comedy |
By Tasha Harris, Editor-in-Chief
STM visited Sarris at his apartment, which also doubles as the NYUCF office, to get a glimpse at
how he works 'round the clock, sending out thousands of emails and sifting through hundreds of
tapes sent from comedians as far as New Zealand. Relaxed and unrehearsed, Sarris fires away
before a single question is asked.
Depending on who you ask, how you interpret the events or venues or how you count them,
we are bordering on top, the biggest comedy festival in the country period. More stand-up shows,
more stand ups; Upright Citizens Brigade is our partner. You couldn’t ask for a stronger partner.
Improvolution is also doing sketch. The founder of Improvolution is a former Groundling, so
we have Groundling ties and UCB is our partner. They’re putting up their best acts they have
and we’ll combine them with stand-up…
This year, the new addition is film. We’ve accepted film submissions - shorts which, we went
through them and a lot of them are very funny. They’re going to be shown at the Pioneer
Theater [and] The Laugh Factory, which has a brand new, state-of-the-art screening room
opening up; it’s absolutely a gorgeous room…
Once again, industry will be admitted free of charge; everyone will be issued a free laminate
unlike Aspen and Montreal, which charges a pretty hefty sum of money. And we just grew the
festival through the hard work of myself, Jim Mendrinos and a lot of the New York industry
professionals who saw the value.
Obviously, the mayor saw the value in it because I wrote him a number of times and I wrote all
of the city borough presidents, I wrote all the city councilmen saying, “You know last year, the
New York Comedy Festival was awarded to Caroline’s, which doesn’t make any sense because
the last time I checked, New York was five boroughs.”
So we’re told the borough presidents, the Brooklyn borough president, the Bronx borough
president, Queens and they’re like, “You know something, you have a point. It’s totally
ridiculous. They were supposed to make all this money...and it all went up in flames.” It was
a huge waste of taxpayer’s money.
The taxpayers paid for that?
The taxpayers put in a decent amount of the bill. They were given in the neighborhood of
$300,000 dollars of taxpayer’s money of which they just – they couldn’t give tickets away.
Their strategy was absolutely awful. They rented Carnegie Hall, all these huge halls and then
went out shopping for talent and found out that it wasn’t that large of a demand.
Our philosophy is we like to win battles we can win. In our opinion, comedy is something that
happens, kinda like CBGBs and punk rock, in a messy little room or an upscale place. Carnegie
Hall and all these big, prestigious places and then you try to put somebody in there and try to
sellout 5000 seats. To sell out a venue like that, there are only about five people on the planet
who can do it: Chris Rock, Bill Cosby, Seinfeld…
If you would like to get into what inspired me to start it –
My background is not comedy. My background is Wall Street. After high school, I didn’t know
what to do with my life and a friend of mine got me a job at the New York Stock Exchange as
a messenger. I was a messenger and I worked my way up to a seat on the New York Stock
Exchange after about 10 years. After 10 years of having a seat on the Stock Exchange,
I retired at the age of 40 and wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
how he works 'round the clock, sending out thousands of emails and sifting through hundreds of
tapes sent from comedians as far as New Zealand. Relaxed and unrehearsed, Sarris fires away
before a single question is asked.
Depending on who you ask, how you interpret the events or venues or how you count them,
we are bordering on top, the biggest comedy festival in the country period. More stand-up shows,
more stand ups; Upright Citizens Brigade is our partner. You couldn’t ask for a stronger partner.
Improvolution is also doing sketch. The founder of Improvolution is a former Groundling, so
we have Groundling ties and UCB is our partner. They’re putting up their best acts they have
and we’ll combine them with stand-up…
This year, the new addition is film. We’ve accepted film submissions - shorts which, we went
through them and a lot of them are very funny. They’re going to be shown at the Pioneer
Theater [and] The Laugh Factory, which has a brand new, state-of-the-art screening room
opening up; it’s absolutely a gorgeous room…
Once again, industry will be admitted free of charge; everyone will be issued a free laminate
unlike Aspen and Montreal, which charges a pretty hefty sum of money. And we just grew the
festival through the hard work of myself, Jim Mendrinos and a lot of the New York industry
professionals who saw the value.
Obviously, the mayor saw the value in it because I wrote him a number of times and I wrote all
of the city borough presidents, I wrote all the city councilmen saying, “You know last year, the
New York Comedy Festival was awarded to Caroline’s, which doesn’t make any sense because
the last time I checked, New York was five boroughs.”
So we’re told the borough presidents, the Brooklyn borough president, the Bronx borough
president, Queens and they’re like, “You know something, you have a point. It’s totally
ridiculous. They were supposed to make all this money...and it all went up in flames.” It was
a huge waste of taxpayer’s money.
The taxpayers paid for that?
The taxpayers put in a decent amount of the bill. They were given in the neighborhood of
$300,000 dollars of taxpayer’s money of which they just – they couldn’t give tickets away.
Their strategy was absolutely awful. They rented Carnegie Hall, all these huge halls and then
went out shopping for talent and found out that it wasn’t that large of a demand.
Our philosophy is we like to win battles we can win. In our opinion, comedy is something that
happens, kinda like CBGBs and punk rock, in a messy little room or an upscale place. Carnegie
Hall and all these big, prestigious places and then you try to put somebody in there and try to
sellout 5000 seats. To sell out a venue like that, there are only about five people on the planet
who can do it: Chris Rock, Bill Cosby, Seinfeld…
If you would like to get into what inspired me to start it –
My background is not comedy. My background is Wall Street. After high school, I didn’t know
what to do with my life and a friend of mine got me a job at the New York Stock Exchange as
a messenger. I was a messenger and I worked my way up to a seat on the New York Stock
Exchange after about 10 years. After 10 years of having a seat on the Stock Exchange,
I retired at the age of 40 and wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
RED HOT EXCLUSIVE
GEORGE SARRIS
Expands the NYUCF to Become America's Biggest
Comedy Festival and Tops NYC Rival
GEORGE SARRIS
Expands the NYUCF to Become America's Biggest
Comedy Festival and Tops NYC Rival
| From Wall Street to stand-up comedy, George Sarris, co-creator and producer of the New York Underground Comedy Festival, has established himself as a power player and spearheaded a rapid expansion of a three-day event into one of America's biggest comedy festivals in just three years. |