When walking into a dark underground warehouse, the last sound one expects to hear is riotous laughter. Yet Upright Citizens Brigade, the epicenter for New York City’s more progressive sketch comedy, improvisation, and stand-up, offers just such a surreal experience.
UCB—located on 26th Street between 8th and 9th avenues—has seen the rise of some of today’s hottest comedians since its inception in 1997, including funnyordie.com creator Adam McKay and a long line of Saturday Night Live alums. In fact UCB may even be considered a breeding ground for the late-night landmarks.
Along with its counterpart in Los Angeles, UCB has been home to a slew of truly original comedians, though their history is not without blemishes. In the late 90s, UCB’s show on Comedy Central attracted a limited viewership. Though a cult following has renewed the show’s popularity, UCB’s comedy never really took hold of the entire country.
America’s unwillingness to accept UCB’s particular brand of humor has turned the headquarters downtown into an exclusive club of sorts, only for those with an mind open enough to appreciate wackiness.
And wacky it is. Sketch comedy troupes test out much of their new material at UCB before deciding which are the best ones to film and share with the rest of the country online. The result is that many of these sketches prove to be a tad too off-the-wall, which in a way makes an evening at UCB that much more exciting. When those lights go down, the audience has no idea what they’re about to witness. UCB can almost be seen as the Chatroulette of comedy.
Sketch comedy shares the stage equally with improvisational showcases. The most popular of these is Asssscat 3000, which stars Amy Poehler and a number of different surprise guests every Sunday night, most of which work for such television favorites as Conan O’Brien, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert.
UCB is notorious for ridiculously long lines since they don’t offer advance tickets. Comedy aficionados should expect to wait for hours for a chance to gain admittance for the rather low price of $5-$10.
Monday nights are more laid-back and stress-free when UCB is home to the stand-up show Whiplash, which features a rotating cast of both unknown and hugely popular stand-up acts. This difference in popularity however is in no way indicative of the comedic quality of the evening. First-rate comedians such as David Cross have been known to take the stage on the rare, random occasion.
Warning: UCB is not for the faint of heart. At a performance of Whiplash I attended last year, the host of the evening told what was possibly the most sexually explicit account of Adam and Eve ever uttered on the face of this planet. Though I came close to ripping my spleen open by the end of the night, another a more devout member of our party was brought to tears by the staple XXX humor of Upright Citizens Brigade.
COMMENTS