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Where Comedy Went to School

August 25, 7:00 PM

A lecture by Joseph Dorinson

This lecture takes listeners on an informative, hilarious journey east of Eden, west of the Moon, and 100 miles north of New York City, where a generation of Jewish comedians honed their craft in the resorts of the Catskill Mountains. This "Borscht Belt" became the training ground for the modern American stand-up comic: the sad nebbish (poor soul) whose troubles are greater than life, and whose kvetch (complaint) is cosmic as well as comic. Performers tempered on the Catskills resort circuit range from Sid Caesar to Mel Brooks, Alan King to Lenny Bruce, Woody Allen to Joan Rivers. However different they seem, these stand-up and situation comics are distinguished by a singular ability to capture their complaint in verbal music, a torrent of words that develops into improvisational jazz. For decades, their comedy has brought relief from the tsores (troubles) that confront all Americans.

Fallsburg Library

For further information about this event, please contact:

Liam Rogers
Phone: (845) 436-6067

http://www.rcls.org/fbl/

This lecture is a part of the Speakers in the Humanities program.