ABOUT THE TOUR:

Can We Talk?***

On this downtown comedy-themed walking tour, we ask the big questions: 

Why did so much foundational comedy emerge from New York? 

What larger purpose does comedy serve? 

Why do we laugh at some jokes and not others? 

And… following that, why does my friend laugh at the dumbest things that are clearly not funny? 

Well, those are big questions! 

Rather than answer them directly, we’ll walk from the East Side to the West Side—below 14th Street—and trace the story of modern comedy through one very specific lens: downtown New York.

We'll look at the literal "downtown"—from vaudeville stages to random back rooms — and the figurative "downtown," a term that can’t always be clearly defined because it’s as its perpetually evolving with each generation of outsiders and boundary-pushing voices who’s work has shaped nearly every contemporary comic and writer. 

We’ll connect the dots between Milton Berle getting a fork shoved in his neck, Carl Reiner’s foundation from the WPA, Lenny Bruce’s obscenity arrest, the advent of The Comedy Cellar, Jon Stewart’s MTV collab with The State, Mindy Kaling’s low-rent East Village theatrical debut, and Cole Escola’s Tony win for “Oh Mary.”  Oh, and Soybomb. Finally, right?

***”Can We Talk?” is the catchphrase of native New Yorker and trailblazing comedian, Joan Rivers (you know, the “real” Marvelous Mrs. Maisel). Whether you knew this or not, you might enjoy this little jawdroppingly ahead of its time clip from Dick Cavett’s talk show chatting about her career and Fire Island with great openness, humor and care the same year as the Stonewall Riot and if you are charmed by this clip, high chance of enjoying the tour!

DETAILS:

Start: UCB Theater, 242 East 14th Street between 2nd & 3rd Aves. South side of the street, not the training center on the north side.

Distance: A little under 2 miles, not a huge schlep

Duration: A little over 2 hours, plenty of time to kibbitz

Group Size: 10 maximum

Dates:

Friday, July 18, 12pm

Sunday, July 20, 12pm

MORE DATES COMING SOON!

ABOUT YOUR GUIDE: MERI HAITKIN

Meri Haitkin has lived in New York pretty much her whole life. She is a recently-licensed New York City tour guide and has been an Emmy and Webby-winning producer, writer, and director in unscripted television, film, and digital content for close to 30 years.

Her qualifications to give this tour include going to Luna Lounge too many Mondays in the 1990’s,  having produced and/or directed documentaries about The Comedy Cellar and the movie “Airplane!” for TruTV, and a documentary feature about Eugene Mirman’s final comedy festival, “It Started as a Joke.” She has also worked on “Project Runway,” “Top Chef,” and “James Cameron’s Story of Science Fiction.” Additionally, she may have the Boerum Hill, Brooklyn record for the most lifetime viewings of “Young Frankenstein,” “UHF” and “Peewee’s Big Adventure,” but who’s counting? Most recent comedy obsession: Alex Edelman’s “Just for Us” streaming on HBO.

She has brought her style of weaving a layered, personal, and entertaining storytelling with meaning to her walking tours, and everyone always laughs when she ends her Statue of Liberty tour by reminding everyone that this statue saved New York City in “Ghostbusters 2,” even though it’s true, she really did!