Shaunna Cullen – General Assignment Reporter –
Michael Che appeared in Comedy Central’s 2011 Comics to Watch showcase.
The LOL Comedy tour will be returning to Southern Jan. 23 featuring Two Fun Men, a comedy group with two men John Haskell and Arthur Meyer. Both Haskell and Mayer are writers for the show Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Joining them in the tour will be special guest Michael Che.
Vanessa Young, sophomore geography major, works at the Lyman center and said this show is free for students with identification and $10 general admission. The show begins at 8 pm.
John Haskell of Two Fun Men grew up in Philadelphia and later moved to New York City with his family according to his personal website http://myjohnhaskell.weebly.com. After graduating college he started to work for Teach For America and realized this was not what he wanted.
He began working as a waiter in New York City. According to his website he “has studied improv at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York City.” Haskell’s life goal is to make it in the comedy business. He is currently writing for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
His Two Fun Men partner, Arthur Meyer, grew up in Illinois according to an article on www.ucbcomedy.com. After moving to New York City to pursue comedy he is now is a part of several sketch comedy groups: Pangea 3000 and Two Fun Men. The article also said that he is a contributor to The Onion, an online spoof newspaper.
Meyer likes to stick to sketch comedy and not stand up because, “The worst comedy performance experience I had was back when I did standup. I did standup for two years in college. So I wrote this five-minute, rhyming, iambic pentameter, intricate story, which I read in an old British voice. I performed it at Dick Doherty’s in Boston in front of a good, sizable, eager audience, and it completely bombed. Not one laugh,” he said in an article by By Daniel Lehman on www.backstage.com
Meyer is also currently a writer for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
The New York Times calls Michael Che “a rising and busy stand up comic.” Che is 29 years old and grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He was one of seven children. Che said in the Times article he never took a comedy class. He said every time he would save up enough money, a new bill would come up and taking a class was out of the question.
According to Timeout.com Che’s career is fairly new and people are impressed with the progress he has made, “After a mere two and a half years as a stand-up, Che has leapfrogged through the ranks, appearing in Comedy Central’s 2011 Comics to Watch showcase and nabbing his own night in Carolines’ Breakout Artist Comedy Series.”
In an interview with TheComicsComic.com, Che said it took him about six months before he started being paid for his gigs, and even then it was only around $20. He does mention however he was ‘paid’ in drink tickets before that. When the interviewer Sean McCarthy asked Che where he would like to be in five years, he said, “Comedy-wise, in 5 years I see myself having a face-melting, booty-dripping, 90-min set.”
According to The Lyman Center’s website, “Their live show, ‘Two Men Having Fun,’ ran at the UCB Theater in New York for eight months to regularly sold out audiences. Sometimes they sing songs and sometimes they talk loudly, but they always have fun.”
