User:OsFish/sandbox/Alternative Comedy (US)

Alternative comedy in the US refers to comedy performed away from the traditional circuit.

unorthodox sketch comedy groups such as Manhattan's Upright Citizen's Brigade. But, according to [Andrea Rosen of the 'Pie Hole Comedy Show' in Brooklyn, New York], alternative comedy predates all of those acts. 'Mel Brooks was an alternative comic,' said Rosen, citing his famous 2000-Year-Old Man routine. 'So is Steve Martin.' And Rosen's influences also include old masters like filmmaker Woody Allen, who started his career as a standup. 'There's a whole world of alternative comedy rooms, in bars and basements.'}} In other contexts, it is the nature of the form that is "alternative", avoiding reliance on a standardised structure of a sequence of jokes with punch lines. Patton Oswalt has defined it as "comedy where the audience has no pre-set expectations about the crowd, and vice versa. In comedy clubs, there tends to be a certain vibe—alternative comedy explores different types of material."

In an interview with The A.V. Club after his performance in the 2011 comedy-drama film Young Adult, Oswalt stated:

"I had come up out of that whole alternative scene, which was all about, 'Don’t try it, man. Just go up and wing it.' I think a lot of that comes from insecurity. It's that fashion of improv and amateurism that comes from the insecurity of saying to the audience, 'Well, it doesn't matter if it doesn't go well, because I didn’t even try that hard to begin with.' It's like, 'Oh, that's why you're not [trying]. If you actually tried hard and it sucked, then you've got to blame yourself.' So that's what makes it hard for some people to sit down and actually just do the fucking work, because doing the work means you're making a commitment."

New York City
In New York City, much of what is called alternative or "downtown comedy" is performed outside of traditional comedy clubs in theatres, such as Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre (UCB), Magnet Theater, The Creek and The Cave, and the Peoples Improv Theater (PIT), as well as cabarets that host comedy only occasionally. The comedians at these shows offer character-based humour or surreal humour, as opposed to observations of everyday life or more polemical themes. In addition, many alternative comics such as Demetri Martin and Slovin and Allen use unusual presentation styles, opting to play music, give PowerPoint presentations, or act out sketches. Many alternative comics such as Sarah Silverman, Janeane Garofalo, and Todd Barry also perform in mainstream comedy venues. The now-defunct Luna Lounge in New York's Lower East Side was home to a celebrated weekly alternative comedy stand-up series called "Eating It" from 1995 to 2005, co-created by Garofalo, which featured a changing line-up including Louis CK, Jim Norton, Ted Alexandro, Todd Barry, H. Jon Benjamin, Greg Giraldo, Patrice O'Neal, Patton Oswalt, Sarah Vowell, Mike Birbiglia, Marc Maron, Dave Chappelle, Roseanne Barr, Sarah Silverman, Janeane Garofalo, and numerous others, until the property was sold and the building razed.

Eugene Mirman started a show called Invite Them up at Rififi, a bar in New York's East Village in 2002. The popular weekly show, co-hosted by Bobby Tisdale, never advertised or listed its performers. Comedians such as Demetri Martin, Aziz Ansari, Pete Holmes, Jon Glazer, Jon Daly, Reggie Watts and musicians such as Bright Eyes and Yo La Tengo all performed on Invite Them Up. The show spurred a host of other weekly events at Rififi hosted by Nick Kroll, Jon Mulaney, Greg Johnson, Larry Murphy and Jenny Slate. The venue was a hotbed of alternative comedy until complaints from neighbors about one of Rififi's dance parties, Trash, got the bar closed down in 2008.

Warren St. John said that the "inspiration" for alternative comedy in New York City is the Upright Citizens Brigade. The group originally formed at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Chelsea in 1999. Four years later, in 2003, several performers at the UCB spun off their own theater, and formed the PIT. St. John also argues that one reason why unusual comics can succeed in New York City is that they don't have to tour part-time, as many of them also work as writers on local comedy television shows such as The Daily Show and the Late Show with David Letterman.

Los Angeles
Patton Oswalt cited Dana Gould as the originator of the alternative comedy scene in the early nineties, who also cites Janeane Garofalo as another progenitor of the scene. Beth Lapides started the Un-Cabaret shows, which was the flagship of the alternative comedy movement. Other contemporaries of the scene included Bob Odenkirk, David Cross, Greg Behrendt, Andy Kindler, and Kathy Griffin.

Oswalt was essential in pioneering the alternative comedy on the West Coast. He created The Comedians of Comedy tour, which played across the US in independent music venues intermittently from 2004 to 2008. The original tour was hosted by Oswalt, and featured Maria Bamford, Zach Galifianakis, and Brian Posehn.

Canada
Canada has a rich history of embracing alternative stand-up and sketch comedy. The ALTdot COMedy Lounge has been running for more than 20 years at The Rivoli, where "oddball outsiders" The Kids in the Hall also had a residency in the mid-1990s. Other notable alternative comedy shows now defunct included Pirate Video Cabaret (ended 2003), Laugh Sabbath and The Second City Theater Toronto's Sketchy at Best. Other notable alt acts include Terry Clement, Sean Cullen, Jon Dore, Paul Irving, Chris Locke, Levi Macdougall, Ron Sparks and Harland Williams.

South Africa
While South African comedy often comprises racial or stereotype-based humour, alternative comedy in South Africa tends to avoid such subject matter. It is hard to define alternative comedy, but subject matter may include taboo, dark, non sequitur, geek, and various other topics, whilst excluding racial, scatological, stereotype, South Africanised humour and other topics considered mainstream. Although comedians of this genre may include mainstream topics, it does not form the majority of their sets.

It is hard to say exactly where it started, but The Underground in Melville Johannesburg was known for its risqué humour proliferated by founder John Vlismas. The Comedy Underground was fertile development ground for alternative humour with its anything goes policy. Since its closure in 2010, alternative comedy has found new venues including Foxwood theatre, Picollinos, and various others. Johannesburg remains the home of South African alternative.

One of the driving forces behind the increasing prominence of alternative comedy is the Johannesburg Comedy Cartel, whose members include Shaun Wewege, Warren Robertson, Vittorio Leonardi, and Alyn Adams. Other South African comedians who fall into the genre include Dale Amler, Roni Modimola, Mark Banks, and Vlismas.

Mel Miller is arguably considered one of the pioneers of the alternative genre in South Africa. During the Apartheid era, Miller's material was considered "inappropriate" or radical, resulting in more than one run-in and detention with the South African Bureau of State Security.