Can someone please tell us why Yvonne Conte does not have her own television show. Watching her at the TEDxSyracuse University event this week was like seeing Lily Tomlin, Tracey Ullman, or maybe even Tina Fey.
Though she is a public speaker now (and trains others in public speaking), Conte was once a stand-up comic.
From the time she began her talk…well, actually her talk began with a joke about a scheduling mistake…Conte worked the crowd like she was doing a SNL monologue.
Conte talked about the happiness advantage and how it relates to work place enthusiasm, and eventually productivity. She even allotted a portion of her time for the crowd to literally hold their bellies and belt out a laugh.
Comedian and television writer Larry Wilmore visited the Newhouse School to discuss his career last week. Wilmore’s resume includes ‘The Facts of Life, ‘In Living Color,’ ‘The Office,’ ‘Sister Sister,’ ‘The Bernie Mac Show,’ and he is currently the senior black correspondent for ‘The Daily Show.’ He was interviewed by SU Professor Charisse L’Pree. In the clip below, Wilmore talks about the ‘Bernie Mac Show’ and the influence of technology.
Shawn Wayans, Finesse Mitchell and Marlon Wayans at Syracuse University.
Shawn and Marlon Wayans (aka the Wayans Bros.) along with Finesse Mitchell and newcomer Spoken Reasons played a show at Syracuse over the weekend. In addition to their 1990s sit-com the Wayans Bros. are also film producers and directors.
Saturday’s show was a fundraiser for the Syracuse Chapter of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. The fraternity historically brings some great comics to campus (such as D.L. Hughley and John Witherspoon).
And in case you are in the mood for a family reunion, it was also announced recently that the first generation of Wayans Bros. (Damon and Keenan) will team up with Shawn and Marlon next year to do a series of stand up shows.
Spoken Reasons at Syracuse University: Making a name for himself.
Baldwinsville-bred comic Dan Frigolette appeared on W. Kamau Bell’s show recently and nearly hijacked the street interview with a obscure R&B reference. We knew Dan was funny, but had no idea he was up on Debarge. We like it!
Frigolette will be doing a comedy workshop next month at Jazz Central.
Carlo Russo and Frank Cerio along with Uncle Louie (center) performed before a capacity crowd at Dolce Vita last night. Their show blended sketch comedy routines with wine tasting and songs.
Comedian Bruce Bruce will return to Syracuse this weekend for a series of shows at the Funnybone. This photo is from a show he did at the Landmark theater about a decade ago produced by the Pride of Syracuse Newspaper.
Fringe Technical Director Gabriel Pinto occupies Saturday night with a sax solo.
Finally a cross-town collaboration between Lemoyne and SU (well,sort of). Le Moyne alums Jacob Ellison and Justin Sullivan used creativity and crowd funding to pull together the inaugural Syracuse Fringe Festival last weekend, and it was held at the Community Folk Art Center along the Connective Corridor. The event featured three days of multi-disciplinary artistic endeavors. We checked out the final day of the program, which featured David Doyle, Ruth Arena and Anna Phillips. Fringe was very reminiscent of the THINC Sideshow parties from a decade or so ago (except the demographic for the Fringe was slightly older).
Live Art: Body Painting
What was most surprising on Saturday was to watch Phillips, who is the artistic equivalent of a love child between Missy Elliot (always ahead of the curve) and Steven Wright (wry humor), do a comedy show in the Black Box Theater and smoothly transition into a monologue about her life that was more compelling than a episode of HBO’s In Treatment.
Was it Something She Said? Anna Phillips kept it real for Spatial Profiling.
Not that it wasn’t good, just unexpected. We look forward to Anna’s upcoming gigs, where she will bring the noise again with jokes at two shows locally: Chicks are Funny and Guns n’ Syrup.
