And the George Award Goes to … George Civeris!
This week, we’re highlighting 24 talented writers and performers for Vulture’s annual list “The Comedians You Should and Will Know.” Our goal is to introduce a wider audience to the talent that has the comedy community and industry buzzing. (You can read more about our methodology at the link above.) We asked the comedians on the list to answer a series of questions about their work, performing, goals for the future, and more. Next up is George Civeris.
Tell us a story from your childhood that you think might explain why you ended up becoming a comedian.
I was obsessed with awards shows when I was a kid, and in fifth grade I decided out of nowhere that I would print out ballots with class superlatives I made up and hand them out to my entire grade to vote on. They were inspired by the MTV Movie Awards and included categories like “Cutest Couple” and “Most Fashionable.” I called them — I hope you’re sitting down — the George Awards. I guess this story is more about how I ended up being gay.
If you were immortalized as a cartoon character, what would your outfit be?
I will not be made complicit in creating a caricature of myself. Just kidding, probably a shirt and pants.
What’s your proudest moment/achievement of your comedy career so far?
There have been a few times when I’ve gotten to work with some of my comedy heroes — I once wrote a sketch for Jeff Garlin and dined out on that for months. Those are the things I would probably tell people about at a wedding if I wanted to impress them.
However, if I can be earnest for exactly one second, what I’ve been most proud of recently is writing a new hour of stand-up last year during an especially bleak period personally and professionally and successfully touring it around the country this summer, which would not have been possible without the listenership of my friend Sam Taggart, and I have developed on our podcast for illiterate gays with graduate degrees, StraightioLab. In general, “building an audience” (oh God) outside the purview of “traditional gatekeepers” (they’re wheeling me out) has been “incredibly rewarding and empowering” (the ambulance hits a pothole and the EMT’s scalding-hot coffee explodes on my crotch).
Which comedian’s career trajectory would you most like to follow?
I cannot answer this because I was raised to fear the evil eye, but I will say that the comedian I am most inspired by right now is Cole Escola. Everything they do blows me away, they have a level of artistic integrity that I think is technically punishable by death in the city of Los Angeles, and they are also somehow one of the kindest and most generous people I have ever met. Their special Our Home Out West and then, of course, the incredible Oh, Mary! felt like turning points in terms of the popularity of the kind of comedy I love the most. I was lucky enough to see Oh, Mary! twice, and as it ended the second time, my boyfriend asked me, “Do you think Cole is the most self-actualized person in New York?” I think the answer is “yes,” and we’re all the better for it.
Tell us everything about your worst show ever. (This can involve venue, audience, other acts on the lineup, anything!)
About a month after Trump was elected in 2016, I did some kind of drag-brunch variety-show fundraiser benefiting a bunch of different charities. The way the show was structured, a representative from each charity would come out after each performer and talk at length about their cause. So you had to try to make everyone laugh after some sweet, underpaid nonprofit intern talked for ten minutes about how we need to find a cure for a flesh-eating disease that had just taken the life of a little boy named Buster who loved Wicked. Also the act directly before me did a burlesque performance to a Florence + the Machine song that ended with her revealing the words “Nasty Woman” written across her stomach in red paint. It was a different time.
What have you learned about your own joke-writing process that you didn’t know when you started?
I used to think I needed to feel perfectly centered in a silent cabin in the middle of a forest in order to sit down to write, when in fact the opposite is true. I can only get the wheels turning by going out into the world or attending a show or waterboarding myself with movies or books that I know will inspire me in some way until I finally see or hear something that sparks an idea. Unfortunately, sometimes that idea is “Gay guys can be so random.”
What’s the biggest financial hurdle you’ve encountered since becoming a comedian?
I’m going to give you a little peek behind the curtain here and say that I just wrote a very long and vulnerable paragraph about the lowest point in my life and then made the courageous decision to delete it. I will say that pursuing any kind of career in “comedy” at any level is a series of near-constant humiliations, but every now and then, you get to feel like you’re on top of the world.
At the end of the movie 8 Mile, Eminem’s character, B-Rabbit, starts his final battle rap by dissing himself so the person he’s battling has nothing left to attack. How would you roast yourself so the other person would have nothing to say?
I would probably say that I am not nearly as smart as I think I am, my comedy flaccidly panders to people who are exactly like me, and the harsh standards by which I judge others are not due to any strict aesthetic or moral code but rather entirely shaped by jealousy and resentment. Also, my giant ass throws off my center of gravity and makes me walk really awkwardly.
When it comes to your comedy opinions — about material, performing, audience, trends you want to kill/revive, the industry, etc. — what hill will you die on?
I basically think stand-up comedy only works as in-person live performance, and that 99 percent of taped specials are unwatchable. (That said, if you work at one of our nation’s great streamers, please get in touch because I have some ideas.)
What is the best comedy advice, and then the worst comedy advice, you’ve ever received?
I started stand-up in Boston, and the three most memorable comedy commandments that were drilled into me early on were (1) get up as much as possible, (2) don’t run the light, and (3) don’t wear shorts onstage. You could perhaps boil those down to: (1) always be hustling, (2) don’t bite the hand that feeds you, and (3) don’t do anything that might distract from your material. (Perhaps a more updated version of “Don’t wear shorts onstage” today might be “Don’t act like a psychopath online.”)
Unfortunately, these can each be either great or terrible advice depending on the context. Perhaps a good rule of thumb is to always flout one, but only one, of them at any given time. Wait — someone write that down.