Jim David
Encyclopedia
Jim David is an American stand-up comedian, actor and writer. He is originally from Asheville, North Carolina
, and lives in New York City
. He performs stand-up comedy at comedy clubs and other venues worldwide.
, David played Phyllis Diller
and Jonathan Winters
records until they were ruined and voraciously read Mad Magazine, even creating his own comedy magazine entitled "Icky". He made his stage debut at age 9 as a Munchkin in The Wizard of Oz, and by college had appeared in over 50 plays.
After attending Furman University
and Southern Methodist University
, he moved to New York, appeared in several Off-Broadway
and Regional theater productions, and did commercials and voice-overs. His New York
theater career led him to remark, "I came to New York to be in the theater, but the theater said, 'we don't see you as an actor, we see you as an usher.'" However, he did appear on Broadway in the musical The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public
in 1994, directed by Tommy Tune
and Peter Masterson
.
He became a director and directed plays (among them Candide
, The Skin of Our Teeth
, Waiting for Godot
, Dark of the Moon
, Noises Off
, Jesus Christ Superstar
and Molière
's The Learned Ladies Off-Broadway) and taught theater in high schools and community theaters. In 1986, he became a stand-up comedian full-time.
David's comedy, a free-form conversational style featuring characters, stories, one-liners and social and political comment, has been seen at many venues worldwide.
He has performed at many comedy festivals including Montreal's Just For Laughs Festival, HBO's US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen
, Colorado
, and the TBS Comedy Festival in Las Vegas.
He is featured as one of the stars of Laughing Liberally, a political comedy show that made its debut at New York's Town Hall in 2006.
His one-man comedy for the theatre, "South Pathetic", in which he plays himself and 10 characters, details the worst community theater in the South in a production of Tennessee Williams
' A Streetcar Named Desire
. It was performed at the Williamstown Theatre Festival
in Williamstown, Massachusetts
, as well in New York and other regional theaters, including San Francisco's New Conservatory Theatre in August 2009, where it received rave reviews and was a popular success. In August 2010, it was performed at the New York International Fringe Festival
in Manhattan, where it sold out its entire run and was favorably reviewed by The New York Times
and other media.
Jim David, and a two-year stint on Comedy Central's Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn
. The show featured many of the performers he worked with at the Greenwich Village club Comedy Cellar
and was based on the freewheeling political arguments they had at the "comedian's table" at the Olive Tree Cafe, the restaurant above the club. Often featuring as much of the comedians "roasting" each other as discussions of current events, the show was cancelled in November 2004 despite a large cult following.
David also appeared on many television shows as a comedian or commentator, among them Comedy Central
's Out On the Edge, Comic Cabana, USO
Comedy Tour, Comic Remix and Friars' Club
Roast of Rob Reiner, Bravo's Queer Eye For The Straight Guy
and Greatest Things About Being Queer, ABC
's The View, A&E
's Caroline's
Comedy Hour and An Evening at the Improv. Recently he appeared on HLN's The Joy Behar Show
.
. He has also written for the New York Blade, Washington Blade, and US Weekly
.
, viewable at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-david/. He also broadcasts a podcast of interviews with many notable figures, Jim David's Icons, http://comicjimdavid.podomatic.com
Asheville, North Carolina
Asheville is a city in and the county seat of Buncombe County, North Carolina, United States. It is the largest city in Western North Carolina, and the 11th largest city in North Carolina. The City is home to the United States National Climatic Data Center , which is the world's largest active...
, and lives in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. He performs stand-up comedy at comedy clubs and other venues worldwide.
Stand-Up Beginnings
Growing up in North CarolinaNorth Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, David played Phyllis Diller
Phyllis Diller
Phyllis Diller is an American actress and comedian. She created a stage persona of a wild-haired, eccentrically dressed housewife who makes jokes about a husband named "Fang" while pretending to smoke from a long cigarette holder...
and Jonathan Winters
Jonathan Winters
-Early life:Winters was born in Bellbrook, Ohio, the son of Alice Kilgore , a radio personality, and Jonathan Harshman Winters II, an investment broker. He is a descendant of Valentine Winters, founder of the Winters National Bank in Dayton, Ohio...
records until they were ruined and voraciously read Mad Magazine, even creating his own comedy magazine entitled "Icky". He made his stage debut at age 9 as a Munchkin in The Wizard of Oz, and by college had appeared in over 50 plays.
After attending Furman University
Furman University
Furman University is a selective, private, coeducational, liberal arts college in Greenville, South Carolina, United States. Furman is one of the oldest, and more selective private institutions in South Carolina...
and Southern Methodist University
Southern Methodist University
Southern Methodist University is a private university in Dallas, Texas, United States. Founded in 1911 by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, SMU operates campuses in Dallas, Plano, and Taos, New Mexico. SMU is owned by the South Central Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church...
, he moved to New York, appeared in several Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
and Regional theater productions, and did commercials and voice-overs. His New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
theater career led him to remark, "I came to New York to be in the theater, but the theater said, 'we don't see you as an actor, we see you as an usher.'" However, he did appear on Broadway in the musical The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public
The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public
The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public is a musical with a book by Larry L. King and Peter Masterson and music and lyrics by Carol Hall.Ostensibly a sequel to the creative team's 1978 hit The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, it is more a series of burlesque-style sketches and musical interludes...
in 1994, directed by Tommy Tune
Tommy Tune
Thomas James "Tommy" Tune is an American actor, dancer, singer, theatre director, producer, and choreographer. Over the course of his career, he has won nine Tony Awards and the National Medal of Arts.-Early years:...
and Peter Masterson
Peter Masterson
Peter Masterson is an American actor, director, producer and writer.Masterson often worked with his cousin, writer Horton Foote. Acting from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s,including 1975's The Stepford Wives as Walter Eberhart, since then he has concentrated mostly on directing and producing...
.
He became a director and directed plays (among them Candide
Candide
Candide, ou l'Optimisme is a French satire first published in 1759 by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment. The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled Candide: or, All for the Best ; Candide: or, The Optimist ; and Candide: or, Optimism...
, The Skin of Our Teeth
The Skin of Our Teeth
The Skin of Our Teeth is a play by Thornton Wilder which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It opened on October 15, 1942 at the Shubert Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, before moving to the Plymouth Theatre on Broadway on November 18, 1942...
, Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot is an absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for someone named Godot to arrive. Godot's absence, as well as numerous other aspects of the play, have led to many different interpretations since the play's...
, Dark of the Moon
Dark of the Moon (play)
Dark of the Moon is a dramatic stage play by Howard Richardson and William Berney which had a ten-month run on Broadway in 1945, followed by numerous college and high-school productions....
, Noises Off
Noises Off
Noises Off is a 1982 play by English playwright Michael Frayn. The idea for it was born in 1970, when Frayn was standing in the wings watching a performance of Chinamen, a farce that he had written for Lynn Redgrave...
, Jesus Christ Superstar
Jesus Christ Superstar
Jesus Christ Superstar is a rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber, with lyrics by Tim Rice. The musical started off as a rock opera concept recording before its first staging on Broadway in 1971...
and Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
's The Learned Ladies Off-Broadway) and taught theater in high schools and community theaters. In 1986, he became a stand-up comedian full-time.
Comedy career
He has performed at many comedy festivals including Montreal's Just For Laughs Festival, HBO's US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen
Aspen
Populus section Populus, of the Populus genus, includes the aspen trees and the white poplar Populus alba. The five typical aspens are all native to cold regions with cool summers, in the north of the Northern Hemisphere, extending south at high altitudes in the mountains. The White Poplar, by...
, Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
, and the TBS Comedy Festival in Las Vegas.
He is featured as one of the stars of Laughing Liberally, a political comedy show that made its debut at New York's Town Hall in 2006.
His one-man comedy for the theatre, "South Pathetic", in which he plays himself and 10 characters, details the worst community theater in the South in a production of Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
' A Streetcar Named Desire
A Streetcar Named Desire (play)
A Streetcar Named Desire is a 1947 play written by American playwright Tennessee Williams for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948. The play opened on Broadway on December 3, 1947, and closed on December 17, 1949, in the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. The Broadway production was...
. It was performed at the Williamstown Theatre Festival
Williamstown Theatre Festival
The Williamstown Theatre Festival is a regional summer stock theatre on the campus of Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, founded in 1954 by Williams College news director, Ralph Renzi, and drama program chairman, David C. Bryant. The theatre was conceived as a way to use the Adams...
in Williamstown, Massachusetts
Williamstown, Massachusetts
Williamstown is a town in Berkshire County, in the northwest corner of Massachusetts. It shares a border with Vermont to the north and New York to the west. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 7,754 at the 2010 census...
, as well in New York and other regional theaters, including San Francisco's New Conservatory Theatre in August 2009, where it received rave reviews and was a popular success. In August 2010, it was performed at the New York International Fringe Festival
New York International Fringe Festival
The New York International Fringe Festival, or FringeNYC, is a Fringe theater festival and one of the largest multi-arts events in North America. It takes place over the course of two weeks every August, spread across several neighborhoods in downtown Manhattan, notably the Lower East Side, the...
in Manhattan, where it sold out its entire run and was favorably reviewed by The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
and other media.
Television
He has appeared on many television comedy shows, most notably his special Comedy Central PresentsComedy Central Presents
Comedy Central Presents is a half-hour long stand-up show that features various stand-up comedians in each episode.-DVDs:Starting in 2008, Comedy Central started releasing "Best of" compilation DVDs, with uncensored audio...
Jim David, and a two-year stint on Comedy Central's Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn
Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn
Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn is a comedic talk show that aired on Comedy Central. The show featured roundtable discussions, inviting various guests of many views, mixing mostly comics/entertainers expressing themselves with journalists and political figures. Quinn's regular guests consisted mainly...
. The show featured many of the performers he worked with at the Greenwich Village club Comedy Cellar
Comedy Cellar
The Comedy Cellar is a comedy club in Manhattan, where many top New York comedians perform. It was founded in 1982 by then standup comedian, and current television writer/producer Bill Grundfest...
and was based on the freewheeling political arguments they had at the "comedian's table" at the Olive Tree Cafe, the restaurant above the club. Often featuring as much of the comedians "roasting" each other as discussions of current events, the show was cancelled in November 2004 despite a large cult following.
David also appeared on many television shows as a comedian or commentator, among them Comedy Central
Comedy Central
Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....
's Out On the Edge, Comic Cabana, USO
United Service Organizations
The United Service Organizations Inc. is a private, nonprofit organization that provides morale and recreational services to members of the U.S. military, with programs in 160 centers worldwide. Since 1941, it has worked in partnership with the Department of Defense , and has provided support and...
Comedy Tour, Comic Remix and Friars' Club
New York Friars' Club
The Friars Club is a private club in New York City, founded in 1904 and famous for its risqué celebrity roasts. The club's membership is composed mostly of comedians and other celebrities. It is located at 57 East 55th Street between Park and Madison Avenues in a building it calls the Monastery...
Roast of Rob Reiner, Bravo's Queer Eye For The Straight Guy
Queer Eye
Queer Eye is an American reality television series that premiered on the Bravo cable television network in July 2003. The program's name was changed from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy after the third season to broaden the scope of its content...
and Greatest Things About Being Queer, ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
's The View, A&E
A&E Network
The A&E Network is a United States-based cable and satellite television network with headquarters in New York City and offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, London, Los Angeles and Stamford. A&E also airs in Canada and Latin America. Initially named the Arts & Entertainment Network, A&E launched...
's Caroline's
Caroline's
Carolines on Broadway is a venue for stand-up comedy located in Times Square in New York City on Broadway between 49th and 50th Street. It is one of the most established, famous, and recognized stand-up comedy clubs in the United States. Its marketing slogan is "America's Premiere Comedy...
Comedy Hour and An Evening at the Improv. Recently he appeared on HLN's The Joy Behar Show
The Joy Behar Show
The Joy Behar Show is a news program and talk show that premiered on HLN on September 29, 2009. The show is hosted by Joy Behar, who is one of the five co-hosts of The View. The show originally aired in the 9:00PM EST slot and 8:00PM CST, but was moved to 10:00PM EST in January 2011...
.
Magazines
David is a contributing writer to The AdvocateThe Advocate
The Advocate is an American LGBT-interest magazine, printed monthly and available by subscription. The Advocate brand also includes a web site. Both magazine and web site have an editorial focus on news, politics, opinion, and arts and entertainment of interest to LGBT people...
. He has also written for the New York Blade, Washington Blade, and US Weekly
Us Weekly
Us Weekly is a celebrity gossip magazine, founded in 1977 by The New York Times Company, who sold it in 1980. It was acquired by Wenner Media in 1986. The publication covers topics ranging from celebrity relationships to the latest trends in fashion, beauty, and entertainment...
.
Internet
David blogs for The Huffington PostThe Huffington Post
The Huffington Post is an American news website and content-aggregating blog founded by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti, featuring liberal minded columnists and various news sources. The site offers coverage of politics, theology, media, business, entertainment, living, style,...
, viewable at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-david/. He also broadcasts a podcast of interviews with many notable figures, Jim David's Icons, http://comicjimdavid.podomatic.com
Discography
- Eat Here And Get Gas, CD, 2000, rereleased by Stand Up! RecordsStand Up! RecordsStand Up! Records is an American independent comedy record label founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota by former -ismist Recordings label head Dan Schlissel...
, 2007 - Live From Jimville, CD, 2003, rereleased by Stand Up! Records, 2008
- Notorious F.A.G., CD, released by Stand Up! Records, 2010
Quotes
- The thing about your family is that you're connected forever by blood relationship to a group of folks who are really not your kind of people.
- It makes sense that I work in nightclubs, because when I was a kid, our home had a two-drink minimum.
- I went to a gym and said, "How much is it for a year?" and the guy said, "It's gonna take longer than a year."
- White people are scared to go to a black neighborhood because they think they're going to get mugged. The only time I was mugged in a black neighborhood was by a white guy who grabbed me screaming, "Get me the hell out of here!"
- A man in Texas said to me, "I didn't like what you said about Texans being stupid, boy. If I had my gun you would be dead." I said, "Well, I'm glad you are so stupid you forgot to bring it."
- My nephew got one of those video games where you can pretend you are Lee Harvey Oswald and assassinate JFK in the motorcade. I think that's outrageous. I think you should be able to pick the president.
- George Bush outlined his plan for postwar Iraq, then he colored it.
- Being gay is not a choice. It's not like you wake up one morning and go, "I'm tired of corn flakes. I think I'll have a cock."
- I was standing in Manhattan, a man came up and said, "they ought to take all these homos and put them on an island." I said, "Merry Christmas, Bozo, you're on it."