06Mar

Previewing and Loving Netflix’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

kimmyschmidt

The week before last, I attended a private screening for Netflix's new show, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt at the Tribeca Grand Hotel in NYC. I drove myself into the city on a cold winter night for this special event. I had already screened the first episode and was intrigued by the show's premise about a young girl who escapes after spending  15 years as part of a cult and heads to NYC. NBC initially passed on this new comedy, co-created by the fabulous Tina Fey and Robert Carlock, and I can't figure out their rationale. The event was so very Netflix and Read More

04Oct

Jessie Kahnweiler on Chutzpah & More

Jessie Kahnweiler

Last year I stumbled across a web series called Dude Where’s my Chutzpah.  It was a hilarious and straightforward look at finding meaning in Judaism, and I found it, I was hooked and watched all 11 episodes in one sitting. It's everything I've ever felt about being Jewish in one set of short films and I was all over it. I soon discovered it was created by 28 year-old Jessie Kahnweiler, a filmmaker also from my hometown, Atlanta, GA (but much younger than me).  Since then, I've been following her career and know she's won a few grants (Six Points Read More

03Apr

Dan Gets a Minivan, Coming Soon

Screen shot 2012-04-03 at 8.38.00 PM

It just so happens that Dan Zevin lives in my hometown and his son is my daughter's 3rd grade class. He's an author with a new book coming out, Dan Gets a Minivan, a coming-of-middle-age tale told with warmth and wit, It provides the one thing every parent really needs: comic relief. The least hip citizen of Brooklyn, Dan has a working wife, two small children, a mother who visits each week to “help,” and an obese Labrador mutt who prefers to be driven rather than walked. How he got to this point is a bit of a blur. There was a wedding, and Read More

18Jun

Giveaway: Spend an Evening Laughing at “The Judy Show: My Life as a Sitcom”

Judy Gold

Emmy-winning actress and comic Judy Gold returns to the New York stage June 30 in a brand-new show entitled The Judy Show: My Life as a Sitcom. Building on the success of her show 25 Questions for a Jewish Mother, funny-woman Judy Gold returns to the stage in this hilarious look at her life through the lens of the classic sitcoms of her youth. With multimedia, original music, laughter and love, Judy shows us how she balances family and ambition with a little help from our favorite 70s, 80s and 90s TV shows. She is really hilarious.  I saw her last Read More

13Jun

Stand Up for Israel/Comedy for Koby

standupforkoby

I spent my freshman year of university in Jerusalem with a guy named Avi Liberman (pictured above).  I always remembered him as a genuinely nice, funny guy and was happy when we reconnected on Facebook a few years ago.  The program we went on either convinced you to move to Israel or turned you in a real Zionist, doing what you can for Israel from wherever you are. For the last few years, I've been keeping up with Avi's life as a comedian, whilst he's been living in Los Angeles.  I knew that he has great success in his field.  However, I didn't really Read More