Ritch Shydner’s ‘History of Stand Up Comedy’
Stand up comedy has been around for more than a century and half. Comedian Ritch Shydner manages to include all of that history in a fast-paced, 90-minute, multimedia presentation. Catch the show at LEAF Global Arts on Friday and Saturday, April 19 and 20, 7 p.m. each night.
In the 1980s, Ritch Shydner made numerous appearances on TV, including “Late Night with David Letterman” and “The Tonight Show” with both Johnny Carson and Jay Leno. He played Al Bundy’s co-worker on “Married with Children” and made guest appearances on many other TV shows, such as “Designing Women” and “Roseanne.” Ritch was able to translate his modest success on TV into an obscure film career, appearing in Steve Martin’s, Roxanne and Eddie Murphy’s Beverly Hills Cop II. Ritch wrote for sitcoms such as “Roseanne,” “The Jeff Foxworthy Show,” and HBO’s “The Mind of the Married Man.”
In 2006 he co-authored I Killed, a book on stand up, in 2010 he produced and performed in an award winning documentary on the world of stand-up comedy, and in 2016 Ritch wrote a movie adaptation for HBO of Bill Maher’s book True Story. That same year, he released Kicking Through the Ashes – My Life as a Stand-up in the 1980’s Comedy Boom.
