Chris Gethard Career Suicide No Longer Just for New Yorkers

 

Back in October, we wrote about how much we loved Chris Gethard’s one man show in New York City (Review: Chris Gethard’s Career Suicide, A Powerful Story From an Extraordinary Storyteller). Now everyone who has access to HBO will have the opportunity judge for themselves because HBO has announced that they are bringing Gethard’s show to screens of all sizes across America.

Gethard’s stage show ran at the Lynn Redgrave Theater this past fall, and once again showed that Chris Gethard’s range is extraordinary. The show is nothing like his Public-access television show- a madcap cross between a group therapy session and an all night block party. Career Suicide puts a spotlight on Gethard, alone, in a mostly bare space, sharing his most vulnerable moments with a room full of strangers. Gethard takes the audience through his fragile early teen years up through his still fragile young adulthood, and that journey includes at least one suicide attempt, drug abuse, pain, mental health issues of all kinds, recovery, relapse, and other struggles…and not your garden variety versions either. Gethard lays it all so bare, that you may find yourself gasping, or perhaps nodding with understanding, but you will absolutely be laughing because Gethard knows how to wring comedy out of darkness. To quote ourselves, “The best comedy comes from life’s failures, not life’s successes, and Gethard knows how to mine the failures in his life for all they are worth. It’s not sledgehammer comedy, with punchline after punchline making your ribs hurt. But the laughs are frequent, and in many ways more satisfying than the laughs that come with joke, joke, joke formats.”

Gethard will tape a special performance of his show on February 11, 2017 at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center in Manhattan for broadcast in May on HBO. Judd Apatow will executive produce the special along with Gethard, Brian Stern, Mike Berkowitz, Anna Wenger, and Marcus Raboy. Kimberly Senior will direct.

HBO’s Nina Rosenstein said “Chris Gethard is a fearless storyteller, and CAREER SUICIDE is exactly the kind of raw, relevant and hilarious comedy we are thrilled to share with our audience.”

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