Billy Crystal & Bonnie Hunt Are Spending the Night Together on a New Tour

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Billy Crystal no longer does just stand up comedy. Now, his shows are full multi-media events and on his latest tour, Bonnie Hunt is now part of the experience.

The show is called Spend the Night with Billy Crystal and it’s an entertainment hybrid of stand up, video pieces and an interview. It’s the story of Billy Crystal’s long and rewarding career with the interview portion conducted by Billy’s long friend and hysterical comedian, Bonnie Hunt (Jumanji, The Bonnie Hunt Show, Rain Man, Davis Rules).

As you spend the night with Billy Crystal, he starts with a monologue as an introduction to the evening, then he sits down with Bonnie Hunt to go over his career highlights and milestones. Some of those stories are told through vignettes featuring his most memorable comedy moments including playing the first openly gay character on television on ABC’s Soap and his comedy tour of the Soviet Union in the 80s that turned out to be more emotional than he expected. It was in Russia that Billy discovered 30 of his relatives that he didn’t even know existed.

He described his show to Philly.com by saying, “It’s really a stand-up show, but some of it is done sitting down.” And if you’re wondering why he chose Bonnie Hunt to be a part of “Spend the Night with Billy Crystal“, it because of Robin Williams who passed away in 2014, but still obviously has a helping hand in Billy Crystal’s life. Billy said, “Bonnie and I have known each other for years. She’s a terrific actress, and she’s a Second City veteran. We both spoke at Robin Williams’ funeral, and we met up again about eight months ago, when we were on a panel discussion about him, and we were just very funny sitting next to each other. … And I just said to Bonnie, ‘You know, this is sort of meant to be. Come out on the road with me. It’s just the sort of thing Robin would have loved.’ ”

The new touring comedy show may feel like an extension of Billy Crystal’s Broadway hit, the Tony Award winning “700 Sundays” which dealt with his childhood and losing his father when Billy was only 15 years old. Even though “Spend the Night” is also autobiographical, it’s not nearly as somber as “700 Sundays“. Billy talked about the difference between the two shows. He said, “700 Sundays was a play, while this is very loosely constructed and very spontaneous,” adding that 700 Sundays “was about a sad time in my life,” and that this latest show is a celebration.

Celebrate while you “Spend the Night with Billy Crystal” (and the amazingly funny Bonnie Hunt) by going to StubHub or Ticketmaster to find tour dates, venues and tickets. Upcoming cities include Philadelphia, Atlanta, National Harbor, MD, and Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.

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Ernie Tripper
Ernie Tripper