john mulaney tour new material

• Weird But True
• Sex & Relationships
• Viral Trends
• Human Interest
• Fashion & Beauty
• Food & Drink
• Personal Care
• Home Products
• Health & Wellness
• Amazon Sales
• Ticket Sales
• Gift Guides
• Why Trust Us

trending now in Shopping

The Jets have a reinvigorated Rodgers and a brand-new logo: shop...

Mother's Day is exactly a month way — Shop these 84 gift ideas...

Music to our ears: Apple AirPods (2nd Generation) hit their...

Super Sammies is taking on Uncrustables — are they better?

Bath & body works just launched fragrance dupes for all your....

We spent years testing 30+ shampoos, and these have the...

Is collagen worth the hype? See what experts have to say

The best tax software to file online as the 2024 deadline..., john mulaney adds shows with pete davidson, jon stewart. get tickets today.

• View Author Archive
• Get author RSS feed

Thanks for contacting us. We've received your submission.

John Mulaney is working on new material.

The popular comedian just completed a five-show run with Jon Stewart and Pete Davidson — aptly titled the ‘Jon, John and Pete Tour’ — where he performed all new jokes that weren’t on his 2023 “Baby J” special according to the New York Post’s review of his set.

Now, the “Sack Lunch Bunch” star has announced an additional 12 shows where he’ll continue to fine-tune his already sharp bits.

That includes a gig at Westbury, NY’s NYCB Theatre on Friday, Oct. 13.

He won’t be going it alone either.

At ten of the shows, Mulaney will co-headline with Davidson ; as for the other two, he and Stewart are sharing the spotlight.

This. time around, he’s calling it the ‘John & (Jon or Pete) Tour.’

Want to find out if the “Oh, Hello” star is headed to a venue near you this fall with one of his funny friends?

Keep scrolling, “Big Mouth,” “Across The Spider-Verse,” “The Bear” and “Chip ‘n Dale” fans.

We’ve got everything you need to know and more about John Mulaney’s 2023 stand-up tour below.

John Mulaney 2023 tour schedule

A complete calendar including all tour dates, venues and links to buy tickets can be found here:

Pete Davidson solo 2023 tour

Pete Davidson isn’t just touring with Mulaney this year.

The former “Saturday Night Live” cast member has 30 stand-up gigs lined up this year up until mid-November.

Want to find out where he’s headed?

His entire tour schedule can be found here .

Comedians on tour in 2023

Many of your favorite comics are on the road this year.

Here are just five huge acts you won’t want to miss live these next few months.

•  Steve Martin and Martin Short

•  Colin Jost and Michael Che

• “The State”

•  Adam Sandler

•  Tina Fey with Amy Poehler

Want to see who else is telling jokes on the road this year? Check out our list of the  51 biggest comedians on tour in 2023 here  to find out.

More of an ‘SNL’ fan?

Our team compiled a list of all the show’s biggest alum playing all over North America  here .

Share this article:

• Manage Account

John Mulaney Sets 18-Stop U.S. Headlining Standup Comedy Tour for 2023: See the Dates

The trek is slated to begin in New York this November.

By Kyle Denis

• Share this article on Facebook
• Share this article on Twitter
• Share this article on Flipboard
• Share this article on Pinit
• + additional share options added
• Share this article on Reddit
• Share this article on Linkedin
• Share this article on Whatsapp
• Share this article on Email
• Print this article
• Share this article on Comment
• Share this article on Tumblr

Fresh off the announcement of Big Mouth’s forthcoming seventh season — which is set to star Megan Thee Stallion — comedian, voice actor, and writer John Mulaney has revealed a slew of new 2023 tour dates.

Tina Fey, Steve Martin & Paul Rudd Induct John Mulaney Into ‘SNL’ Five-Timers Club: Watch

Trending on billboard.

Fans can begin purchasing tickets for Mulaney’s new shows on Wednesday, Sept. 27 through an artist presale, with additional presales running throughout the week ahead of the general onsale — which will begin on Friday, Sept. 29 at 10 a.m. local time on the official Ticketmaster website.

Baby J , Mulaney’s latest standup special ,  debuted in April and earned him a pair of Emmy nominations: outstanding variety special (pre-recorded) and outstanding writing for a variety special.   He has won two Emmys for his work on Saturday Night Live and John Mulaney: Kid Gorgeous at Radio City . In 2018, Kid Gorgeous at Radio City peaked at No. 2 on Comedy Albums , becoming Mulaney’s third of four consecutive top five entries on the chart. The set also became his first to enter Top Album Sales (No. 96).

Check out the new John Mulaney In Concert dates below:

• Nov. 2 – Kingston, N.Y. – Ulster Performing Arts Center
• Nov. 4 – Troy, N.Y. – Troy Savings Bank Music Hall
• Nov. 11 – Toledo, Ohio – Stranahan Theater
• Nov. 12 – Columbus, Ohio – Palace Theatre
• Nov. 16 – Columbia, S.C. – Township Auditorium
• Nov. 17 – Athens, Ga. – The Classic Center Theater
• Nov. 18 – Macon, Ga. – Macon City Auditorium
• Nov. 19 – Savannah, Ga. – Johnny Mercer Theatre
• Nov. 30 – Hanover, Md. – The Hall at Live! Casino & Hotel
• Dec. 1 – Reading, Penn. – Santander Arena
• Dec. 2 – Norfolk, Va. – Chartway Arena
• Dec. 3 – State College, Penn. – Bryce Jordan Center
• Dec. 8 – Biloxi, Miss. – Mississippi Coast Coliseum
• Dec. 9 – New Orleans, La. – Mahalia Jackson Theater for the Performing Arts
• Dec. 14 – Tampa, Fla. – Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
• Dec. 15 – Hollywood, Fla. – Hard Rock Live
• Dec. 21 – Rosemont, Ill. – Rosemont Theatre
• Dec. 31 – Phoenix, Ariz. – Arizona Financial Theatre

Get weekly rundowns straight to your inbox

Want to know what everyone in the music business is talking about?

Get in the know on.

Billboard is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2024 Billboard Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

optional screen reader

Charts expand charts menu.

• Billboard Hot 100™
• Billboard 200™
• Hits Of The World™
• TikTok Billboard Top 50
• Song Breaker
• Year-End Charts
• Decade-End Charts

Music Expand music menu

• R&B/Hip-Hop

Culture Expand culture menu

Media expand media menu, business expand business menu.

• Business News
• Record Labels
• View All Pro

Pro Tools Expand pro-tools menu

• Songwriters & Producers
• Artist Index
• Royalty Calculator
• Market Watch
• Industry Events Calendar

Billboard Español Expand billboard-espanol menu

• Cultura y Entretenimiento

Honda Music Expand honda-music menu

John Mulaney Will End 2023 With an 18-Stop National Tour

The Emmy-winning stand-up’s latest kicks off Nov. 2 in Kingston, New York, and wraps Dec. 31 in Phoenix, Arizona

John Mulaney will wrap up 2023 with an 18-stop national tour of new stand-up material.

Per a Live Nation announcement Tuesday, the Emmy-winning comedian’s new tour, “John Mulaney in Concert,” will kick off Nov. 2 in Kingston, New York, and end with a New Year’s Eve show in Phoenix, Arizona.

Additional stops in the tour include outings in Ohio, Louisiana, Florida and Georgia. Full schedule below:

• Nov. 2 – Kingston, New York – Ulster Performing Arts Center*
• Nov. 4 – Troy, New York – Troy Savings Bank Music Hall
• Nov. 11 – Toledo, Ohio – Stranahan Theater
• Nov. 12 – Columbus, Ohio – Palace Theatre
• Nov. 16 – Columbia, South Carolina – Township Auditorium
• Nov. 17 – Athens, Gerogia – The Classic Center Theater* 
• Nov. 18 – Macon, Georgia – Macon City Auditorium*
• Nov. 19 – Savannah, Georgia – Johnny Mercer Theatre
• Nov. 30 – Hanover, Maryland – The Hall at Live! Casino & Hotel*
• Dec. 1 – Reading, Pennsylvania – Santander Arena
• Dec. 2 – Norfolk, Virginia – Chartway Arena
• Dec. 3 – State College, Pennsylvania – Bryce Jordan Center
• Dec. 8 – Biloxi, Mississippi – Mississippi Coast Coliseum
• Dec. 9 – New Orleans, Louisiana – Mahalia Jackson Theater for the Performing Arts
• Dec. 14 – Tampa, Florida – Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
• Dec. 15 – Hollywood, Florida – Hard Rock Live 
• Dec. 21 – Rosemont, Illinois – Rosemont Theatre
• Dec. 31 – Phoenix, Arizona – Arizona Financial Theatre

Tickets will become available Wednesday via the artist’s presale. Additional presales will run ahead of the general on sale beginning on Friday at 10 a.m.

Previous stand-up specials from Mulaney include this year’s twice-Emmy-nominated “Baby J,” which recounts the comedian’s experience with addiction, intervention and sobriety; “The Comeback Kid”; “Kid Gorgeous at Radio City” (for which he won the Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special in 2018); and “John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch,” all available on Netflix.

Additional credits include writing for “Saturday Night Live” (he’s hosted the sketch comedy series five times since leaving its staff), “Big Mouth,” Broadway’s “Oh, Hello” with Nick Kroll and “Documentary Now!”

One response to “John Mulaney Will End 2023 With an 18-Stop National Tour”

Fact checking: there is an asterisk beside some dates – with no visible explanation of the asterisk. Assuming they’re private shows since they’re not listed for sale elsewhere, but an explanation would be helpful. Also, the on-sale date mentioned here is incorrect. Shows for my town are already almost sold out (and it is Tuesday – before the Wednesday pre-sale you mention).

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

John Mulaney Announces New Headlining Comedy Tour ‘John Mulaney In Concert’

Tickets Available Starting Wednesday, September 27 with Artist Presale    

General onsale begins on friday, september 29 at 10am local on ticketmaster.com  .

Award winning comedian   John Mulaney   announced today he will be going back on tour solo   with a brand new show.   The stand-up comedy tour   kicks off kicks off on November 2 at the Ulster Performing Arts Center in Kingston, NY making stops across the U.S. in Columbus, OH; New Orleans, LA; Tampa, FL and more before wrapping up in Phoenix, AZ at Arizona Financial Theatre on New Years Eve.  

TICKETS: Tickets will be available starting with an artist presale beginning on Wednesday, September 27. Additional presales will run throughout the week ahead of the general onsale beginning on Friday, September 29 at 10AM local time at ticketmaster.com.      

MORE ABOUT THE SHOW: This event will be a phone-free experience. Use of phones, smart watches and accessories, will not be permitted in the performance space. Upon arrival at the venue, all phones, smart watches and accessories will be secured in individual Yondr pouches that will be opened at the end of the event. Guests maintain possession of their devices at all times, and can access them throughout the event only in designated Phone Use Areas within the venue. All devices will be re-secured in Yondr pouches before returning to the performance space.  

JOHN MULANEY IN CONCERT 2023 TOUR DATES:   

Thur Nov 02 – Kingston, NY – Ulster Performing Arts Center*  

Sat Nov 04 – Troy, NY – Troy Savings Bank Music Hall  

Sat Nov 11 – Toledo, OH – Stranahan Theater  

Sun Nov 12 – Columbus, OH – Palace Theatre  

Thu Nov 16 – Columbia, SC – Township Auditorium  

Fri Nov 17 – Athens, GA – The Classic Center Theater*   

Sat Nov 18 – Macon, GA – Macon City Auditorium*  

Sun Nov 19 – Savannah, GA – Johnny Mercer Theatre  

Thur Nov 30 – Hanover, MD – The Hall at Live! Casino & Hotel*  

Fri Dec 01 – Reading, PA – Santander Arena  

Sat Dec 02 – Norfolk, VA – Chartway Arena  

Sun Dec 03 – State College, PA – Bryce Jordan Center  

Fri Dec 08 – Biloxi, MS – Mississippi Coast Coliseum  

Sat Dec 09 – New Orleans, LA – Mahalia Jackson Theater for the Performing Arts  

Thu Dec 14 – Tampa, FL – Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino  

Fri Dec 15 – Hollywood, FL – Hard Rock Live   

Thu Dec 21 – Rosemont, IL – Rosemont Theatre  

Sun Dec 31 – Phoenix, AZ – Arizona Financial Theatre  

*Not a Live Nation Date  

ABOUT JOHN MULANEY   

John Mulaney is a two-time Emmy and WGA award-winning writer, actor, and comedian.  Mulaney can be seen in his latest Netflix stand up special, BABY J. Released in April 2023, Mulaney converts his personal turmoil into comedic brilliance, which earned him 2023  Emmy nominations in Outstanding Variety Special (Pre-Recorded) and Outstanding Writing For A Variety Special. On tour,  he has sold out massive venues around North America from Madison Square Garden multiple times to the Hollywood Bowl. His 2023 tour dates have included shows across US, Europe and Australia.    

In 2018, John Mulaney traveled the United States with sold out Kid Gorgeous tour, which was later released as a Netflix stand-up special and won the Emmy for Outstanding Writing in a Variety Special; In 2015, he released The Comeback Kid , also a Netflix original, which The AV Club called the “best hour of his career;” In 2012, his Comedy Central special New In Town had Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly hailing him as “one of the best stand-up comics alive.”    

John Mulaney has been invited to host Saturday Night Live five times. He began writing for SNL in 2008 and created memorable characters such as ‘Stefon’ with Bill Hader and appeared as a “Weekend Update” correspondent. He has written for IFC’s Documentary Now! and Netflix’s Big Mouth , on which he voices the character of Andrew. In December 2019, the critically acclaimed and Emmy nominated musical variety special  John Mulaney & The Sack Lunch Bunch debuted on Netflix.  

He’s also starred on Broadway in the runaway hit written and performed alongside Nick Kroll in Oh, Hello On Broadway.  The duo have since released a Netflix special of the same name, as well as Oh, Hello: The P’dcast , based off their characters Gil Faizon and George St. Geegland.    

About Live Nation Entertainment  

Live Nation Entertainment (NYSE: LYV) is the world’s leading live entertainment company comprised of global market leaders: Ticketmaster, Live Nation Concerts, and Live Nation Sponsorship. For additional information, visit www.livenationentertainment.com .  

MEDIA CONTACTS:  

John Mulaney  

Lewis Kay | [email protected]    

Tess Speakman| [email protected]    

Live Nation Concerts  

Monique Sowinski | [email protected]    

Valeska Thomas | [email protected]

Read more about

To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories .

• What Is Cinema?
• Newsletters

Inside the Making of John Mulaney’s Baby J Netflix Special

By Julie Miller

Much has changed since John Mulaney was last onstage in a Netflix stand-up special. The comedian has weathered a much-publicized pandemic roller coaster —drug relapse , recovery, divorce, a new romance, and the birth of his first child—and emerged, after two years spent workshopping material about this epic trajectory, with a new persona . 

“I have kind of a different vibe now,” Mulaney tells the audience of Baby J , the Netflix special that debuted Tuesday, as he salutes the dramatic recent end of his “nice guy” era. Over 80 minutes, Mulaney walks a self-deprecating tightrope—depicting himself at the depth of his addiction as a drug-motivated con artist who stole from himself, hit up one of New York’s shadiest doctors for prescriptions, and showed up late to his own intervention. But he does so with such sharp punch lines and delivery that the material does not feel oppressively somber.  

After finessing his new comedy during a tour, Mulaney reunited with Tony-winning Broadway director Alex Timbers ( Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Beetlejuice, and Moulin Rouge! The Musical ) to create a Netflix special that would introduce Mulaney 2.0 to mass audiences. Timbers, whom Mulaney has called the Fosse to his Liza Minnelli, previously directed Mulaney in his 2016 stage show with Nick Kroll , Oh, Hello, and Mulaney’s 2018 Netflix special, Kid Gorgeous at Radio City. That Netflix special opened with an elaborate sequence that found Mulaney backstage at the famed New York theater, tracking the comedian as he walked onstage and was greeted with applause from the over 6,000 people in his audience.

This time around, to suit the more intimate material and Mulaney’s new “vibe,” Mulaney chose a smaller venue—Boston’s stunning Symphony Hall, which accommodates about 2,600 audience members. Underneath coffered ceilings and an imposing wall of Greek and Roman statues, the stage sits closer to the audience—an intimacy that Timbers and his DP Cameron Barnett amplified for at-home viewers by using steadicams onstage to capture Mulaney at a much closer distance than was captured in Kid Gorgeous.

Mulaney also opted to forgo a traditional opening. Instead, the special begins with a black screen as the comedian is overheard telling the audience, “The past couple years, I’ve done a lot of work on myself.” Baby J cuts to a tight shot of Symphony Hall’s stage, and Mulaney backs into the frame as he continues: “I’ve realized that I’ll be fine, as long as I get a lot of attention.” The camera then spins around to show Mulaney’s POV, looking out into the audience, and getting said attention.

“John wanted to get right into the material,” explains Timbers in a phone call with VF. “Because there’s such an urgency and intimacy, it felt like diving right into the show was the right choice.” 

The special was culled from footage taken during three stand-up shows performed during two days in Boston this past February. Ultimately, Timbers says, he and the comedian reordered the show in the edit room so that Mulaney was beginning Baby J with softer lead-up material, about wanting attention so much as a child that he secretly hoped a grandparent—“one of the unimportant ones”—would die. (Though grim, the bit is a throwback to Mulaney’s earlier comedy about his childhood.)

Onstage, Mulaney acknowledges, “I apologize for starting the show on such a dark note. But I didn’t want to start too upbeat.” He then breaks into jokey song and dance, imagining what that upbeat version of the opening would’ve been: “We all went to rehab, and we all got divorced, and now our reputation is different.”

One mood-lightener in the first minutes was unexpected—Mulaney spotted an 11-year-old fifth-grader named Henry in the balcony of one of his performances. After a playful back-and-forth about what Mulaney was about to discuss, he told Henry, “Don’t.” It takes 10 minutes before Mulaney finally winds up to discuss his intervention, teasing, “Here’s what happened.” Baby J then cuts to opening credits before the special returns to Mulaney onstage, beginning the special’s centerpiece.

By Chris Murphy

By Savannah Walsh

For the intervention sequence, explains Timbers, “We were trying to amplify the intimacy there—and be tighter on him with more sustained takes. We tried not to go to reverses or cutting to profile [shots] and to be selective about where we feature the audience…. The lenses also added to a greater sense of intimacy, which is what Jon wanted, and what made sense given how intimate and personal the comedy was.”

Timber and Mulaney tried to match the special to the comedian’s preferred aesthetic—contemporary classy with a vintage-throwback element. Mulaney selected a natty burgundy suit tailored by, according to Mulaney, the same guy who makes King Charles ’s pajamas, for example, and Timbers used a color swatch of the suit to inform the LED colors that shifted throughout the show. They change for the first time during the intervention run—appearing blue—and make Mulaney’s suit read as a dazzling magenta. “The juxtaposition of the coffered walls that feel a century old with very contemporary lighting—with the statues suddenly becoming disco colors”—was one example of Mulaney’s aesthetic mash-up, Timbers explains. 

“You’re always trying to find ways to help with rhythms and pacing,” says the director, noting that they spent time in the edit room nipping and tucking the material to perfection. “We also charted a color journey and come back to something that feels, I think, quite hopeful,” Timbers adds, referring to a bit toward the end of the special, when Mulaney describes going to a Detroit museum with his son, Malcolm. “The room is filled with light, and it’s a very uplifting look.”

“John has these amazing builds that you’re trying to support and amplify,” continues the director. “It can get very cutty, and that can be a good thing. But in other places where he has an amazing run, you actually stay on one camera for 45 seconds. It depends on what’s the best way to nurture the architecture of his act.”

The biggest Baby J surprise came once Mulaney’s first show was underway; from a comedy perspective, it was great, but from a production standpoint, it was a disaster. From the control room, Timbers and his crew realized in horror that all of the cameras were shaking throughout the show—which they eventually figured out was a result of the old wooden floors, which shook underneath the audience’s laughter. Says Timbers, “We ended up spending quite a bit of postproduction process stabilizing the footage to counteract how the building shook every time the crowd laughed.”

More Great Stories From Vanity Fair

Anne Hathaway on Tuning Out the Haters and Embracing Her True Self

What’s at Stake, Exactly, in Donald Trump’s Criminal Trial ?

A Brief History of Royals (Not) Going Public With Their Health Issues

Inside Trump’s Terrifyingly Competent 2024 Campaign

And the MAGA Mutiny That Brought McCarthy’s House Down

The 25 Best True-Crime Documentaries to Binge Right Now

From the Archive: The Devil in Bette Davis

Stay in the know and subscribe to Vanity Fair for just $2.50 $1 per month.

Julie Miller

Hollywood correspondent.

By Hillary Busis

By Esther Zuckerman

By Charles Bramesco

By David Canfield

By Tara Ariano

By Michael Riedel

John Mulaney brings new material, dad jokes to…

Share this:.

• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on X (Opens in new window)

Daily News e-Edition

Evening e-Edition

• E-Newspaper
• National News
• Puzzles & Games
• Transportation

John Mulaney brings new material, dad jokes to L.A.’s famed Largo

Joshua Blanchard

John Mulaney performing at Largo in 2014.

Cindy Ord/Getty Images

John Mulaney speaks onstage at 92NY on May 31, 2023 in New York.

Fresh off the release of his hilarious standup special “Baby J,” funny man and new-ish father John Mulaney is currently giving new material the sniff test at the Largo Comedy Club in Los Angeles.

A-list comedians such as Zach Galifianakis, Will Ferrell, Sarah Silverman and Larry David often use the venue as an incubator for bits. The theatre seats roughly 300 and was where the pre-rehab Mulaney gave his 2018 “Saturday Night Live” monologue a dry run in a surprise appearance on Oscar weekend.

Taped at Boston’s Symphony Hall after a string of life-changing and tumultuous events played out in the tabloids, Mulaney’s latest Netflix special addresses some of his bizarro behavior around that very same time.

And while cocaine is the white elephant in the room, topics such as drugs, his divorce, and his whiplash romance with actress Oliva Munn did not creep into the conversation on Tuesday.

At the 10 p.m. show on Tuesday, his second of the night, Mulaney only made the occasional reference to his “girlfriend Olivia” but did spend a good portion of the evening extolling the joys of fatherhood.

Mulaney and Munn welcomed their son Malcolm Hi?p in November of 2021 and promptly took the tot out on the road with an “autistic, gay, evangelical bus driver” behind the wheel of the tour bus — just one of the bits that had audience members howling.

He also told a story of being sued by Comedy Central for one million dollars after failing to produce a third comedy special for the outlet. He had signed a three-special deal for a mere $5,000.

“I don’t even think they paid me the whole amount,” he said.

The recollection slow-danced around the SAG-AFTRA/WGA strike, but Mulaney let that dog sleep.

And while he appeared a little tired — and what father of a toddler wouldn’t be tired at 10 p.m. — his new material is funny, fresh and self-deprecating. We don’t want to spoil the good time for everyone or expose a scientist’s secret sauce — especially since some of the jokes are half-baked. Just don’t expect Papa Mulaney to be.

More in Things To Do

SNYDE | Broadway legend Stephen Sondheim’s Connecticut home sold for $3.25 million

SNYDE | Donald Glover to retire Childish Gambino persona after final two albums

Daily Horoscope for April 15, 2024

SUBSCRIBER ONLY

Entertainment | broadway review: ‘lempicka’ is ambitious but clunky bio-musical about little-known artist.

site categories

Wonya lucas, former ceo of hallmark media and tv one, joins comcast board of directors, john mulaney launches 18-city u.s. standup comedy tour.

By Denise Petski

Denise Petski

Senior Managing Editor

More Stories By Denise

• ‘The Rookie’ Renewed For Season 7 By ABC
• ‘Fallout’ TV Series Based On Games Gets New, Earlier Premiere Date On Prime Video
• Dan Fogelman’s Hulu Series Adds Four To Cast

John Mulaney is going back on the road. The Emmy-winning comedian and Live Nation announced Tuesday that he’ll be heading out on a solo tour with a new show.

John Mulaney In Concert kicks off on November 2 at the Ulster Performing Arts Center in Kingston, NY with stops across the U.S. in Columbus, OH; New Orleans, LA; Tampa, FL and more before wrapping up in Phoenix, AZ at Arizona Financial Theatre on New Year’s Eve.

Related Stories

Disney+ Sets Latest Korean Series 'Low Life' From 'Big Bet' Creator, Hulu On Board

2024 Premiere Dates For New & Returning Series On Broadcast, Cable & Streaming

Mulaney first became known for his work as a writer on  Saturday Night Live , where he co-created with Bill Hader the Stefon character. He also was the creator and star of the short-lived semi autobiographical Fox sitcom  Mulaney . He recently voiced the Jack Horner character in the Oscar-nominated animated feature  Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.  He also voiced Andrew Glouberman in the Netflix original animated series  Big Mouth , among other credits.

Here are Mulaney’s Concert 2023 tour dates:

*Not a Live Nation Date

Must Read Stories

How writers are reacting to industrywide cost-cutting: hollywood contraction.

Jonathan Bailey Circles Lead Role In Ramping-Up ‘Jurassic World’ Movie

Armorer sentenced to 18 months in prison for halyna hutchins’ death, robert downey jr’s ‘sympathizer’ roles “america as a whole”: backstage.

Subscribe to Deadline Breaking News Alerts and keep your inbox happy.

Read More About:

No comments.

Deadline is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2024 Deadline Hollywood, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

• Life & Culture
• Entertainment

John Mulaney announces Tampa show, but what will he actually be doing?

• Gabrielle Calise Times staff

John Mulaney is returning to Tampa this winter.

The comic took to Instagram today to announce his upcoming tour, “John Mulaney in Concert!” It includes a local stop at 8 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 14, at the Seminole Hard Rock Tampa Event Center.

No word yet on what Mulaney will be doing in this show. Is he going to sing? He toured last year for his latest stand-up special “Baby J,” which premiered on Netflix in April 2023. That tour included a stop in Tampa. He’s spent the past couple of months doing comedy shows around the country with Pete Davidson and Jon Stewart.

“John Mulaney in Concert!” is limited to fans 21 and up. According to Ticketmaster, all fans will be required to place cellphones and smart watches inside lockable Yondr pouches during the performance to prevent audio and video recording.

The presale starts at 10 a.m. Wednesday via Ticketmaster. Fans can use the password COMEDY. The general sale starts at 10 a.m. Friday. For more information, visit johnmulaney.com .

Gabrielle Calise is a culture reporter who covers music, nostalgia and offbeat Florida trends. Reach her at [email protected].

MORE FOR YOU

• Advertisement

ONLY AVAILABLE FOR SUBSCRIBERS

The Tampa Bay Times e-Newspaper is a digital replica of the printed paper seven days a week that is available to read on desktop, mobile, and our app for subscribers only. To enjoy the e-Newspaper every day, please subscribe.

Find anything you save across the site in your account

John Mulaney on the Music That Made Him

By Evan Minsker

After more than 20 years of near-nonstop work en route to becoming a defining comedian of his generation, John Mulaney is coming off a rare period of calm. The writers’ strike gave him time to do some fishing, watch period-drama sex scenes with his girlfriend Olivia Munn’s mom, and assess the impact Cocomelon is having on his toddler’s brain. “It’s the weirdest type of animation, like, there are too many pixels,” the 41-year-old says, describing the popular—and deeply bizarre—Netflix kids show. “It’s too hypnotic.” The downtime has made him eager to get back on the road to work through a brand new hour of standup material. “One thing that’s bad for me is stopping,” he says. “While a big tour can be tiring, I need to do it immediately.”

His most recent special, Baby J , came out earlier this year, and it covers a massive amount of ground regarding Mulaney’s headline-making personal life following a divorce, two stints in rehab, and the birth of his son. In it, he jokes about wanting to be recognized during recovery and explains how Koala baby changing stations are specifically intended for use by cokeheads, not parents. He describes an intervention packed with famous comedians who all sat stone-faced instead of doing bits. He paints affectionate portraits of his former drug dealer and the highly questionable doctor who made him take his shirt off before he wrote him a prescription for Klonopin. It’s inherently dark subject matter, but according to Mulaney, it was delivered by someone “in a good place.”

Baby J was also released as a comedy album by Drag City, the indie institution based in Mulaney’s hometown of Chicago. It’s an appropriate partnership, as music has been key to his comedy for years. He enlisted legends like David Byrne and Jon Brion to contribute music to his specials, and his 2019 musical comedy John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch was packed with alternate-reality Broadway numbers and included a memorable turn from Jake Gyllenhaal as an oddball named Mr. Music . Oh, Hello , Mulaney’s stage show with Nick Kroll, had multiple Steely Dan jokes (not to mention the music of Steely Dan playing in the theater as audiences walked to their seats). His Saturday Night Live episodes all feature mini-musicals inspired by the chaos of New York City . The guy even helped write an entire Sondheim parody . So it’s no surprise that music has played a prominent role in his life offstage, too.

The Pointer Sisters : “ Neutron Dance ”

John Mulaney: My preferences really started at 5. Suddenly I was like: I have a style and I’m sticking to it . I really liked wearing ties. I have my hands in my pockets in photos, like I’m proudly admiring a factory floor. I remember wearing my Superman pajamas underneath a shirt and tie so that I could rip it open.

My parents had a Pointer Sisters tape in our car, Breakout . We played it all the time. Beyond “Jump,” which was the hit of the car, “Neutron Dance” had this driving energy to it that I really dug. My dad is a very formal, buttoned-up, law-abiding guy, but when “Neutron Dance” came on, he would just drive faster and faster and faster. We were on a country road once, and he was pulled over while “Neutron Dance” was blasting. The guy was like, “Do you know how fast you were going?” My dad is like, “I got a station wagon full of kids. No.” And he goes, “You’re going 90 miles an hour.” And I remember my mom being like, “Shit.” But it really was the power of the music—“Neutron Dance” had some kind of a spell on him.

A 5-year-old John Mulaney, circa 1987

Led Zeppelin : “ No Quarter ”

If I came online at 5, I completely went independent at 10. The notion of needing to go anywhere with a guardian or parent was so off the table. I just walked around Chicago from the time I was 10. We’d go to most of the used record, CD, and tape stores on Clark Street: Dr. Wax, 2nd Hand Tunes had two locations, and then Wax Trax was a little north. My brother knew about Led Zeppelin, so suddenly I knew about Led Zeppelin. When I was 10, we acquired every Led Zeppelin album in some form—mainly tapes.

I could not believe how good they were and how it was not at all like anything else in 1992. I thought I was a pretty savvy kid at 10—I knew about John Wayne Gacy and murderers and stuff—but I remember reading [the Zeppelin biography] Hammer of the Gods and being scandalized by that book. I have a visceral memory of standing in my basement against the staircase listening to Houses of the Holy , which is probably still my favorite Led Zeppelin album. Listening to “No Quarter” on my Walkman, it was the first time I realized, Oh, it’s a dark world. There’s another side to the coin that’s a little scary .

A 10-year-old Mulaney with his dad in 1992

Phish : “ Reba ”

I was trying to figure out how to be interesting. I had friends, had a decent time socially. I went to a fair amount of parties. We were into drugs, but no one was out of control at the time. I was all over the place musically. At 15, my dad walked into my room while I was blasting his Ike & Tina Turner album with “Proud Mary” on it, and he was just laughing. When OK Computer came out, I read about it in NME and they said it might be the best British album of all-time. I would take the train to my math tutor and blast that or “John, I’m Only Dancing” by Bowie.

I really hesitated telling Pitchfork this, but we were going to Phish concerts and doing that whole thing too. I got into them because of Colleen O’Brien, my best friend John O’Brien’s older sister—she was a senior when we were freshmen. She had a poster for Phish’s A Live One in her bedroom and was playing that song “Reba”—“Bag it, tag it, sell it to the butcher in the store.” It was like, “Oh are these guys trying to be funny?” By that point I was the biggest Talking Heads fan, and the biggest thing that drew me to David Byrne was that I thought he was really funny. The thing that turns off some people about Phish is their lyrics. And the scene. But it was like, “Oh, these guys are dorks. They like The Simpsons , they’re of this time, they have a lot of influences, and they’re phenomenal musicians.” I saw them again recently for the first time in 20 years, and it was the best.

Steely Dan : “ Pretzel Logic ”

I had a great time in college, to some degree. My first week, I met Nick Kroll and he cast me in the improv group. A couple weeks later, I met Mike Birbiglia. He had just graduated and came down to visit and was doing stand-up. Doing comedy went from being this thing that I really wanted to do to knowing people doing it on campus, and now I knew a guy who lived in New York and did standup. This was really huge. That was also the first time I really had a problem with drugs, where I was like, “Oh, I do more cocaine than everyone else. Oh, everyone went to bed and I didn’t, and now I am going about the day.” So that was not good; that started to feel alienating and isolating. While I was pretty young and having a great time in 2002, I was beginning some behavior that would blow up a few years later.

But I had really close friends I still have to this day. My roommate Kevin and I lived in this brick house in Georgetown. Very early in the school year, all my roommates and I were a little fucked up and driving to Sears to take a family portrait of all of us who lived in the house. We got light jeans—which are back in style, but in 2002, would be a very silly thing to wear—and white button-down shirts and tucked them in with belts. There were seven of us. Kevin just got the CD of Pretzel Logic by Steely Dan, and I don’t know what it was about that moment in time, but we were listening to “Rikki, Don’t Lose That Number,” and I was like, “Is this the finest song I’ve ever heard?”

So then we have this townhouse, we are doing lots of drugs, having lots of fun, and we threw tons of parties. We had a fireplace, and we’d walk around D.C. picking up dried-up Christmas trees. We didn’t have a saw, so we’d stomp them until they broke apart, burn them, blast Steely Dan records, and do cocaine. When we wanted people to leave, we’d play “Pretzel Logic,” loudly . We were like, “If you like this a little , stay.” [ laughs ] It was like we were hiring: We’re interested and looking for recruits.

Jay-Z : “ Say Hello ”

I was living in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. There was a track there, and I’d listen to MGMT’s “Time to Pretend” and just run and run. I wasn’t doing any drugs or drinking at this point; I was still smoking cigarettes all the time, but that didn’t have any effect yet. It was a nice moment in time. I didn’t really have a day job. I was doing standup at night. I got to open for Birbiglia on the road. I got to open for the Comedians of Comedy. Life was getting really fun.

I got a call to audition for Saturday Night Live out of the blue. I found out two days before, and I knew I wasn’t gonna get it. They had Hader and Forte and Fred and Seth and Jason—they didn’t need me. They offered a hotel for anyone auditioning, so I took it, and on my walk from the hotel to 30 Rock to audition for the show, I was listening to “Say Hello” from American Gangster . I saw that movie, which was only pretty good. But I heard Jay-Z watched it and became inspired to make a whole album. That’s a funny thing, to be like, “Wait, start recording.” Maybe Heat would make you jump up and make an album.

But “Say Hello” really psyched me up. I went into a place for the 20 minutes I was walking, listening on repeat, where I suddenly had this fake super-confident persona. I have decent self-esteem, but this was like, You’re a killer. [ laughs ] I worked myself up into a state with that song. I only got hired as a writer, but you know, I got a job out of it. I should listen to that song again.

Live on stage circa 2007

Destroyer : Kaputt

Saturday Night Live became my complete identity—this all-consuming thing that I loved, and I loved that it was all-consuming. I loved working 36 hours in a row. I loved going into the office on Sundays to get a head start on Monday’s pitch meeting. I loved working late Monday night and staying up all night Tuesday. I just loved being immersed in it.

I had a couple specials come out. I got a couple offers to have a show of my own in different formats. I thought I felt full burnout, but I wish I’d stayed on one more year at SNL , because I think I needed a rest, not to leave. I was very nervous about leaving that orbit, because it’s a fun orbit to be in. The show is in the news every week. It just feels very immediate and relevant.

I knew I was going to leave, and that was around the first time I heard Kaputt . I was in the back of 30 Rock, near the ice rink, at night. We had to go to some function as a staff. We might have been in tuxedos. I was listening to “Kaputt” and heard that line, “Chasing cocaine through the back rooms of the world.” I remember thinking to myself, Wow, can you believe we used to do cocaine? [ laughs ] Even when sober, I’ve always been a coke-y person.

Weather Report: “ Birdland ”

I did the Comeback Kid tour and filmed a special that came out in 2015. We immediately went into the Off-Broadway run of Oh, Hello , took that on tour, and then to Broadway, from September 2016 through January of the next year. That went from “Hillary is going to win” to the inauguration.

As the house lights went down on Oh, Hello , “Birdland” by Weather Report would play. From the Off-Broadway run to the end of the Broadway run, we listened to “Birdland” every night. Jazz fusion is objectively hilarious. I don’t mean that like we’re listening to it ironically; it’s great. Did you see that Jaco Pastorius documentary? Joe Zawinul is always shirtless—this strutting, peacocking Hungarian guy with a big mustache playing jazz fusion to stadiums. It’s one of the funniest eras of music. But also, “Birdland” was probably playing as I was born. It’s very primal, like I remember this . That song is how everything felt in 1982.

Nick and I would be waiting backstage, and we would listen to “Birdland” and make up lyrics to it, in character, about George and Gil thinking of every illegal possibility to get into Shea Stadium to meet the Mets: “You can meet the Mets if you want/You just have to get a custodian uniform,” or, “I have a fake police badge to meet the Mets.” Them wanting to meet all of the Mets at once was their dream.

With Nick Kroll backstage on the opening night of Oh, Hello on Broadway in 2016

Jessie Ware : “ Remember Where You Are ”

“Remember Where You Are” was the song we played as the show began on the Baby J tour. My friend Kevin, who introduced me to Steely Dan and formerly of Rolling Stone , told me about Jessie Ware. When I lived with him in Brooklyn, I knew about new things all the time. He’d be like, “This is the Twilight Sad, and this is No Age.” We stopped living together in 2009, and the new music I was introduced to cratered. So this was a Kevin recommendation—the lights would go down in the arena and we’d play that song. Going into that show, I had a big soul and R&B playlist going: a lot of Allen Toussaint, Al Green, some Motown stuff, “River Deep, Mountain High.”

Baby J , to me, is not a dark show; I was really happy while I was talking about those things onstage. I’m not saying I’m proud of everything, but the person standing on stage has a new life that’s really happy. That was the vibe of the music, too. Celebratory, but interesting .

By Madison Bloom

By Jazz Monroe

By Nina Corcoran

By Matthew Strauss

John Mulaney Announces New Comedy Tour ‘John Mulaney in Concert’

By Anna Tingley

Anna Tingley

• This MasterClass Hack Gets You a Monthly Subscription for Under $4 9 hours ago
• Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt’s Hats in ‘The Fall Guy’ Are Now Available to Shop Online 15 hours ago
• ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Season 16: How to Watch the Reunion Online 4 days ago

If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission.

Following a brief run of shows alongside Pete Davidson and Jon Stewart last month, John Mulaney has announced a new comedy tour to kick off in November.

Titled “John Mulaney in Concert,” the solo show kicks off on Nov. 2 at the Ulster Performing Arts Center in Kingston, NY, making stops across the U.S. in Columbus, Ohio; New Orleans, La.; Tampa, Fla., and more before wrapping up in Phoenix, Ariz., at Arizona Financial Theatre on New Years Eve.

Popular on Variety

Mulaney’s last solo trek was his “From Scratch” stand-up tour, which he closed out Sept. 25. The tour began as a limited run in New York and Boston last summer, in what marked his first long-term return to the live stage following a months-long hiatus.

“John Mulaney in Concert” 2023 tour dates:

Thur Nov 02 – Kingston, NY – Ulster Performing Arts Center*

Sat Nov 04 – Troy, NY – Troy Savings Bank Music Hall

Sat Nov 11 – Toledo, OH – Stranahan Theater

Sun Nov 12 – Columbus, OH – Palace Theatre

Thu Nov 16 – Columbia, SC – Township Auditorium

Fri Nov 17 – Athens, GA – The Classic Center Theater* 

Sat Nov 18 – Macon, GA – Macon City Auditorium*

Sun Nov 19 – Savannah, GA – Johnny Mercer Theatre

Thur Nov 30 – Hanover, MD – The Hall at Live! Casino & Hotel*

Fri Dec 01 – Reading, PA – Santander Arena

Sat Dec 02 – Norfolk, VA – Chartway Arena

Sun Dec 03 – State College, PA – Bryce Jordan Center

Fri Dec 08 – Biloxi, MS – Mississippi Coast Coliseum

Sat Dec 09 – New Orleans, LA – Mahalia Jackson Theater for the Performing Arts

Thu Dec 14 – Tampa, FL – Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino

Fri Dec 15 – Hollywood, FL – Hard Rock Live 

Thu Dec 21 – Rosemont, IL – Rosemont Theatre

Sun Dec 31 – Phoenix, AZ – Arizona Financial Theatre

More From Our Brands

Supreme court justices compare bribes to taking a teacher to cheesecake factory, nascar legend tony stewart relists his 415-acre indiana ranch for $22.5 million, angel reese gets drafted 7th by wnba’s chicago sky, be tough on dirt but gentle on your body with the best soaps for sensitive skin, the ncis-verse’s 1,000th episode: how many easter eggs did you find, verify it's you, please log in.

John Mulaney is at the top of his craft with his new special, Baby J

The comedian gets into his tumultuous last few years, from his star-studded intervention to his sobriety.

Social Sharing

On the surface, John Mulaney is a clean-cut guy with a knack for observational comedy.

But with his new Netflix special, Baby J , audiences are seeing a different side of the beloved comedian following a publicly rocky couple of years.

In his first Netflix special since going to rehab for cocaine and prescription drug addiction in 2020, Mulaney's act takes on a markedly darker tone and sees him leaning into his edginess in a whole new way.

Culture writers Carrie Battan of The New Yorker and Izzy Ampil of The Daily Beast join host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to consider whether it's possible for Mulaney to come clean about his addictions while retaining this wholesome, all-American appeal.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast, on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin : Carrie, let's start with going into 2020 before his rehab stint. How would you describe John Mulaney's status [and] his reputation in the world of comedy before 2020?

Carrie : I think that was a period when he'd released three wildly successful Netflix specials, and then Netflix had given him the green light to do this project that he was promoting in late 2019 called The Sack Lunch Bunch , which was kind of a kids variety special…. So, he immediately went from producing this show that was sort of geared towards children, to going to rehab. It was kind of like he was at his most successful and his most wholesome before everything sort of came crashing down.

Elamin : John Mulaney [has] often mentioned this idea of dealing with alcoholism in his 20s, Izzy, and then when we heard that he was entering rehab in 2020, it kind of weirdly still came as a bit of a shock. Why do you think that was?

Izzy : I think when he talked about addiction and alcoholism in his early specials — New in Town, The Comeback Kid — it was always something that was firmly in the past, something that he had this sense of control over. I think for fans, when he relapsed in 2020 and he went back to rehab, there was almost a sense of betrayal or of anxiety of, "This thing that he's talked about as though it's totally in control and a cordoned off part of his past existence, is something that still has the capacity to threaten his personal life and his professional life." And I think that was honestly quite scary to some of his fans.

After he went to rehab, he got a divorce from Anna Marie Tendler, who is featured in some of his earlier [specials], and he got together with Olivia Munn, who I think has long been a fixture of cultural fascination in the romantic and sexual sphere. And so it was accompanied by this more salacious gossip.… This is kind of the first tumultuous public period in which he's navigating this challenging part of his personal life, and people really got up close and personal.

Elamin : I'm glad you brought that up because I do think that, Carrie, one of the big things that have changed from the beginning of John Mulaney's career to 2020-ish is that he himself became a celebrity. I don't think that he would have been seen as a celebrity — he was an SNL writer, he's been in the comedy spheres for a long time — but something changed in the late 2010s where John Mulaney himself became a household name even before his personal life became fodder for tabloids. How do you think he did that?

Carrie : I think a big part of it, honestly, was his role in the comedy ecosystem over the course of Trump's presidency. Comedy was so politically polarized, and it was so heavily political. I think he was sort of seen as an oasis from that, even if that wasn't people's explicit interest in him.… The most he would really talk about politics in his 2018 special is he referred to Donald Trump as a horse in a hospital — which is kind of a mild way to characterize the former president during that period…. Also, I think he did a good kind of self-marketing act by branding himself as this guy who was wearing a suit, and he always performed in these grand regal halls and was looking kind of theatrical and family-friendly, and he made comedy that everybody could enjoy together.

WATCH | There's a Horse In The Hospital from John Mulaney: Kid Gorgeous at Radio City:

Elamin : Izzy, what did you make of Mulaney's approach to talking about his substance abuse problems in the [new] special?

Izzy : He just came right out addressing the elephant in the room, and I think that is very much the smart way to do things as a comedian. I mean, Chris Rock's recent special was his first sort of public return since the slap. And everyone is like, "Alright, are you going to talk about the slap?" And he saved it for the last eight minutes; that was frustrating…. And so I think in general in comedy, the best way to do things is to just be like, "Alright, you're thinking it. I'm thinking it. Let's just start here."

Elamin : Right off the top.

Izzy : Exactly. It's a little bit uncomfortable, but you're going to say it anyway. I think that was really smart. I mean, Carrie, you wrote about how this is John Mulaney at the top of his really honed and finely-workshopped craft — and I think that is really apparent here.… He's been really ready to come back into the public eye, it feels like, for a long time, and so there's this polish and there's this bitterness that feels really honest … and I think that's what keeps it fresh throughout the entire special: his ability to not just be like, "OK, this was a really dark period," but to be like, "Ah, and the whole time I was trying to get up to some mischief!"

WATCH | Not Getting Recognized in Rehab from John Mulaney: Baby J:

Elamin : Carrie, he alludes to this idea that he feels a bit trapped by the image that he's created for himself. But watching this special and also just thinking about Mulaney over the last couple of years, do you get the sense that his career was ever in real danger?

Carrie : No, I don't think it was in real danger. In fact, I think when that news came out, the reaction that I was seeing most commonly online was sort of … a rallying cry of support behind this person who had taken on heroic proportions over his comedy career. When you're a performer, when you're a creator … in some ways it's perverse, but there's nothing better in your career than having new material — and what is this turn in his life but new material? And so you have to imagine that in some ways, he always knew that it was going to be fodder for his career. And it was, ultimately. I think maybe his health, his personal life, maybe even his life was in danger, but his career wasn't.

Elamin : Izzy, I would say on the scale of celebrity comebacks from scandals, this went relatively well for John Mulaney, who kind of came out and admitted to lots of the things that have been happening in his personal life…. That sort of easy forgiveness has not been afforded to every celebrity, right? What sort of double standards do you see playing out here?

Izzy : As Carrie was saying, his career wasn't necessarily ever really in danger. He kept a low profile for a few months, got back on tour, the tour culminated in the Netflix special … That was probably hard for him personally, but pretty easy in the span of a celebrity lifetime. I was just thinking about the women who have publicly struggled with mental health and substance use who have not really been welcomed back into the public eye quite so easily. I've thought especially about young women who kind of came up as child stars and have had public rehab stints — like Amanda Bynes, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan, and I think to a lesser extent Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato.… These women, I think their careers have become, if not synonymous with these rough patches in their lives, that has become a really dominant focus.

WATCH | Official teaser trailer for John Mulaney: Baby J:

With John Mulaney, the reaction to his relapse was, "I really am glad that he's getting the help that he needs." And I think with these women, their public struggles have been a really cruel spectacle. It just feels like especially with young women, we are really down to see them in these vulnerable positions.... It's not an exact parallel — Britney Spears and Amanda Bynes in particular had these years-long public histories of erratic behavior. But I just kept thinking, John Mulaney is this Georgetown-educated, clean cut-looking, Midwestern, upper middle class white guy and the person that we're most likely to afford public forgiveness and trust to. We're really comfortable seeing him back in the saddle. We're far more comfortable seeing young women out of control and in need of protection.

Elamin : I think what's always really deeply compelling about the special is that I think he knows that too, and he seems to be, at least as far as I can tell, a little bit uncomfortable with the idea that his comeback road is always going to be way smoother than other people.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts .

Panel produced by Stuart Berman.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Amelia Eqbal is a digital associate producer, writer and photographer for Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud and Q with Tom Power. Passionate about theatre, desserts, and all things pop culture, she can be found on Twitter @ameliaeqbal.

John Mulaney & Jon Stewart at NYCB Theatre at Westbury

John mulaney & jon stewart tickets, nycb theatre at westbury | westbury, new york.

• | John Mulaney & Jon Stewart

Things you buy through our links may earn  Vox Media  a commission.

Who Should John Mulaney Be Now?

John Mulaney walked onto the stage at City Winery in New York wearing a long-sleeved, striped polo shirt and jeans, a notable departure from the suit viewers have grown accustomed to seeing him in. He was heavier. He looked healthier. Throughout his hourlong set Monday night, his appearance served as a reminder that he, like all of us, is coming out of the pandemic differently than he went in.

Mulaney has had an incredibly difficult year. We knew that he had checked himself into a Pennsylvania rehab facility in mid-December for a 60-day treatment to address his addiction to alcohol and cocaine, and that he and his wife of seven years, Anna Marie Tendler, were on the verge of divorcing; the latter news was confirmed the day of his first City Winery show . On Monday night, Mulaney opened up in ways no one had been expecting. He read aloud from a GQ interview he had no recollection of participating in, and he recapped how, after an initial stint in rehab in September, he relapsed after hosting SNL in late October , then began an unexpected stint as a writer-performer on Late Night With Seth Meyers the following month , to try to impose some structure on his life. In December, his friends staged an intervention that led to his second, publicized rehab stint, which lasted through late February. By the time of his first City Winery show, he told the audience, he was 141 days sober. At which point, we all clapped.

Stand-up is weird, as artforms go, because you have to write in front of people. I’ve interviewed around 150 comedians, and all of them write in some capacity onstage, including Mulaney. It’s one thing when you’re making a joke about airplanes; I cannot imagine what it’s like when you’re talking about something actually difficult. Chris Rock finalized his divorce in the summer of 2016, and I saw him begin to talk about it that fall. It didn’t go well that night; Rock’s process involves intentionally bombing early on, so that the laughs don’t interfere with his read on how the audience feels about certain topics. Stand-ups need the audience to know what’s funny, what’s interesting, what they think. In exchange for their vulnerability, they get connection.

Mulaney’s show wasn’t a show. Candid, loose, sometimes hard to watch, sometimes so funny it made the audience convulse in laughter, it was a writing session. He was doing all-new material, not attempting to work in any of the jokes he was building in outdoor shows before rehab. It was raw, both in its frankness and in the complete lack of polish that we typically associate with Mulaney’s work. It was fascinating to see him try to figure out how to apply his stylistic signatures to more intensely personal subject matter. A lot of Mulaney’s classic jokes hinge on taking not very serious things very seriously — he is a master of faux exasperation — but it is a challenge when the subject matter is, in fact, quite serious. How social anxiety has contributed to his drug use is not something one can easily be flippant about. Pettiness, which has always been in his act in small doses, came to the forefront. He spent a large portion of the set complaining about his intervention, organized by his college friends and his celebrity friends. How dare they trick him into thinking he was getting dinner? Why, in a room of the 12 funniest people he knows, was no one being funny? 

All of this was delivered with his usual, self-aware humor. But Mulaney has never had an issue being funny. The longest road ahead for Mulaney is not how to talk about his recovery onstage, but who to talk about it as. It is impossible to reconcile this material with Mulaney’s “aw shucks” Jimmy Stewart persona. It’s a persona partly defined by a joke in his debut special, 2012’s New in Town : “I don’t drink. I used to drink, then I drank too much, and I had to stop. That surprises a lot of audiences, because I don’t look like someone who used to do anything.” On Monday, he surprised audiences by revealing that not only did he used to be reliant on drugs to get through each day, but part of him still desperately wants to continue to use. He uncomfortably laughed to himself a lot after jokes didn’t get the exact reaction he expected, as if to say, This isn’t what it usually feels like for me to do stand-up. 

Comedy has a long tradition of people leaving, quitting, or taking time off around the age of 40, only to come back a more grown-up, bold, adult artist — Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Dave Chappelle, Maria Bamford . Hannah Gadsby figured out how to combine quitting and evolving in one show with Nanette. By the time this material is filmed, you’ll see less a new and improved John Mulaney, but an older, more mature one. You know how when a caterpillar is turning into a butterfly, their entire body decomposes before recomposing, so if you were to cut the chrysalis open in the middle, it would be just gross goo? Last night was like that goo. With most of the material, Mulaney didn’t come off particularly well; he knew that, and leaned into it. The most exhilarating moments were when he would make fun of the tone of overwhelming support he got when the news of his drug addiction first came out. He would reveal something shitty he did to his friends and quickly remind the audience, “It’s a disease .” When comedians get really famous, their shortcomings become the subject of public scrutiny. But it’s also an opportunity. The comedian then has a chance to contrast public perception. The greatest example of this in the history of comedy is Richard Pryor telling the story of setting himself on fire while freebasing . Mulaney is clearly working in this tradition.

Some audience members didn’t know exactly what to make of a lot of this. One person, towards the end, said they wanted to hear more about what college was like, as if to say, “Remember how much fun you used to be, John?” (He went into an extended riff about the D.C. Sniper.) This was not the worst thing someone shouted out. Some felt the need to “woo!” when Mulaney listed prescription drugs he abused. When he said his relationship with audiences is the longest lasting, most intimate one of his life, many began to clap. He cringed and asked them to stop — he hadn’t meant it was a good thing. The tension underscored the inherent conflict of what the comedian and audience wants out of night like this, and the difficulty of an established comedian trying out a new identity in public, hoping audiences will meet you where you are.

It reminds me of a quote from Sheila Heti’s How Should a Person Be? “Most people live their entire lives with their clothes on, and even if they wanted to, couldn’t take them off,” she writes. “Then there are those who cannot put them on. They are the ones who live their lives not just as people but as examples of people. They are destined to expose every part of themselves, so the rest of us can know what it means to be a human.” Mulaney is trying to create material that is both funny and says something about addiction, public perception, truth, fame, being a good guy, and how a person should be. He is working toward something great, but, for right now, he’s just working.

• vulture section lede
• vulture homepage lede
• john mulaney
• live comedy
• new york magazine

Most Viewed Stories

• Cinematrix No. 35: April 12, 2024
• A Hidden Sexual-Assault Scandal at the New York Philharmonic
• Heidi Gardner Couldn’t Prepare for What She Saw
• Saturday Night Live Recap: Ryan Gosling Breaks Up With You
• Bluey Gives Us a Sign

Editor’s Picks

Most Popular

What is your email.

This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive email correspondence from us.

Sign In To Continue Reading

Create your free account.

Password must be at least 8 characters and contain:

• Lower case letters (a-z)
• Upper case letters (A-Z)
• Numbers (0-9)
• Special Characters (!@#$%^&*)

As part of your account, you’ll receive occasional updates and offers from New York , which you can opt out of anytime.

• Search Please fill out this field.
• Manage Your Subscription
• Give a Gift Subscription
• Newsletters
• Sweepstakes
• Entertainment

John Mulaney Returns to Netflix with 6-Night Live Comedy Event — and Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock Will Likely Appear!

'John Mulaney Presents: Everybody's In LA' premieres on May 3 as part of the Netflix Is a Joke comedy festival

John Mulaney is heading back to Netflix!

The 41-year-old comedian is bringing a six-night live comedy event, titled John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s in L.A., to the streamer as part of this year's Netflix Is a Joke comedy festival in May.

The episodes will feature Mulaney exploring “the city of Los Angeles during a week when every funny person is in it,” according to a synopsis from Netflix. Each episode will include “special guests and field pieces shot in Los Angeles.”

The trailer for John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s in L.A. shows different Angelenos attempting to explain the show, which will likely feature Jerry Seinfeld , Chris Rock and David Letterman .

“John Mulaney explores the city of Los Angeles with his comedian friends, featuring people equal to, but not necessarily, Jerry Seinfeld , Chris Rock and David Letterman ,” the residents explain. “No one is confirmed yet, but a lot of people are in play. Everyone who passed did it in a nice, very funny way.” 

“It’s a celebration of L.A. We’ll have music. We’ll have one of those delivery robots, fingers crossed,” the clip continues. “We’ll have local L.A. county officials talking to the biggest names in comedy.”

Cindy Ord/Getty; Todd Owyoung/NBC/Getty; Steven Ferdman/Getty

The Emmy winner — who is also a co-showrunner and executive producer of the event — is set to take the stage at the Hollywood Bowl on May 4 as part of the Netflix festival.

Mulaney previously teamed up with Nextlix for three stand-up specials: John Mulaney: Baby J , The Comeback Kid and Kid Gorgeous . The streamer also debuted the comedian’s 2019 variety special John Mulaney & The Sack Lunch Bunch . 

Phillip Faraone/VF24/Getty

Netflix is a Joke Fest will be “a star-studded celebration of comedy” with “over 300 live stand-up shows, special events, table reads, sketches and more with the best comedians and artists in the world.” Comedians will take the stage at iconic venues including Hollywood Bowl, The Greek, The Dolby, The Forum, The Palladium, the Orpheum Theatre and The Wiltern, as well as comedy clubs such as The Hollywood Improv, Largo, Laugh Factory and The Comedy Store.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.  

John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s In LA premieres May 3 at 7 PM PT with new episodes continuing May 6-10 on Netflix.

Related Articles

John Mulaney Comedy Special to Livestream on Netflix

By Kalia Richardson

Kalia Richardson

O.j. simpson executor clarifies stance on goldmans receiving money from estate, o.j. simpson executor says ron goldman's family will get 'zero, nothing' from estate, trump reportedly nods off while attending first day of criminal trial, drake responds to rick ross' nose-job claim, warns rapper after diss, 'don't worry we'll handle it'.

The festival will take place across 35 Los Angeles’ landmark entertainment venues including The Greek, The Dolby, The Forum, The Palladium, The Orpheum Theatre, The Wiltern, The Hollywood Improv, and Laugh Factory.

'Rust' Armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed Sentenced to 18 Months in Prison

• 'Rust' Shooting
• By Daniel Kreps

Is This the End of 'Bluey'?

• DOG DAY AFTERNOON
• By Alan Sepinwall

'Secrets of the Hells Angels' Tells Real-Life Tales of the Country's Most Notorious Motorcycle Gang

• Binge Watch
• By Chris Vognar

'SNL': Ryan Gosling Is Still Haunted by 'Avatar' Font in 'Papyrus 2' Sketch

• 'just put it in bold'

'SNL' Cold Open: Ryan Gosling, Kate McKinnon Recall Wild Alien Abduction

• Close Encounter
• By William Vaillancourt

Most Popular

Ryan gosling and kate mckinnon's 'close encounter' sketch sends 'snl' cold open into hysterics, michael douglas is the latest actor to make controversial remarks about intimacy coordinators, 'golden bachelor' couple to divorce three months after televised abc wedding, masters 2024 prize money pegged at $20m, up $2m from prior year, you might also like, ‘the feeling that the time for doing something has passed’ review: joanna arnow’s hilarious and clever debut, caitlin clark in prada at wnba draft, the best running water bottles according to marathoners, ‘thelma,’ ‘sugarcane,’ and ‘alok’ win top prizes at the 2024 sarasota film festival, angel reese gets drafted 7th by wnba’s chicago sky.

Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2024 Rolling Stone, LLC. All rights reserved.

Verify it's you

Please log in.

Watch: John Mulaney to explore Los Angeles in new Netflix series

April 8 (UPI) -- John Mulaney will star in a new Netflix comedy series.

Netflix shared a trailer Monday for John Mulaney Presents: Everybody's in LA , a six-episode special created by and starring Mulaney.

Everybody's in LA will follow Mulaney as he explores Los Angeles during the week of Netflix is a Joke Fest. The show features special guests and field pieces shot in LA.

Everybody's in LA premieres live May 3, with new episodes to follow May 6-10 at 10 p.m. EDT on Netflix.

In addition, Mulaney will perform May 4 at the Hollywood Bowl as part of the festival.

Netflix is a Joke Fest will take place May 2-12 this year. The comedy festival will feature over 300 live stand-up shows, special events, table reads, sketches and more across Los Angles.

Ali Wong, Bill Burr, Cedric the Entertainer, Chelsea Handler, Chris Rock, Craig Robinson, Daniel Tosh, David Letterman, Hannah Gadsby, Iliza Schlesinger, Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Stewart, Jim Gaffigan, Kevin Hart, Kumail Nanjiani, Mae Martin, Mike Epps, Patton Oswalt, Seth Rogan, Tom Brady, Wanda Sykes and other stars will perform.

Mulaney is an actor and comedian who came to fame as a writer on Saturday Night Live .

He is in a relationship with actress Olivia Munn, who announced her breast cancer diagnosis in March.