Editor’s Note: Every Tuesday beginning today, arts and entertainment writer Stephanie Siegel Burke will preview an upcoming can’t-miss performance, event or exhibition, and offer tips on the week’s other must-see entertainment.
Before Ted Alexandro became a fixture of the New York City comedy scene, he faced even tougher audiences than those at the storied night clubs where he performed: elementary school students.
The 46-year-old Queens, New York, native held a day job as a teacher for five years while moonlighting as a comic.
“In the clubs, heckling didn’t really happen all that much, but with the kids, it could happen almost every day,” he said. “You can’t really yell back. You’re trying to shape young minds.”
Since Alexandro’s teaching days, he's performed on The Late Show with David Letterman, Conan, and Jimmy Kimmel Live and starred in two specials on Comedy Central. His experiences as a comic and as a teacher inspire Alexandro's award-winning web series Teachers Lounge, which he created with writer and comedian Hollis James. The show features Alexandro as a music teacher and James as a janitor hanging out in a teachers lounge.
In each episode, they are joined by a different comedian who plays a member of the school staff. They’ve had hilarious—and definitely not politically correct—performances by Jim Gaffigan as the school nutritionist, Lewis Black as the principal and Dave Attell as the school photographer, to name a few. There are 10 episodes in all, but more could come soon. Alexandro and James are starting production on a Teachers Lounge TV pilot and are shopping it around to IFC, Netflix, Amazon and Hulu.
Some of Alexandro’s teaching experiences also can be found in his stand-up material, which is mostly observational humor about his everyday life as a middle-aged, single guy. In recent years, Alexandro has become increasingly politically active, especially with the Occupy Movement, and has used his place behind the microphone to speak out on timely and controversial topics such as police brutality and gay marriage.
“A portion of my act always engages on some level with what’s going on in the world,” he said. “But I don’t want it to be heavy-handed. If I can find a humorous way to include social commentary into the act, I’ll do that, but it’s just a portion of what I do.”
Alexandro is performing Friday at AMP by Strathmore in North Bethesda. New York comedian Jono Zalay opens. $20-$30. www.ampbystrathmore.com
The Social Network Actor to read at Politics and Prose
Actor and writer Jesse Eisenberg will read from his new book of short stories, Bream Gives Me Hiccups, at 7 p.m. Friday at Politics and Prose in Northwest Washington, D.C. Eisenberg, who was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in the 2010 film The Social Network, has written for The New Yorker and McSweeney's magazines. He also wrote and starred in three plays and is set to play Superman nemesis Lex Luther in 2016’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
His book, a collection of short fiction, follows a variety of characters—from a 9-year-old boy who writes fancy restaurant reviews to Alexander Graham Bell on his first phone call—into different situations. Critics have lauded Eisenberg’s talent for writing dialogue that is witty, slightly absurd and at turns both funny and moving. www.politics-prose.com
Bethesda theaters to show new Star Wars movie around the clock
The latest installment in the Star Wars saga, The Force Awakens, opens Dec. 17 and at some Bethesda theaters, the Force is not the only one that will be awake. Both iPic North Bethesda and ArcLight Cinemas at Montgomery Mall are showing the film around the clock.
"We are running the movies for the first 36 hours straight," iPic manager Tim Weems said.
The theaters list show times for the film into the wee hours through opening weekend. The film is already breaking ticket sale records. Although opening day is still a month away, some shows are starting to sell out.
