Comedian Sarah Silverman is kicking off her Postmortem tour in Cleveland at Playhouse Square’s KeyBank State Theater on Saturday, September 21! One of the most hilarious people in show business, Silverman has starred in TV, film, and comedy specials and toured the country many times, delivering her unmistakable brand of stand-up comedy.
The two-time Emmy Award-winning comedian, actress, writer, and producer. created and starred in her namesake show,The Sara Silverman Program from 2007 – 2010 on Comedy Central, starred in the film I Smile Back, leant her talents to Comedy Central roasts, and voiced characters in Wreck-It Ralph and Bob’s Burgers. These roles are just the tip of the iceberg. During the COVID shutdown, Silverman also appeared in the great state of Ohio at Dave Chappelle’s makeshift cornfield comedy club in Yellow Springs (where this writer was fortunate enough to see her perform). Her latest special, Sarah Silverman: Someone You Love, is currently available for streaming on Max.
I recently had the opportunity to catch two shows on fellow comedian Brett Goldstein’s multi-night appearance in Cleveland last month. It was interesting to witness the subtle nuances and variations that Goldstein did as he read the room or changed his delivery just for the heck of it. In a recent phone interview with CleveRock before her tour, Silverman was asked if her show also varies.
” I figure out tiny little things sometimes to make a joke work,” she replied. “You just don’t know what it is. Is it a pause? Is there much setup? Is there not enough setup? Do they have enough information? But you don’t want to give too much information. A lot of jokes can’t handle the weight of too much setup. All these little things that you tweak along the way, and then maybe another night, I’ll have a whole new thing that I realize, but it’s all one. This is the first time that it’s mostly all one topic.”
More often than not, comedians have themes in their stand-up performances. Silverman was asked if she wil have one for this tour.
“It’s really all about my dad and my stepmom, who died last May, nine days apart. I’m worried people are going to hear that and be like, ‘Oh my God, let’s go to this.’ But it is comedy,” she described. ” I tend to find comedy in the darkest reaches of existence, so it really just kind of happened out of those incidents, and so it’s a lot about that. Mostly just the funny parts, and I’m slightly loathed to call it a one-woman show or something because it’s not like there’s some big catharsis or anything, but that’s what it’s about. That’s the framework of it, and that’s why I’m calling it Postmortem, because that’s really what it is. We always call it that after you shoot a show or anything, you have postmortem to talk about, go over notes, and figure it out even. And then there’s also the literal meaning, and it’s kind of both.”
Silverman isn’t the first comedian to base material out of trauma or a dark place, and she certainly won’t be the last. She has a knack for finding comedy in places that most people can’t.
“Yeah, I think every comedian is kind of born out of learning to be funny as a means of surviving childhood, and so I think that means of survival also comes through in tragic incidents throughout your life as a comic, too. Was it a natural way to process? It was writing material,” she said. “My dad was hilarious, and so was my stepmom.”
I have been a fan of Silverman’s stand-up since college. Now, as a high school teacher, my students have discovered her through different avenues than I did. Many of my pupils say they discovered Sarah in Schol of Rock or Wreck-It Ralph.
“I’m always curious how each generation knows me from,” Silverman said. “I’ve always just thought of what I do as odd jobs. I mean, I’m a comic, that’s just who I am, but I do lots of odd jobs. I like it that way.”
The COVID shutdown in 2020 was tough on everyone, but maybe even more difficult for entertainers (specifically, comedians). The world was closed for business, including comedy clubs. Thanks to Dave Chappelle’s brilliance, a comedy club of sorts showed up at a Wirrig Pavilion, a privately-owned property with a gazebo and greenspace wedged between trees and a cornfield in Yellow Springs, Ohio. This wasn’t just the hottest ticket in the world, but at the time, it was the ONLY ticket in the world. Silverman was invited by Mr. Chappelle to test out some material.
“That show was amazing! I had gone about 10 months without doing standup at that point because of the ‘pando,’ as kids say. And so it was really cathartic and also just being with a bunch of comics, and it had been so long after doing stand-up most of the time since I was 18, and so it was really nice,” she recalled. “I’m going pop in at a time, you’ll never guess, and stop by his new club and do a show, too.”
The ‘new club’ Silverman speaks of is the former fire station Chappelle purchased in his hometown and has converted into an intimate comedy club called YS Firehouse. Many of today’s top comics and hip-hop artists pop in from time to time. It sounds like Sarah has plans to appear there as well!
“All I know about it is when I was there for that show three Augusts ago, he showed me he had a model of all his plans, and he showed it to me,” she said. “I’ve known Dave since he was 17 and I was 19. He’s my brother.”
Throughout her career, Silverman has always been one to speak her mind. Given the current ‘cancel culture’ in this country, I asked Sarah if she ever feels restricted about what she says:
“I don’t know,” she responded. “It’s not really making a plan, or I’m trying to get to a certain place or anything. I don’t know. I just feel like life happens, and I’m open to it. I mean, I work hard and stuff, but I don’t know. I don’t really think about it. If I fuck up, I apologize, it’s really not that hard!”
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