Make 'Em Laugh: A Celebration of James Thurber

One of the 20th century's foremost humorists, James Thurber (1894 - 1961) joined The New Yorker in 1927. Much of his distinctive prose and illustrations were created for its pages and collected in some thirty books. These include Men, Women and Dogs; The Years with Ross; his autobiography, My Life and Hard Times; the play The Male Animal; The Thurber Carnival, a theatrical revue that won a Special Tony Award in 1960; and the renowned story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” twice adapted to film. In honor of Thurber’s legacy, the Thurber Prize for American Humor has recognized outstanding comedic writing since 1997. This year ushers in two new Thurber collections: Collected Fables and A Mile and a Half of Lines: The Art of James Thurber, both edited by Michael J. Rosen.

First up in our show, a droll essay. Thurber confesses that he’s all thumbs in “I Break Everything I Touch,” performed by Keith Olbermann. Olbermann is a sportscaster for ESPN and retired news anchor and political commentator, currently in his fifth separate tenure with the network, hosting ESPN's flagship program SportsCenter. He also provides the voice for the newscaster character on the critically acclaimed Netflix series BoJack Horseman, and performed The James Thurber Audio Collection for HarperCollins in 2011. He has previously anchored telecasts of events ranging from the presidential inauguration, to the Super Bowl, to a presidential debate, to the World Series, and he has hosted sports and news programs for NBC, CNN, Fox Sports, ABC Radio, GQ magazine, United Press International, and several local television stations. The 1995 Cable Ace Award winner for Best Sportscaster, Olbermann has written five books and is currently writing a sixth, about dogs.

Who knew that The Bard wrote whodunits? This is the conviction of the clueless tourist in “The Macbeth Murder Mystery,” performed by Michael McKean and Susannah Rogers.

McKean is recognized for film and television roles including Laverne & Shirley, Young Doctors in Love, This Is Spinal Tap, Clue, Coneheads, Saturday Night Live, The Brady Bunch Movie, Best in Show, The X-Files, A Mighty Wind, Food: Fact or Fiction?, and recent turns on Better Call Saul, for which he won a Satellite Award, and The Good Place. McKean has appeared on stage in productions of The Pajama Game, Our Town, Superior Donuts, King Lear, All the Way, The Little Foxes, and most recently, The True. He is also a Grammy winner for the title song in the film A Mighty Wind, shared with regular collaborators Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy. McKean will appear in the forthcoming adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s novel Good Omens.

Susannah Rogers' recent credits include the world premiere of Amy Freed’s Shrew! at South Coast Repertory, All the Way, starring Bryan Cranston, on Broadway and the American Repertory Theatre in Boston, The Monster Builder at South Coast Repertory, and the American premiere of You Will Remember Me at Hudson Stage Company. Television and film credits include Gotham, The Path, Mr. Robot, Younger,The Diary of a Teenage Girl, adapted and directed by Marielle Heller, and Trouble, written and directed by Theresa Rebeck.

We couldn’t imagine a Thurber show without a selection of his charming fables, some re-workings of classics, some entirely his own—all gently preaching against vanity, pomposity, vainglory, and just plain foolishness—and all urging us to be more gentle, kind, and dreamy. Kristine Nielsen, Susannah Rogers, and Keith Olbermann perform “The Hare and the Tortoise,” “The Peacelike Mongoose,” “The Flaw in the Plan,” and “The Moth and the Star.”

Kristine Nielsen’s Broadway credits include The Iceman Cometh, The Greenbird, A Streetcar Named Desire, Dangerous Liaisons, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, for which she won an Outer Critics Circle Award, You Can’t Take It With You, and Present Laughter, in addition to her numerous off-Broadway and regional credits, most recently, A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur at The Theater at St. Clements. On screen, Nielsen has appeared in Political Animals, NBC’s The Sound of Music Live!, Happyish, Elementary, and Amazon’s Z: The Beginning of Everything. She is currently appearing on Broadway in Taylor Mac's new play, Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus.

Many of Thurber’s works were illustrated by whimsical line drawings featuring all sorts of animals, as well as bewildered husbands and bellicose wives. New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast talks about what she loves about Thurber’s eccentric work. Chast has been a regular contributor of cartoons to The New Yorker since 1978. She is the author and illustrator of the graphic memoir Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, a New York Times bestseller and 2014 National Book Award Finalist. In 2012, she was awarded the NYC Literary Honor in Humor by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and in 2015, she was honored with 20th Annual Heinz Award for the Arts and Humanities and the Reuben Award for Cartoonist of the Year. Chast also served as guest editor of The Best American Comics 2016. Her most recent work, Going Into Town: A Love Letter to New York, won the New York City Book.

Our final work is Thurber’s witty and tender fairy tale “Many Moons.” A royal princess has fallen ill, and her distraught father calls in all the palace bigwigs to bring her the one thing she wants: the moon. Michael McKean says he used to read this cautionary tale about relying on experts to his children, and if he puts you to sleep, “Mission accomplished.”