-Our next guest is a very funny comedian and writer,
whose hit off-Broadway show "Just For Us"
is currently running at the SoHo Playhouse.
Please welcome to the show Alex Edelman, everybody.
[ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪
Welcome to the show! -Thanks so much for having me.
Oh, my God. -This is very exciting.
You've done two runs of your show.
You're moving it to a bigger theater
this summer for six weeks.
And you've had people like Jerry Seinfeld in the house,
Billy Crystal in the house.
What are -- What is it like -- excuse me --
on those nights when you know they're there?
-I came in the night that Seinfeld was coming,
and everyone was weird.
I was like, "What's going on?"
And they're like, "Jerry Seinfeld is coming."
I was like, "He's not coming to this show."
And they're like, "Yeah, no, Seinfeld's..."
But he's -- It's amazing.
And the show's producer, Mike Birbiglia,
who's one of my favorite comics.
So it's like having one of the heads of my Mount Rushmore
of comedy producing the show,
and then other heads from the Mount Rushmore of comedy.
And then, when Seinfeld came, he said nice things afterwards.
And then it was like, "Yeah, but what's the thing
that, like, you're going to get back in the car and, like,
look at your wife and go, 'That was good, but...'"
And he went, "I'm so glad you asked."
So, yeah, I got notes from Seinfeld.
-You got some actual -- That's a very good way of
asking for a real note, because I think that that
makes a person think, "Oh, yeah, no,
this is what I'll say when I get in the car, and it's safe."
-Yeah, but it's a very, like -- But Billy Crystal's --
The first show I ever -- The first solo show I ever saw
was a Billy Crystal show in like October of 2006 in Boston.
And, like... -Oh, that's pretty cool.
So, now, for those who don't know,
this show is about a very -- a meeting you went to
in New York City for a very specific group of people.
And I'm going to let you explain it.
-Yeah. Well, I'm Jewish, and sometimes,
people can't tell that I'm Jewish
because of my name or my face or anything about my personality.
But I got some anti-Semitism on Twitter,
and so I started adding the anti-Semites to, like,
this list.
You can make lists on Twitter.
So I made this list,
and I called it "Jewish National Fund Contributors."
-Gotcha.
-Because every single time I added someone,
they'd see what it was.
And, so, I started going down this wormhole of, like,
anti-Semites on the Internet.
And then, because of that, I saw this thing that said,
"Hey, you know, if you live in New York City
and you're curious about your whiteness,
come to this address in this part of Queens."
And I was like, "I live in New York
and I'm curious about my whiteness.
And I'm free tomorrow night at 9:15."
So I went to this meeting of people who probably con--
white nationalists -- people I'd consider white nationalists.
And I sat there for like an hour and a half,
and, eventually, someone's like, "I'm sorry,
but this guy -- I think this guy's a Jew."
And I was like, "Yeah, I'm a Jew."
So, like, that's proudly what this show is about.
I'm like, "What? It's not a big deal or anything."
-But it sounds, like, so intense and stressful to have done it.
Was it -- I mean, did you go into it terrified?
-I mean, I'm a stand-up comedian.
-Yeah.
-So, like, I walk into rooms every night
where people hate me.
Like, that's a --
-That's a good way of looking at it.
-Yeah. Like, a hostile room I got to win over?
I'm like, "What is it? Tuesday?" Like, "Yeah."
That's how it works.
-And, so, then -- And did you know --
While you were experiencing it, did you sense,
"Oh, this is going to be something worth talking about"?
-Not at all.
Like, I have a couple of friends --
There was something that happened,
and I was like, "My friend David's
gonna think that's funny.
And then something else happened.
I'm like, "My friend Morgan's --
Morgan is going to think that's funny."
And then I was like, "My friend Danny's
going to think that's --" And every single one of them,
even the ones that weren't stand-up comedians,
were like, "You're talking about this onstage, right?"
And I was like, "No, why would I?"
And so, like, it was the comedians
and a couple friends of mine who were like,
"You have to start talking about this."
So, like, yeah, they pushed me to make it into a thing.
-The show is called "Just For Us,"
and do people -- When people come to it, are they --
have you had interactions with the audience who maybe thought
the show was something they didn't expect?
-This guy came up to me after the show with his wife,
and he's like, "You know, that was not at all
what we were expecting, because we thought it was
gonna be more like the TV show."
And I was like, "What TV show?"
And he's like, "The NBC show."
And I was like, "They made this into an NBC..."
And he went, "Yeah, the show about the family."
And, you know, he's like,
"And it's weird, because none of them are Jewish."
And I was like, "That's 'This Is Us.'"
[ Laughter ]
-Yeah.
-And he was like, "Yeah."
And I was like, "That's not the name of my show."
And his wife went, "I told you."
So it's like...
-Like, there's still a lot of things --
Even if it was the name of your show...
-Yeah.
-...who would go see a one-man show
about their favorite TV show?
-Also, how can they adapt it without
Sterling K. Brown involved?
-Yeah, exactly.
That would be a wildly offensive show, yeah.
-Like, they made some bold choices
for the stage adaptation.
-All your comedian friends told you, "Don't do that."
-Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
-"You should talk about that white-nationalist thing.
You can't do a one-man show of 'This Is Us.'"
So, you are -- You're from Boston.
We share a love of the Red Sox.
-Ah, yeah.
-I'm a fellow Steelers fan with with Joe,
and I'm a fellow Red Sox fan with you.
And you had a job with the Red Sox.
And based on this I.D. card, Alex,
I'm going to say you were a young man when you had this job.
There you go right there.
So, what are we talking? How old are you?
And what's your job for the Red Sox?
-I mean, I got a job --
The Red Sox were awesome, and when I was a kid --
I got a job there when I was 13.
This is from when I was 16 or 17.
-Gotcha.
-I wrote the Red Sox kids newsletter.
-Kids newsletter? -Yeah.
But it was like, sometimes, I'd ask questions
in the press room, and, like...
-You didn't have your own time.
You'd be with the regular reporters.
-Sometimes, they'd allocate me my own time,
but sometimes, I'd be in the pressroom with, like,
the players, and they're like, "So, you're --"
There was one player who was in a slump.
He had gone 0 for 41.
And they asked him about it.
And I was like -- You know, I'm 17, so I was like,
"I'll raise the mood a little bit."
And so I raised my hand.
And he was like, "Yeah?"
And I said, "Do you like bowling?"
And he was like, "Who the hell is this kid?"
But it was great. It was a great job.
Baseball's my favorite sport.
-I like that you thought that that would, like, cheer him up.
-I was like, "Well, someone should ask him a question."
-I mean, you know, obviously,
he's not good at baseball right now.
What about the other sports?
-It was like, "When you go bowling,
do you miss everything the way you do at the plate?"
-What's 0 for 41 in bowling like?
-It's like 28 gutter balls in a row.
It was so -- It was the best -- I love baseball,
because it's such a great sport, especially if you like
an hour of excitement, you know, stretched out
over the course of two and a half years.
And, so, like -- And it was the most rewarding job.
And, by the way, like,
I saw you perform at the Red Sox team dinner.
-Yep, I did a team dinner for the Red Sox -- very exciting.
-Which was so cool.
-And they won the World Series the next year,
and a lot of people said it was that dinner was pretty...
-Yeah, no, I heard that around the office.
People were like, "It was all Seth."
-But you -- We have a clip of you.
Obviously, it was the ALCS.
-I still get good seats, so, yeah, I --
-You got really good seats at the ALCS.
And the Red Sox lost to the Astros.
But you kind of came out a winner, based on this clip.
Now, just real quick, before we set it up,
based on the clip we're about to see,
it seems that you had a sense that you could get on TV.
-I just know when cameras will cut to certain coaches.
-Well, I will -- Can I just say, the subtlety in it
really shows that you have a background in baseball,
because I think that there's a real --
Just see if you can even notice what Alex is doing here.
Let's take a look.
-It's hard to say that four games into a postseason,
but these are the defending world champs,
and they have had their thumb on their opponents
every game so far in this postseason.
-Hey, listen, no one's defended since...
-Very, very classy.
Very -- Getting your head in there.
-Oh, yeah. Thank you. You know, really spectacular.
It's so fun. -Yeah.
Hey, congratulations so much on the show.
-Thanks, man.
-I'm looking forward to your summer run.
You guys, that's Alex Edelman.
"Just For Us," running now through April 30th
at the SoHo Playhouse.