-Our first guest tonight
is an Emmy-winning writer, actor, and comedian.
Her musical "The Bedwetter" makes its off-Broadway debut
on May 23rd at the Atlantic Theater Company.
Please welcome back to the show
our friend Sarah Silverman, everybody!
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
How are you? -Oh, I'm very good.
I just bumped into Jeffrey Donovan backstage.
-Yeah, our other guest tonight.
-Very exciting. -You're a fan.
-I'm a big "Law & Order" fan, my friend -- "L&O."
-I'm very happy about this new --
This new "Law & Order" is wonderful.
-I can't believe it, and he's --
You know, Anthony Anderson, he's back as Bernard.
-Yep.
-Then Jeffrey is Frank Cosgrove.
-Mm-hmm. -And he's got great lines.
I watch it every Thursday.
Like, this last one, he had so many good lines.
Like, he goes --
Anthony Anderson character Bernard, he goes,
"Hey, nice move out there."
And then Frank goes, "Hey, I don't sell shoes for a living."
[ Laughter ]
And then I even Googled that, 'cause I go, "Is that a saying?"
But it's not. -Yeah.
It's a very unique role
that they always need somebody on "Law & Order" to perform.
It's called the Orbach. You need the Orbach.
-Yes, that last -- right before the "bow bow."
-Yeah, you've got to have the guy who's like,
"I'm gonna say something good enough
that you can 'bow bow' me."
-Then they catch the crook,
and the crook's a real jerk, you know, and the guy --
and he's putting him in the cop car,
and the guy goes, "I want a lawyer."
And Cosgrove goes, "You're gonna need a priest."
-Oh!
♪ Bow bow ♪
[ Laughter ]
-Anyway...
-Enough about our second guest.
-You're right. [ Laughter ]
-This is very exciting.
This is based on your memoir
about you being a 10-year-old bedwetter.
True story. -Yeah.
-And so now it's a musical,
and there is a young actor
playing a 10-year-old version of you.
Is that weird to watch?
I mean, I'm sure the whole process is a little surreal.
-I mean, sure, it's weird, but we've been working on it.
I've been working on it so long, 10 years, you know,
that it's like, "Wow, she was,
you know, like, little when we started work."
But this actress is -- Like, she's incredible.
It's crazy to watch.
It is surreal, but now I'm very used to it, you know.
But she's just -- Her name is Zoe Glick,
and she just carries this whole show on her shoulders.
She's incredible.
-It's very exciting that you're opening on Monday.
It's very exciting.
As you said, this is the end of a long journey of 10 years.
Where did you rehearse in the city?
-We rehearsed at a rehearsal hall in Times Square.
-That's very New York.
-So I'm walking her through Times Square.
And it's so funny because, you know, Carolines is right there.
-Very famous comedy club, yep. -Right.
And a kid is passing out flyers for Carolines.
"Hey, live comedy, live comedy."
And I'm like, "I'm gonna make this kid's day
'cause he must be a young comic."
I passed out flyers for two years when I started out.
So I walk over to him, and I go, "No, thank you."
And he goes, "Okay."
[ Laughter ]
So... -That's a rough moment.
-Put me in my place. It's probably good for me.
It was good for me. -So, you get to sit --
You know, again, these are previews,
so people, they're doing the play.
You're getting to watch it.
You're getting to watch it with an audience,
taking notes in the back. -Yeah.
-And what is that like?
Do you feel like you're getting a lot out of your notes?
-I mean, real -- Yeah, like, just --
You know, I collaborated with this incredible writer,
Josh Harmon, and the incredible David Yazbek.
And we sit in the back there,
and we've got our legal pads or whatever,
and I'm scribbling notes.
And then when I go home, I look at them and I type them up.
And I was looking at them one night,
and I don't know how to explain.
I've never said this out loud.
Like, the character who plays my sister Laura
is talking to little 10-year-old Sarah, and she says --
she's telling her what she was like when she was a baby
and "How I used to change your diaper."
And then she says, "And sometimes you would fart."
And she would kind of swallow the end of the sentence.
And so I was looking at my notes,
and it says, "Laura, don't swallow fart."
And, yeah, I took a picture of it.
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
-When I was -- You know, you're so serious back there.
And then as I'm typing it up, I just laughed so hard because --
not just at the sentence, "Laura, don't swallow fart,"
but just how serious I know I was when I wrote it.
-Yeah. -I was like...
[ Laughter ]
So, the true story is, you went to see a hypnotist
when you were 10 years old
as a means of dealing with this problem.
And was it still fresh in your head?
Like, do you have vivid memories of it?
-You know, I don't remember yesterday or last week
or like four hours ago, but I remember it so vividly.
And it's funny 'cause it's a great song in the show --
this hypnotist, Dr. Grimm, which I didn't change his name.
I don't know, I guess, so far, it's not been a problem.
And then there's little Sarah.
And I remember this hypnotist,
and I remember him having me close my eyes
and talking me through.
And there's a stream, and you walk to a clearing.
And I'm just like, "What's a clearing?"
I'm 10. Like, I couldn't figure out what it was.
And then I remember my whole --
desperately trying to be hypnotized,
but my brain was just like, "This chair is blue.
He has a penis and balls."
You know, and then I was like, "How does he wipe?
Do boys wipe front to back like girls?"
And then, like, "Where does his front even start?"
And it's this whole inner monologue,
and it's in the song and it's so funny.
Every time I watch it, you know, I still --
That's one thing where I'm like,
"This is, like, literally my thought."
Like, exactly what was going through --
-It's authentic to a 10-year-old.
-Yeah, it was my entire inner monologue.
-You knew stand-up was something you wanted to do early on.
Do you remember early jokes?
-Oh, yeah, I was -- I had really terrible --
I don't remember doing this joke,
but I was looking at old notebooks.
I don't save things.
I'm not very sentimental, but I have all my notebooks
since I was like 19, maybe, or 18.
And there's a joke in there that's so bad, it made me laugh,
just that it's terrible.
It said, "I don't know why my goldfish died.
I put it in a tank -- dot, dot, dot -- top."
[ Laughter ]
Just seeing, like -- seeing how I wrote it
how it's to be performed. [ Laughter ]
-It won't work if you just say, "I put it in the tank top,"
but if you put those two -- you put those dots in there.
-Yeah, "top."
-I'm always very happy to talk about your father.
A very funny man all these years.
A man who loves comedy.
Now, you know, there's a character
in the show who's him, right?
And has he come and seen the show, and does he like it?
-He came Friday night, Saturday matinee,
Saturday night, Sunday matinee, and Sunday night.
Five shows in three days. -That is a dad!
You got a dad on your hands!
-Oh, my God. -A-list dadding, right there.
-I know. I mean, he's been saying for years,
"How much longer do I have to stay alive for this thing?"
And now it's like, "Oh, I'm so glad he's seen it."
But he said it was the best weekend of his life.
-That's amazing.
Also amazing, and thank you for sharing this,
these are the texts he sent.
This is April Fools' Day. -His favorite day.
-And he tried to tell you guys
that your stepmother knocked out his teeth, right?
-Yeah, so, very upsetting. "Janice got --"
I can't read well 'cause I don't have my glasses.
-Yeah, "Janice got pissed at me and knocked my teeth out.
I'm going to sue her."
And then, "Pic of me without my teeth."
-That's my favorite is that he didn't just send the picture.
He wrote "Pic of me without my teeth."
[ Laughter ]
-And then down here, it just said,
"I can only eat soup and ice cream. Very sad."
And then, "Eleeza," "Eliza?" -Eleeza.
-"Eleeza, you have spaghetti on your head."
What does that mean?
-That was, like, an April Fools that he had just with Eleeza.
That was just a sidebar.
-And so his April Fools joke is to tell --
-She probably was like [Gasps]
[ Laughter ]
She's 29, by the way. She's 29.
-Sarah Silverman, everybody.
"The Bedwetter" makes its off-Broadway debut
on May 23rd at the Atlantic Theater Company.
We'll be right back with Jeffrey Donovan.