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June 30, 2006
Inside With: Sean O'Connor, Andrew Wright, and Nick Maritato, Hosts of Here's The Thing
By Ben Kharakh
Every Sunday night at Rififi, Sean O'Connor, Nick Maritato, and Andrew Wright host a comedy show called Here's the Thing where they do a little stand up, a sketch, and invite their favorite comics to perform. They must be doing something right, because word is spreading fast. In June, Spin magazine called the show one of the top 101 things to do that month and every week the audience gets bigger.
How does Here's the Thing (HTT) compare to other comedy shows?
Sean O'Connor: I like to think that the difference between HTT and other comedy shows is that it allows us to do things every show, while at other shows we are in a rotation and don't get to go up every week.
Andrew Wright: That would be the difference for us.
How about for the audience?
Andrew: We've got a really good rotation of comics that we consider some of the best people coming up in the city. So we basically try to book the show as fans to see the show we would want to see.
Nick Maritato: We go on stage every Sunday night not really knowing what type of show we are gonna do. It's spontaneous yet written.
What are your different strengths and how does that make HTT so unique?
Sean: I think Andrew's strengths are his brains. Nick's an excellent actor/character work-shopper. I think I'm really funny and very faux-confident.
Andrew: Nick is really great at characters and Improv. Sean is one of the best up-and-coming stand-ups. I'm from Georgia.
Nick: Both of my boys are excellent writers. I’m not too shabby myself, but I can’t do it the way they do. They have work ethic. I'm more of a “Let’s just do it and hope it’s not a train wreck” sort of guy.
How do you approach writing the bits featured in your show, like billionaire Booble creator Henry H. Henry's attempt to buy out HTT?
Sean: The way we approached that "bit" was that I had that idea lying around from a fan fiction Simpsons episode. Nick and Andrew added some amazing jokes and history was made.
Andrew: You wrote a fanfic Simpsons episode?
Sean: I like how you think I only wrote one. I have seasons. Bart becomes Jewish. "Mad About Jew" is that episode. Lisa slam dunks a basketball, "Mad About Slam Dunk"
Andrew: Marge dies in a drunk driving accident. "mad about m.a.d.d."
How did the three of you meet?
Andrew: Sean and I met because we were on the same bill at each other's shows. We do a lot of the downtown stand-up shows. The moment I knew that I was a fan of Sean's was when he took a sip of water onstage and then said into the microphone, "glug, glug." I was like, "This kid knows comedy!"
Sean: Nick and I went to high school together.
Are you working on any projects, like a Channel 102 pilot or something?
Sean: "White Men Can't Jump : The TV Show" is something that's written.
You can visit Here's the Thing online at: www.myspace.com/heresthethingcomedy or see them this (and every) Sunday at 8PM.
Ben Kharakh is the creator of the online humor magazine One Trick Pony.
Posted by The Apiary at June 30, 2006 12:54 PM
Comments
Andrew and Sean are two of my favorite comics in the city. Everyone that hasn't seen HTT should punch the hell out of themselves for missing their shows. Seriously. Go do it now.
Posted by: Matt at June 30, 2006 1:51 PM
These guys are really a class act. A class act.
Go have fun and watch them do their thing!
Posted by: Benjamin Hunter Crawford at August 31, 2006 5:09 PM