A Conversation With Leo Allen

Leo Allen is living a life that hundreds of aspiring comedians in Chicago would love to have. Currently, he and his writing partner Eric Slovin are working with Demetri Martin to create Martin's Jon Stewart-produced pilot. In August he will be taping his first solo Comedy Central Presents special (he and writing partner Eric Slovin had a special in 2001). How did he get so busy?

After graduating from Temple University and spending a year in Israel, Allen moved to New York City and began doing open mics. "Shitty open mics, like in the back of a hamburger restaurant or a Laundromat," according to Allen. He did open mics for awhile and went to clubs to watch comics like Dave Chappelle, Todd Barry, Wanda Sykes and Dave Attell. Through the open mics, Allen met Slovin and soon the two of them began writing sketches together. They eventually would perform sketches and a few years and four hour-long shows later, Slovin and Allen were asked to shoot a pilot for FX.

Leo described the show as absurd and bizarre, counting Abbott and Costello as a big influence, and added it's basically "the idea of two men in their 50's living together." The show, which starred Eva Longoria, was not picked up. However, in 2002 both Allen and Slovin were hired as writers for Saturday Night Live. Allen wrote for the show, which he called "fun and a great learning experience" until 2005. “One of my favorite sketches that made it to air at SNL that Slovin and I wrote was called 'Tennis Talk with Time-Travelling Scott Joplin,' and was a talk show hosted by Scott Joplin who was for some reason obsessed with current women's tennis.”

Since then he has written two screenplays with Slovin and he also hosts (with Tony Camin) a live talk show at UCB Theatre called "Bro'in Out." He and Slovin also made a hilarious (seriously, it's extremely funny) short film called "Family Film," which was removed from YouTube for being too dirty, which was ironic as the short was making fun of censorship. Slovin and Allen have also struck a deal with superdeluxe.com to make short films for their website.

More recently, Allen has been doing stand-up. He was on a 20-city tour with Eugene Mirman and Michael Showalter. Last fall, he was on a 30-city tour with Demetri Martin and now he's back in Chicago with Eugene Mirman. You can catch them this Sunday, June 17th at the Lakeshore Theater. Also performing is their friend A.D. Miles of “Wet Hot American Summer” and “The Ten” (in theatres August 3rd).

-Chris Burns

An NPR interview with Allen can be heard here. An interview with Slovin and Allen in Gothamist is here.