It can now truly be said that Kurt Braunohler and Kristen Schaal are global comedy stars.
They were toasts of the town in Montreal last summer at the prestigious Just For Laughs Festival, won the biggest award earlier this year in Melbourne, Australia, and were the only Americans nominated for the top prize at this summer's Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland. New Yorkers, of course, have come to know and love the majestic weirdness of Kurt and Kristen for years now. They headline Comix this weekend (Sept. 5-6) with Gabe & Jenny hosting and Shayna Ferm as an opening act.
The duo of Kurt and Kristen (he's from New Jersey, she's from Colorado) teamed up more than four years ago when both Braunohler and Schaal were improvisers at the Peoples Improv Theater looking to host their own variety shows. Though they hadn't performed together before, the chemistry, Braunohler said, was "pretty immediate!" Their initial show, Hot Tub, was a hit at the PIT and eventually moved to Pianos, then to Comix.
"It was kind of amazing," he said. "Obviously, when you first start doing stuff, we were feeling each other out, but I think we just fell in love with performing with each other." It didn't take audiences long to feel the same kind of love for the quirky duo.
Their current show, "Double Down Hearts," takes scenes from a play told in reverse to create a running narrative "for fitting in all the weird s&*@ we want to do in between," Braunohler said.
That weirdness, though, has captivated audiences on several continents. Does their style of comedy play better abroad than it does in the United States? "Kristen and I have different opinions on this," Braunohler said. "I think yes. Specifically with the U.K., and a little bit with Australia, there's more of a long history of sketch comedy, (Monty) Python and stuff. And in America, the mainstream vocabulary is stand-up, so things outside of that structure seem weird and strange. Of course, what we do is weird and strange anyhow."
Perhaps their most popular routine is a dance number, quite simply titled, "Kristen Schaal is a Horse."
I don't want to spoil it for you, but if you've already seen it, look here to see how well it went over before a televised audience in Melbourne! Now let's learn more about this example of genius in simplicity...
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