The New 30 is the next great solo comedy show

First it was movie musicals, now our pals at Frozen Pictures are into thea-tuh! Ha! The team that brought us Burt Reynolds in Cloud 9 and the hilarious new meditation on celebrity culture, The Seventh Python, is now producing a solo comedy performance that's having the first of three previews tomorrow night at the Laugh Factory on The Sunset Strip.

The New 30 (as in "fifty is the new thirty...") is a nonstop laughfest about the losing fight against growing old, written by one of the premier television comedy writers of the past 30 years. Eric Cohen was Johnny Carson's head monologue writer. He was a creator of Welcome Back, Kotter. He's written and produced for every major sitcom from Mr. T and Tina (a lost classic) to the Golden Girls to Raymond.

And to top it off, he produced a series starring The Olsen Twins, but we'll have to wait for him to write a book on that one.

Now Eric Cohen doesn't perform the show. He's the playwright. And he's directing Alan Bursky, a veteran everyman funnyman and another veteran of the last golden age of standup (the era from Richard Lewis to Drew Carey) who's got historic Tonight Show cred as the youngest comedian to appear on show.

He was 18, Johnny was in his heyday. Now Bursky's the new 30 (as in "fifty's..."). Bursky's lived the standup life as few others, from the top on network TV and Vegas to the lows and even a place in Comedy Babylon as Freddie Prinze's best friend and roommate when Freddie shot himself (Mike Binder played Bursky in the TV movie).


We caught a rehearsal. This isn't one of those "plays" where the playwright is recreating his birth or past trauma. This is a hilarious and knowing report from the front lines of the war on aging, with old school laugh-out-loud one-liners mixed with new insight into the modern-day obsession with youth and looking good, no matter the cost. There are lots of laughs and we can see this branching out and playing clubs and theaters in every town that has a pharmacy that stocks Viagra or Botox.

The first preview is 8 pm Tuesday at the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood.

Check out The New 30 website here.

Cut out the attached flyer for a half-price ticket.


And hey guys, here's your first review:

"A nonstop laughfest about the losing fight against growing old! A hilarious and knowing report from the front lines of the war on aging! Old school laugh-out-loud one-liners mixed with new insight into the modern-day obsession with youth and looking good, no matter the cost!"

--TabloidBaby.com