This past week, the audio recording of Tig Notaro’s comedy stand-up routine about her breast cancer diagnosis last summer turned up on Louis CK’s site for a $5 download. Here’s an excerpt of Louis’ reaction:
The show was an amazing example of what comedy can be. A way to visit your worst fears and laugh at them. Tig took us to a scary place and made us laugh there. Not by distracting us from the terror but by looking right at it and just turning to us and saying “wow. Right?”. She proved that everything is funny. And has to be. And she could only do this by giving us her own death as an example. So generous.
Now New York City is about to turn Cancer into the funniest joke in town. First off-Broadway and then Columbia University will celebrate the art of laughing at cancer.
On October 19, the 2011 Canadian Comedy Award winner for Best One Person Show headlines the prestigious United Solo Theatre Festival just off-Broadway. Daniel Stolfi turns his tussle with non-Hodgkins Lymphoma at the age of 25 into a tour de force of dramatizations, characterizations, humiliations and exhilarations. He takes on stigma, icons like Lance Armstrong, and confronts the assault on his hair, his sex drive and his machismo with flair and flamboyance that leaves you belly aching and heart aching. Then he dances, like no Cancer can dance at all.
At Columbia University on November 7, Will Reiser of last year’s feature film “50/50” delivers a speech at the prestigious Narrative Medicine program. Doctors studying the art of narrative competency will be listening to this career funny man describe how he turned his personal cancer journey into one laugh track after another in the hit film starring Joseph Gordon Levitt and Seth Rogen.
Imagine. A roomful of doctors, who are studying serious literature to learn how to better understand patient stories to improve their practice, are going to be listening a young hellcat storyteller. Now this is progress! Its recognition that valid story comes in many forms and that comedy holds equal weight in the battle of creative expression.
It’s also recognition that comedy makes a seemingly tough subject like cancer digestible by the public. The TV series “The Big C” starring Laura Linney, is about a suburban mother, diagnosed with melanoma cancer, who tries to find the humour in the disease. According to WashingtonPost critic Hank Stuever: “It’s for people who are repelled by the warm-fuzzy, disease-o’-the-week dramas of cable television.” And the darkside series “Breaking Bad” turns a high school teacher’s cancer diagnosis into a life of crime that takes many funny and bizarre twists.
"Making known the gifts of people with intellectual disabilities." Improv is a unique tool to deepen the rich relationship between patient and provider. It aids in the challenge that professional and support staff face to relate to patients and caregivers as individuals, and in this case, as fellow artists. 'Improv at Daybreak' provides a glimpse into the Monday morning Drama program at L'Arche Daybreak, an inclusive community for adults with intellectual disabilities in Richmond Hill, Ontario. The film features interviews with core members and assistants, and snippets of all of them having boatloads of fun together as they improvise their Read More…
"I do not feel unfortunate." Confronting an overwhelming genetic predisposition for breast cancer, a comedy writer makes the ultimate choice. Amy Cohen is the author of The New York Times best-seller The Late Bloomer's Revolution. She's been both a writer and producer for the sitcoms Caroline in the City and Spin City, wrote a dating column for the New York Observer, and was the dating correspondent for cable TV's New York Central. Amy lives in New York City. Read More…
In March of 2000, unconventional MTV personality and Comedian Tom Green was diagnosed with testicular cancer. On May 23, 2000, MTV aired a one-hour special episode of the Tom Green Show. The special followed Tom through his treatment and included graphic footage of the surgical procedure during which doctors removed Tom's right testicle. Tom uses humor to educate! Read More…
Cancer Survivor: Daniel Stolfi Diagnosis: Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma Date of Treatment – March 2008-March 2010 Relation: Girlfriend I don’t know how to put this. Long story short – I found out Daniel was sick a month into his treatment. I was devastated. It took me days to call him and then I finally manned up to it. Once we talked, our relationship blossomed over time. Dan and I know each other from theatre school (2002). Daniel’s illness shook our group of friends from University greatly. All were incredibly supportive and loving, but there was something inside my heart that wanted to Read More…
They gave you the sex talk… Now it’s time for you to give them The Cancer Talk. It’s so important for you to talk to your parents about where the cancer exists in your family, because it keeps you in the know about what’s normal and what’s not! Read More…
A short film on the battle of Daniel Stolfi, a young man with cancer who not only survives, but transforms his horrific experience into a deeply personal, yet highly comedic one-man show "Cancer Can't Dance Like This", winner of the 2011 Canadian Comedy Award for Best One Person Show. Read the story of Daniel's girlfriend, Jennifer De Lucia, as she tells her emotional companion story for the first time. Read More…
Note: I was diagnosed with cancer in 2008. As I approach my 'cancerveresary', I decided to bring this piece back from the dead, with some slight adjustments.My cancer was so easy that I got embarrassed telling people I had cancer; depending on their sensitivity and sobriety levels, they immediately said something along the lines of OMG ARE YOU OKAY/ARE YOU GONNA DIE? The easiest way to deal with this was to say: Calm it, bitch, I ain't even gon' lose my hair. Now that I think about it though, it may have been an upside to lose my hair because Read More…
