Nantucket Comedy Festival 2014 program

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BOARD OF DIRECTORS

2014 SPONSORS

Kevin Flynn, Executive Director Sarah Alger, President Franklin Levy, Secretary Tim Braine, Vice President Rebecca Bartlett, Treasurer Anne McCollum, Development Anne Marie Bratton Kate Brosnan John Buckey Donick Cary Jill Karp Lynda Levy Gene Mahon Chris Mazzilli Karen Rainwater Dan Wolf

THANK YOU The team at ReMain Nantucket, Nantucket Golf Club, Nantucket VFW, Steve & Jill Karp, Marianne Stanton, Karen Rainwater, Franci Crane, Biff & Linda Levy

• Tickets available at the Dreamland box office or at www.nantucketdreamland.org • Patron Passes available for pick-up starting at 10am, July 16 in the Dreamland Lobby • Event Headquarters - 2 Union Street, Second Floor The Nantucket Comedy Festival in support of Stand Up & Learn is a registered 501(c)(3)

Welcome to the 7th Nantucket Comedy Festival! We’re in for a lot of laughs this week, all in support of Stand Up & Learn, our remarkable educational program for kids.

This year’s festival and our year-round workshops have been made possible through the generosity of many organizations and individuals.

ReMain Nantucket presented the 2013-14 Stand Up & Learn workshops, which were also supported by the Nantucket Dreamland Theater. The White Elephant and Cape Air helped produce our kids’ programs and are returning sponsors of the summer festival.

We’re happy to be at Nantucket’s new VFW on Saturday night for our New York vs. Boston Comedy SmACKdown. My dad, Bill Flynn, a Veteran of the Korean War, would stop into the island’s VFW whenever he visited Nantucket to say ‘hey.’ He would be happy to know they finally have a new space.

Thanks to my fellow comedians for donating their time and talent. Standup comics are among the most thoughtful and giving people you’ll ever want to meet. Their involvement truly makes the Nantucket Comedy Festival possible.

I thank everyone who bought patron passes, ticket buyers, all of our sponsors, and of course, the wonderful Nantucket community.

Kevin Flynn, Executive Director Nantucket Comedy Festival/Stand Up & Learn

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS WEDNESDAY JULY 16

Engaging Nantucket Kids Year-round See the kids from the Nantucket Comedy Festival’s Stand Up & Learn program perform live at the Dreamland!

5 p.m. Wednesday - Dreamland Main Theater - Free

THURSDAY JULY 17 Caroline Rhea Headlines Women’s Night

With headliner Caroline Rhea, women comics of Nantucket Comedy Festival dissect and skewer husbands, lovers, kids, parenting and careers, all from a woman’s point of view. The guys will laugh along, too, during what has become a much talked about night at Nantucket Comedy Festival.

6 p.m. Thursday - Dreamland Main Theater - $95

Stand Up & Learn Fundraiser with Dick Cavett and Peter Farrelly Film producer, director and writer Peter Farrelly sits down with Dick Cavett for an intimate conversation and dinner party in a private Nantucket home to benefit Stand Up & Learn, the kids’ program of Nantucket Comedy Festival.

8 p.m. Thursday - Accessible to Patrons Pass holders with a limited number of individual tickets available - $1,000

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NANTUCKET COMEDY FESTIVAL FRIDAY JULY 18

Women, Coffee & Comedy - Wake up and smell the java with the women comics of Nantucket Comedy Festival.

10 a.m. - Dreamland Studio Theater - $25

A Night of Parks and Recreation A night of stand-up, stories, clips and discussion with the writers, producers and performers of “Parks and Recreation,” now in its final season.

7 p.m. Friday - Dreamland Main Theater - $95

SATURDAY JULY 19

Comedy Writers Room - Behind-the-scenes talk and insider scoops from Nantucket Comedy Festival performers and special guests.

9 a.m. - Rose & Crown - $25

NY vs. Boston Comedy SmACKdown Joe Scarborough & Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC’s Morning Joe host this year’s legendary Comedy SmACKdown. Bob Ley of ESPN acts as umpire. Step onto the comedy ball diamond with six national headlining comedians for multiple innings of jokes as they battle for the title of “funniest city.”

7 p.m. Saturday - VFW on New South Road - $150

D

uring his long and accomplished career, Dick Cavett has worn many hats including as an actor, author, stand-up comedian, comedy scriptwriter, and, recently, as a columnist.

You don’t have to be of a certain age to know of him or appreciate how much he has influenced the medium of television, in particular.

He’s equally admired as an observer and commentator on culture, the arts and politics.

In fact, no conversation about television in its early prime is complete without mention of Dick Cavett.

Behind the scenes, he helped create pioneering entertainment television as a writer for The Tonight Show, with both Jack Parr 2014 “MAN FROM and Johnny Carson, The NANTUCKET” AWARD Jerry Lewis Show, The Merv Griffin Show and The Ed Sullivan Show. From the late 1960s through the early 1980s, his several versions of the eponymous Dick Cavett Show included notable interviews with actors, writers and politicians as wide ranging as Groucho Marx, Marlon Brando, Bette Davis, Katherine Hepburn, Gore Vidal, Norman Mailer and John Kerry.

For his work in television, Cavett has been nominated for the Emmy 10 times and has won three.

DICK CAVETT

Cavett has said Groucho, a longtime friend, was his favorite guest because he was “the most gifted comedian” ever. Bette Davis appeared with Cavett in 1971, and Katherine Hepburn made her first television appearance, at the age of 66, with him in 1973. Reviewers have long

praised him as smart, brainy, erudite, ironic and quick-witted. “Dick Cavett didn’t do interviews—he held conversations,” wrote Susan Stamberg of National Public Radio. “Conversation is when people simply talk; not take a test on the air with Q and A,” he explained to her.

Notably, Cavett so irritated President Richard Nixon—Cavett had testified against the deportation of John Lennon and conducted a televised debate with participant John Kerry about opposition to the Vietnam War—that on the infamous White House tapes Nixon wondered aloud about Cavett, “Is there any way we can screw him?”

Recently, Cavett has written for the Opinionator blog of The New York Times and makes public appearances to share his colorful experiences.

He is the author of “Talk Show: Confrontations, Pointed Commentary, and Off-Screen Secrets,” along with being the co-author of “Cavett” (1974) and “Eye on Cavett” (1983). He has appeared on Broadway in “Otherwise Engaged,” “Into the Woods,” and as the narrator in “The Rocky Horror Show.”

In his self-deprecating manner, Cavett has said “to label me an intellectual is a misunderstanding of what that is.” Whether or not intellectual is a fitting description for Cavett, those of us who are longtime fans know he’s also just damned funny.

PETER FARRELLY

In Conversation with Dick Cavett, Thursday, July 17*

Movie director and producer Peter Farrelly is best known as a producer, director, and screenwriter of over 20 years, usually in collaboration with his brother Bobby Farrelly, of such hit comedy films as Dumb and Dumber, Shallow Hal, There’s Something About Mary, Me, Myself & Irene, The Three Stooges and the upcoming Dumb and Dumber To. His novel “Outside Providence” (1998) recounts in a melancholy yet hilarious way a young man’s coming of age in the 1970s. *See schedule of events page 4 for more information

STAND UP & LEARN ENGAGING NANTUCKET KIDS YEAR-ROUND

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antucket Comedy Festival’s remarkable Stand Up & Learn educational program teaches kids the joys of creativity, collaboration and self-confidence. In after-school and schoolbased workshops with NCF Executive Director Kevin Flynn and his professional comic colleagues, youth on Nantucket and elsewhere, from ages eight to 18, have learned the expressive art of comedy.

In a series of 10 workshops held throughout last year on Nantucket, more than 100 kids, in groups from four or five to over 30, gathered on Saturdays and after school at Nantucket Dreamland to learn what makes something funny, how to write and tell their own stories, and to work with their peers. Participants represented all parts of the Nantucket community and were evenly divided between boys and girls. Each of those workshops culminated in performances by the kids in front of their fellow students, families and friends, some of which you’ll see repeated during this summer’s Nantucket Comedy Festival.

With their accounts including funny things their dad or mom did recently and playing tricks on their siblings, the kids have told their stories and gotten laughs from enthusiastic audiences. “We loved it,” said one appreciative parent.

The Stand Up & Learn program was completed earlier at Nantucket High School, The Gateway School in New York City, the Deveraux Glenholme School in Washington, Connecticut and at Cape Cod The 2013-14 Winter Workshop Series presented by ReMain Nantucket

Conservatory. Through all of these classroom lessons in creative writing and communication, more than 300 kids total have learned to share the gift of laughter with their family, friends and the public.

Plans are now underway at Nantucket Comedy Festival to strengthen Stand Up & Learn with year-round instructors on Nantucket and develop educational training materials including videos and classroom lessons for wider distribution.

Your generous and much appreciated contributions will help us to continue encouraging self-esteem, creativity and collaboration through the joys of comedy for many more children through Stand Up & Learn.

“I liked the Stand Up and Learn workshop because there were a lot of funny grown-ups there, and also because you got to write down funny stories that happened to you, and then talk about them with other people. I want to do the workshop again!�

- Phineas Byrne, Nantucket Student, age 10

The Inquirer and Mirror and

Nantucket Today are proud sponsors of

The Nantucket Comedy Festival

PRODUCTION CREDITS Executive Director Kevin Flynn Executive Assistant + Volunteer Coordinator Alyssa Corry Festival Producer Colin Stanfield Graphic Design + Creative Direction Lance Kelly, Image Design Studio

Ticketing Dreamland Film & Performing Arts Center Transportation Cranberry Transportation Audio, Video + Lighting Dreamland Film & Performing Arts Center Production Services MassAV

Program + Press William Ferrall

Media Support Nantucket Community Television

Festival Intern Mary Seidel

Catering Annye’s Whole Foods

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