Humorism

A newsletter about labor, inequality, and extremism in comedy.

We're Back

And this time it's personal.

Hello! Welcome back to Humorism, now hosted on Letterdrop. I believe everyone's subscription info has been successfully ported over, barring a handful of you with comped or gift subscriptions. While I figure out how to accommodate those, I'll just personally forward paywalled posts to the people affected. A couple other pieces of housekeeping: a few subscribers were for some reason charged on Stripe last month even though I paused billing. If I haven't yet reached out to you to confirm you got a refund, please let me know. There's gonna be a smattering of broken links, embeds, images, etc. throughout the archives for a while; please bear with me as I slowly go through and manually fix them, though of course give me a shout if there's anything big you think I've missed. Finally: I've been

Seth Simons

May 07 2021

13 min read

Yes, You Should Still Wear A Mask At The Comedy Club

A physicist explains why state guidelines and club policies may be too lax.

In April the piecemeal reopening of comedy clubs across the country finally reached two longstanding holdouts: New York, which allowed indoor entertainment venues to reopen at limited capacity on April 2nd, and California, where indoor performances were cleared to resume earlier this month, with restrictions varying by county. In Los Angeles, which appears set to enter the least restrictive tier of reopening early next month, the Comedy Store is planning a grand reopening in its Main Room tonight. The Laugh Factory, half a mile down the street, will hold a “soft reopening” tomorrow. The reopening of comedy’s capital cities draws renewed attention to safety issues that have dogged the industry for the past year, as headliners toured the country performing in states with differing health g

Seth Simons

Apr 30 2021

6 min read

Second City Invites Laid-Off Workers to Reapply for Their Jobs

After being laid off last March and fired in October, the theater's night staff will receive "first priority" to interview for open positions.

This article was originally published on April 19, 2021. As Covid-19 demolished the live entertainment industry last spring, The Second City laid off its entire night staff, about 90 part-time and full-time service workers. While there was some confusion at the time as to whether the action was permanent—an email announcement seemed to use the words “layoffs” and “suspension” interchangeably—the famed Chicago institution clarified the matter in October, when it announced that it was adjusting the night staff’s employment status “from suspended to terminated.” Now under new ownership, The Second City has informed its former night staffers that their jobs will not be waiting for them when the theater reopens. In an email sent in late March, The Second City announced that going forward its

Seth Simons

Apr 30 2021

6 min read

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