Edinburgh Fringe Hit Comedy Hour IF MEMORY SERVES Announced At The PIT

Fresh off a run at the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the 2024 Philadelphia Fringe Festival, queer actor and comic Michael John Ciszewski will present his fourth solo show IF MEMORY SERVES as an encore performance at The PIT, this November 15, 2024, at 8:30pm.

IF MEMORY SERVES was long-listed for the Queer Performer's Award at the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The show was also named as #50 on a list of the top 100 shows at the 2024 Fringe based on analysis of audience and critical reviews by Fringebiscuit.

IF MEMORY SERVES laughs at the perils of being alive and its many traps-including addiction, crushing anxiety, and unimaginably gay idiocy; it's comedy that's interested in fostering transparency around all the ways we screw up as we get to know ourselves and each other.

"Hi, my name is Michael John and I'm an alcoholic... gay comedian. IF MEMORY SERVES invites audiences on my wild journey from first drink to last, and into a life in recovery-with stupid stand-up, sparkly storytelling, and sickening existential riddle," says Michael John. "IF MEMORY SERVES shines shimmering light of some of the darkest nights of the soul-and ones I may not even quite remember. It argues for transparency around addiction and creates a safe space to laugh at how miserably human beings f*ck up as we get to know ourselves and each other. WHAT COULD BE FUNNIER?! No, but really-I am drunk (with excitement) to return to NYC and the PIT with this show, and could not be more ready to share this work with NYC artists and audiences!"

Audiences join Michael John as he tries to remember everything he wishes he could forget-from transformative pop culture and hookups with radical leftists to queer villainy and accidental car theft. Make new memories on the scorched earth of a gay youth quite literally WASTED in this hilarious and searingly honest hour of comedy JAM-PACKED with LAUGHS about anxiety, identity, relationships, and the inscrutable conundrum of existence! IF MEMORY SERVES works to MAXIMIZE joyful stupidity and MINIMIZE abject suffering, however real and unavoidable it may be. It aims to inspire audiences to exploit every opportunity available to us to love (and laugh) hard enough to make life worth living.

Ciszewski has previously packed raucous, rapt houses in comedy venues and theaters across New York City, where he regularly performs. His solo work has additionally toured stages in Boston, Philadelphia, Providence, Provincetown MA, Ft. Lauderdale FL, and New Jersey.

Performance Information

The PIT • 154 W 29th St, New York, NY 10001

Fri, Nov 15, 2024 8:30 PM

Approximately 60 minutes

Tickets: xomichaeljohn.com

About the Company

Michael John Ciszewski (he/him) (Creator/Performer) is a queer actor and writer born, raised, and returned to New York City after launching his career in Boston and London.

Ciszewski's solo work, cited as "required queer viewing" by NYC comedy duo BAPHTA, is rooted in queerness and healing and gleefully journeys across genres from stand-up and storytelling to collective ritual. His debut Everyone is Dying and So Am I premiered in July 2019 and has since enjoyed sold-out performances with Boston's Open Theatre Project and Manhattan's Theatre Row and United Solo Theatre Festival-spotlighting the best in international solo performance. It was subsequently nominated for the festival's audience award. His second effort The Sun is Sleeping, a full-length film composed at the start of the pandemic era, was screened in virtual theatrical events from late 2020 into 2021 and is now available to stream online. His hit third solo show Lovefool premiered in 2022 and has since played to over 1200 people in venues ranging from proscenium and black box theatres to comedy clubs and festival stages in New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Providence, Provincetown, Jersey City, and beyond. In the meantime, Ciszewski has launched his fourth solo show If Memory Serves-an hour of stand-up comedy on sobriety, sex, and profound stupidity that critics say "delivers vulnerability and authenticity along with absolute gay nonsense."

Michael is a member of the staff of ArtsEmerson at Emerson College's Office of the Arts. He trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and is a proud graduate of Boston University's B.F.A. Theatre Arts program.

Brian Dudley (he/him) (Producer) is a creative educator and theatre artist, specializing in student success, youth development, and theatre education.

In addition to his work as an academic advisor at The New School and Boston University College of Fine Arts, Brian has held leadership roles with Boston University Summer Theatre Institute, where he served as co-program head, and the Massachusetts Youth Leadership Foundation, where he leads flagship youth education program MassSTAR and sits on the Board of Directors. He has also directed, taught, or facilitated programs with the BU Summer Theatre Institute, Arlington Children's Theatre, the Lyric Stage Company of Boston, and others.

Brian holds an M.Ed in Arts, Community, and Education with a specialization in Theatre Studies from Lesley University, and a B.F.A in Writing, Literature, and Publishing from Emerson College.

Noah Simes (he/him) (Director) is a director, performer, and theatrical polymath from Boston, now based in New York City. Noah has collaborated with a number of Boston-based institutions and artists, but is maybe best known as the homme fatale Peter Nureyev in the hit queer sci-fi audio drama The Penumbra Podcast.

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