Kids N Comedy Presents SPRING ALLERGIES SHOW 5/15

KIDS 'N COMEDY SETS "SPRING ALLERGIES SHOW" FOR MAY 15 SEASON FINALE

WHERE AND WHEN:
Sunday, May 15 at 1:00 PM
Gotham Comedy Club, 208 W. 23rd Street
Presented by Kids 'N Comedy
Tickets $15 plus a one item minimum (food or drink.)
There is a kids' menu for kids under 12.
Reservations: 212-877-6115; online ticketing is available at www.kidsncomedy.com
Kids 'N Comedy websites: www.kidsncomedy.com, www.facebook.com/kidsncomedy, www.myspace.com/kidsncomedy Runs 1:45. Reviewers are invited.

DETAILS AND ARTIST INFO:
In homage to the season, Kids 'N Comedy, New York's leading presenter of young comic talent, will mount "The Spring Allergies Show" for its performance on May 15 at 1:00 PM at Gotham Comedy Club, 208 W. 23rd Street. Each comic will perform new material on what bothers them when the days grow longer and warmer, the breezes blow gently and more birds gather around the feeder. It will be the final show of Kids 'N Comedy's 2010-2011 season. Performances will resume in October, 2011.

The show will feature Angela Citrola, Ryan Drum, Leo Frampton, Jake Hazen, Daniel Laitman, Jake Sidransky and Andrew Vatier.

Angela Citrola, grade 11, hails from Northport, LI. She attends two high schools half-day each: Long Island High School for the Arts and Northport High School. Her dad owns a construction company and her mom is a nurse at the VA Medical Center in Northport. Her hobbies are performance, guitar and "everything that has to do with theater of any kind." She has three older sisters and a younger brother. She's done a slew musicals in community theater. Her first standup experience was a school variety show at age 13 and she's been with the Kids 'n Comedy Troupe since October, 2009. She has two dogs (Stella and Sammy) and a pet bearded dragon (Sonny). She speaks English and conversational Spanish. Her allergies include almost everything on the planet. She was a cheerleader but gave it up so she could do more theater.

Ryan Drum, a sophomore whose hobbies are Finance and Social Work, is a songwriter, band member and comedian. He's got three siblings, one's his twin. He's played in comedy shows at the Gotham and at charity events for Ronald McDonald House and the Boy Scouts of America. He's also done voice overs and gigs with "The Sightseers. He opened for Ratatouille, the Disney movie, at the Ziegfeld Theater in 2007. English texting is his primary language. His two dogs are Rosie and Holly. He swims, plays golf, coaches The Fireballs (a soccer team for little kids in his town) and helps out with "The Sharks," who are a Special Olympics Swim Team at the JCC.

Leo Frampton, a tenth grader at Winston Prep, is the son of a teacher and a director of Art Therapy. His hobbies are video games, comedy and school. His siblings are two cats ("Not much words are exchanged, but the peer-pressure is palpable.") He has starred in a few school plays, but mostly it's comedy for him. His passion is comedy. His only sport is comedy.

Jake Hazen is a senior whose dad is a chef and his mom is a "picker." His hobbies are harpsichord, interpretive dance and reading. He has appeared at the Long Island Comedy Festival and Nantucket Comedy Festival. He's a cheeze maker and does cartoon voice overs. He loves history, comedy (his and other people's), biking, kickboxing and playing goalie.

Daniel Laitman is 20 years old and lives in Armonk, NY. He is presently in his second year at Westchester Community College and is studying Film. His parents are both physicians and he has three sisters, one in college and twin sisters in high school. He became interested in stand-up comedy in middle school, where he co-emceed the school talent show in 8th grade, and went to Buck's Rock Camp in New Milford, CT, a creative and performing arts camp. He loved Clown Shop there, which was basically doing stand up and improv, and he was a junior counselor in clownshop the summer before last. He appeared in many shows there for other campers and parents, performing stand up. He also performed comedy at his high school's yearly talent show, where someone actually started a Facebook fan club for him. Daniel enjoys writing jokes and screenplays in his free time. He has a cat, Simba, and two dogs, Merlin and Minnie who, despite their names, are all girls.

Jake Sidransky, a native New Yorker, is a junior at Stuyvesant High School. His mother is in publishing and his father is a personal trainer. An only child and football player, he says he's pasisonate about the Yankees, the Giants, XBox, News and Politics, good food and travel. He has been with Kids 'N Comedy since 2005.

Andrew Vatier, of Douglaston, NY, is a junior at St Mary's High School in Manhasset, where he has been class president this year and last. His mother's in Real Estate, his father's a contractor. His hobbies are sports, baseball, basketball, Lacrosse, music and travel. He's an only child who describes himself as a "people person"; naturally his passions include comedy and socializing. He played the opening of "Rautotelle" at the Ziegfield and has appeared in the Long Island Comedy Festival, a Ronald McDonald Fundraiser at Children's Museum of Long Island, the Nantucket Comedy Festival, and last but never least, Kids N Comedy. He works part time at McDonald's and has volunteered for three years at a summer camp.

"The Spring Allergies Show" is May 15 at 1:00 PM and runs about 1:45. Tickets are $15 plus a one item minimum (food or drink.) There is a kids' menu for kids under 12. The reservations number is 212-877-6115 and online ticketing is available at www.kidsncomedy.com. For more information, visit the Kids 'N Comedy website, www.kidsncomedy.com.

Captioned, high-resolution photos of Kids 'N Comedy performers are available for download at: https://picasaweb.google.com/jslaff/KidsNComedy#
For biographies of the young comedians, visit: www.jsnyc.com/season/knc_bios.htm.
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ABOUT KIDS 'N COMEDY
Kids 'N Comedy originated in 1996 as a talent show for kids at a The West End Gate restaurant on the Upper West Side that was owned at the time by Associate Director Stu Morden, Art D'Lugoff and Manny Roth (Cafe Wha). The talent of the kids caught the attention of BBC-TV, which filmed a documentary about them, which resulted in more media attention. Demand spiked among kids wishing to perform and this prompted Morden and his wife, Artistic Director Jo Ann Grossman, to establish Kids 'N Comedy to serve these budding comics through classes taught by a rotating staff, an intensive summer comedy camp, and professional gigs. Their performance series started at The Knitting Factory in 1996 and moved to Caroline's in 1998 and to Gotham Comedy Club in 2000. The founders point out that there's a ten year ramp-up to a comedy career and stage time is essential to becoming a good performer. Before there was Kids 'N Comedy, getting that stage time was nearly impossible, since comedy clubs are primarily bars and therefore off-limits to teens.

Parents report that their children's involvement in Kids 'N Comedy yields an increase in self confidence and a better attitude toward school. One parent wrote, "My son (like his father) has always marched to the beat of a different drum. As a result, he has had to take a lot of criticism from his peers and was to always the most secure of children: funny, pleasant to be with, but always uncertain as to who he was. As a result of your efforts my son has found that the road less traveled could possibly be the most rewarding."

Distinguished alumni of Kids 'N Comedy include Josh Peck, star of Nickelodeon's "Drake & Josh," and Lucian Maisel, who can be seen in the film "The Ex" with Zack Braff and Amanda Peet.

In the company's showcases, each comic performs his/her own material, which is screened to be free of profanity and abrasive or cheap "low" humor, like fart jokes. They do, however, venture into edgy comic terrain: politics, getting old, even death. Laura Weiss wrote in Big Apple Parent, "This kid humor is quirky and often slightly mordant, with a sophistication that belies the comedians' youth. Plus, these kids are hilarious."

Representative jokes:
"I was born during the great depression...my mother's."
"My father's idea of health food is to eat something before the expiration date on the box."
"I was fired from the 99 Cent Store for asking for a price check."

Beside their regular shows at Gotham Comedy Club, Kids 'N Comedy performers have appeared at a variety of benefits and charity events, including events of the WB11 Care for Kids Fund, a fund of the Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation (supporting needy families, including teen mothers, homeless families and at-risk youth), Starlight Starbright Children's Foundation (it brightens the lives of seriously ill children and their families) and the Toyota Comedy Festival.

TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES AT KIDS 'N COMEDY
Kids 'N Comedy offers a Class Series in which aspiring comedians spend Saturdays in the company of other hilarious teenagers, as well as a hot-shot team of writers and comedians from around New York, learning how to write, workshop and perform their very own stand-up routines. Classes meet for two hours on Saturdays for nine weeks, and are offered three times during the year. To redress the sexual balance--comedy performance is overwhelmingly more popular with boys--Kids 'N Comedy has also begun a special comedy writing workshop for girls.

COMEDY CAMPS AT KIDS 'N COMEDY
In-town Comedy Camps offered for ages 11 to 18. This summer, they will be:
Session 1: July 5 to 15
Session 2: July 18 to 29
Session 3: August 1 to 12
Participants spend 2 weeks at Gotham Comedy Club in Manhattan, learning about improv, comic acting, and stand-up comedy. Each camp culminates in a graduation show live on stage at Gotham Comedy Club. Camps are limited to ten kids per session. Campers can take 1, 2, or 3 sessions.

All writing and performance workshops are taught by comedy professionals, offer a highly supportive atmosphere and are tuned to varying levels of experience. Complete information, cost and schedules for all workshops and camps are available on the Kids 'N Comedy website, www.kidsncomedy.com.

This program has been made possible in part through the sponsorship of The Field, a not-for-profit, tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) organization serving the New York City performing arts community.

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