David Ackerman, a young pianist working at a piano bar in New York City, wants nothing more than to stand on a stage and make people laugh. He meets Gabrielle, an attractive and slightly eccentric young woman who yearns to be a professional ballerina. These two hungry dreamers climb the shaky ladder of success from seedy bars to comedy clubs to the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House, their on-again, off-again romance propelling them along in heartfelt pursuit of love, fame and laughter. This engaging musical features a contemporary pop score and great casting flexibility. -- Amazon.com.

Wrongfully imprisoned and desperate to regain his freedom, Max Gomez agrees to become a subject in an underground government experiment. When the trial gives him phenomenal shape-shifting abilities, Gomez learns his new “freedom” requires surviving a superpowered war fought on the streets of NYC.

The free online guide written by KaptainMyke has been released for the first time in print! Learn the hidden underground secrets of cleaning and pressing comic books. This book contains all of the vast information covered online at www.kaptainmyke.com and includes all new, never before seen material. Properly photograph and handle comic books to prevent damage. Obtain the highest grades possible when submitting to grading companies. Learn how to prescreen and inspect comic books with precision. Know the difference between pressable and unpressable defects. Learn about restoration detection and how you can avoid potential risks. Become informed on the dangers of bad pressing and what you can do to prevent damage to comic books. The cleaning and stain removal tips inside will provide extra value to your books. This book is filled with full color pages that include tips and real world examples for your review. Fix your mistakes and prevent future potential mistakes as you practice. Utilize and follow guidance from formula pages based off year and type of paperstock. Inspection forms, a flow chart and pressing matrix diagram are included as brand new content to guide you along every step of the learning process. All pages are color coded and easy to understand for anyone who has never attempted cleaning or pressing comic books. Suppose you could tell if a graded comic book has been cleaned and pressed - without ever having to open it? What if there were grading notes that could immediately give you clues for pressing potential? This book covers all of that and more! Everything included inside this book guarantees a clean blue universal graded label using no restoration techniques or tricks. You are guaranteed to improve the condition and grade of any comic book using the procedures outlined in this guide. If you collect comic books, this book is for you.

Bill Carter, executive producer of CNN’s docuseries The Story of Late Night and host of the Behind the Desk: Story of Late Night podcast, details the chaotic transition of The Tonight Show from host Jay Leno to Conan O’Brien—and back again. In 2010, NBC’s CEO Jeff Zucker, had it all worked out when he moved Jay Leno from behind the desk at The Tonight Show, and handed the reins over to Conan O'Brien. But his decision was a spectacular failure. Ratings plummeted, affiliates were enraged—and when Zucker tried to put everything back the way it was, that plan backfired as well. No one is more uniquely suited to document the story of a late-night travesty than veteran media reporter and bestselling author, Bill Carter. In candid detail, he charts the vortex that sucked in not just Leno and O'Brien—but also Letterman, Stewart, Fallon, Kimmel, and Ferguson—as frantic agents and network executives tried to manage a tectonic shift in television’s most beloved institution.

He has written and produced comedy/talk shows for over fifteen years. Now four-time Emmy winner Joe Toplyn reveals his proven methods of writing for late-night television in this one-of-a-kind insider's guide. Toplyn analyzes each type of comedy piece in the late-night TV playbook and takes you step-by-step through the process of writing it. His detailed tips, techniques, and rules include: * 6 characteristics every good monologue joke topic must have* 6 specific ways to generate punch lines* 12 tools for making your jokes their funniest* 7 types of desk pieces and how to create them* 9 steps to writing parodies and other sketches * How to go after a writing job in late night* PLUS a complete sample comedy/talk show submission packetAlso use this comprehensive manual to write short-form comedy for the Internet, sketch shows, magazines, reality shows, radio, advertising, and any other medium.

*A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND INDIE NEXT PICK* Writer and performer on Late Night with Seth Meyers Amber Ruffin writes with her sister Lacey Lamar with humor and heart to share absurd anecdotes about everyday experiences of racism. Now a writer and performer on Late Night with Seth Meyers and host of The Amber Ruffin Show, Amber Ruffin lives in New York, where she is no one's First Black Friend and everyone is, as she puts it, "stark raving normal." But Amber's sister Lacey? She's still living in their home state of Nebraska, and trust us, you'll never believe what happened to Lacey. From racist donut shops to strangers putting their whole hand in her hair, from being mistaken for a prostitute to being mistaken for Harriet Tubman, Lacey is a lightning rod for hilariously ridiculous yet all-too-real anecdotes. She's the perfect mix of polite, beautiful, petite, and Black that apparently makes people think "I can say whatever I want to this woman." And now, Amber and Lacey share these entertainingly horrifying stories through their laugh-out-loud sisterly banter. Painfully relatable or shockingly eye-opening (depending on how often you have personally been followed by security at department stores), this book tackles modern-day racism with the perfect balance of levity and gravity.

Political humor has been a staple of late-night television for decades. The Trump White House, however, has received significantly greater attention than that of past presidents, such as Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and even Bill Clinton. In response to Trump’s strident politics, late-night comics, including Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Trevor Noah and Jimmy Fallon, have sounded key policy notes, further blurring the boundary between news and satire. Weekly humorists, including John Oliver and Samantha Bee, extend the critique with in-depth probing of key issues, while Saturday Night Live continues to tap the progression from outrage to outrageousness. Using unique content analysis techniques and qualitative discussions of political humor, Farnsworth and Lichter show how late-night political humor, and these seven programs in particular, have responded to the Trump presidency. Employing a dataset of more than 100,000 late night jokes going back decades, these noted media scholars discuss how the treatment of Trump differs from previous presidents, and how the Trump era is likely to shape the future of political humor. The authors also employ public opinion survey data to consider the growing role these late-night programs play in framing public opinion and priorities. This book will interest scholars, the curious public, and students of politics, communications and the media, and contemporary American culture.