STAND-UP TUESDAYS: Please Be Seated

September 25th, 2012

Grant Trimboli

Stand-Up Tuesdays is a weekly comedy spotlight written by the wonderfully talented Angie Frissore. Covering both known and unknown comics, Stand-up Tuesdays is your new source for all things funny.

This week, Angie puts a spotlight on Myq Kaplan and Micah Sherman. If you or your comedy troupe would like to be featured on Stand-Up Tuesdays, please email utgjames@gmail.com.

For months now, I have waited patiently for today to arrive, marking the release of Please Be Seated, the debut music comedy album from comedians Myq Kaplan and Micah Sherman. But alas – today is the day, and it’s your turn to get a few of their massively-addictive tunes stuck in your head.

Featuring 22 tracks, Please Be Seated is 61 minutes of cerebral, goofy, poignant, irreverent, exuberant, folksy, ridiculous, wordful, improvisational, fun musical comedy with expressive harmonies and good times for listeners. Recorded over three nights at Boston’s The Comedy Studio and ImprovBoston in December of 2011, Please Be Seated showcases how effortlessly well the duo work together, feeding hilariously off of each other from start to finish. Case in point – ‘We’re Different’ offers up the gentlemen detailing the many ways in which they differ from one another, with Kaplan stating he’s a vegan, and Sherman responding, “And people don’t hate me.”

Please Be Seated kicks off with a delightfully premature encore track, followed by Kaplan and Sherman’s much-loved rendition of the Comedians’ National Anthem, in which the boys run through pretty much every stand-up cliché there is…and closing the song with a nod to Rodney Dangerfield in stating, “No respect!”

I recently chatted with Sherman about the new CD, and the comedic partnership he and Kaplan inevitably formed in their earlier days working together in Boston.

“We used to have a show at the Comedy Studio and we wrote music together for years,” Sherman explains. “Then we started doing shows in New York together, and going on radio shows and podcasts, and people started asking when we were going to release an album. Now we have an answer! Myq does a lot of stand-up, and I do a lot of sketch comedy – our comedy worlds in that respect are separate, but we get together and we bond over music.”

It helps that both Kaplan and Sherman can actually sing, too – as quirky and hilarious as the songs are, they’re incredibly catchy and will remain at the forefront of your mind for days. It’s only fitting that the high point of the CD culminates in my personal favorite tune, ‘Bop 25’, which Kaplan and Sherman tout as their radio-ready pop hit – after pointing out, of course, that they just couldn’t help but ‘secretly’ put a message into the song. And just when you think it can’t get any more infectious, the boys have released a new video for the song as well.

Kaplan and Sherman are both comedy favorites in their home town of Boston and beyond. Kaplan has performed on Conan, The Tonight Show, The Late Late Show, and Letterman’s Late Show. 2010 was Kaplan’s breakout year as a top 5 finalist on NBC’s “Last Comic Standing” and his very own half hour Comedy Central special premiered. Micah Sherman is an actor, improviser, and sketch comedian who has appeared in films such as “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past” and “My Best Friend’s Girl” as well as worked with the prestigious Second City Theater in Chicago. Together Myq and Micah form an inspirational musical comedy group that is not safe for work and fun for the whole family.

Pick up your copy of Please Be Seated today at Amazon.com and join in the fun!