In this holiday edition of INTERVUE, I recently talked to comedienne Rachel Bloom to talk about her upcoming comedy show “Chanu-Comedy: A Festival of Laughs”. It’s coming to the Sixth & I Synagogue for ONE NIGHT ONLY,  Saturday December 20th at 8:00pm

Rachel, For those who never hard of Chanu-Comedy, what is is all about?

Chanu-Comedy is a night of Jewish and Jewish-adjacent based comedy put on by me and my good friend, comedian Danny Jolles. He will be doing stand up and I will be doing mostly material pulled from an album of Chanukah comedy songs I released last year called “Suck It, Christmas!!! (A Chanukah Album).”

When did you know that you were funny?

I used to make my parents and grandparents laugh by imitating my grandfather’s Brooklyn accent. That’s literally the first instance I remember.

Tell us about your upcoming musical Showtime show “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”

I’m so proud of it. We’re waiting to hear about an official series pickup (knock on every wooden surface in the world) but we’e extremely happy with the finished pilot that we gave to Showtime a few weeks ago. In the show (it’s a musical comedy), I play a girl who (misguidedly) decides that the solution to all of her problems is to move to a town in California called West Covina and stalk her high school boyfriend.  The musical numbers span all types of genres, but all of them come at emotionally heightened moments in the show.

Who were your comedic influences?

Mel Brooks, George Carlin, Trey Parker and Matt Stone and the founders of the Upright Citizens Brigade have been some of my main influences. UCB has been my main school of comedy and the theater from which I learned most of the techniques I use in my material.

In your humble opinion, what makes a good comedy in general?

There are so many things, but, ultimately, I think the most important thing in comedy is the element of surprise. If the audience sees where things are going, then, nine times out of ten, they’ll be ahead of the joke and won’t find it funny.

I read that you release a holiday album of Chanukah comedy songs, do you see another comedy album doing down the pike?

Last year, I released two albums: “Please Love Me,” which was a mix of songs I’ve done in my Youtube music videos and new material, and, of course, “Suck It, Christmas!” I have a bunch of song ideas for a new album, the question is when I would do it and if I’d have a distributer this time. I’ll know more next year!

If we want to find and see your work, where can we go? 

You can go to Youtube.com/racheldoesstuff – that will have most of my work in the same place. You can also visit my website – racheldoessstuff.com or follow me on Twitter at racheldoesstuff.

Thank you Rachel for the wonderful interview. Go see Rachel & Danny Jolles in “Chanu-Comedy: A Festival of Laughs” this Saturday night at the Sixth & I Synagogue.

Admission:  $20 in advance – $23 day of show

Tickets can be purchased online by clicking here thru Ticketfly.com, by phone (877.987.6487 with a $1.50 fee per ticket), or by visiting Sixth & I’s Box Office Monday – Friday between noon and 3:00 pm. Additional fees apply.

About The Author

Dean Rogers

Editor-in-Chief/Entertainment Reporter

I knew early on that I wanted to take my place among the stars. One day, my mother saw me reading The Washington Post at a very young age. Who would have known that it would be the building blocks of my journey? Since that day, I dedicated my life to learn all that is learnable. I read everything from encyclopedias, to books, to dictionaries, to magazines. I’m also an avid consumer of television, with my favorite genre being game shows. If you’ve seen me on Who Wants to be a Millionaire or Wheel of Fortune, then you know that this interest has served me well!

My unique style of reporting began back in junior high school, when I started to chronicle the events that shaped my life. Whether it was the annual family vacation or the local science fiction convention, I shot numerous pictures and recorded my thoughts so I could truly appreciate the history. During my senior year at Friendly High, I wrote what was to be my first masterpiece, “Advanced Space Academy – A One Week Journey.” I sent the eleven-page article back to the U.S. Space Camp staff. The article was highly praised for being “one of the best written articles in the history of U.S. Space Camp.” From then on, I knew what I wanted to do for rest of my life — to be a reporter.

Since then, I have trained in Broadcast Journalism at Bowie State University (2008) in Bowie, MD earning a B.S. in Communications. I gained experience in news production and editing through field experiences with Bowie Community Media Corporation, Prince George’s Community Television, and Bowie State University Television. I also wrote scripts for a variety of quiz shows for over five years.

As a lifelong movie buff, I now see close to 100 films every year. I took this love of movies to the next step when I became a co-host for Eclipse Magazine TV in the fall of 2005. While at EMTV, I interviewed celebrities, worked red carpets, and attended a wide variety of movie screenings. In January 2009, I took a leap of faith and started my own entertainment news magazine, The Rogers Revue. Shortly afterward, my life-long journey of studying the silver screen and writing about what I learned finally earned me a place in the Washington Area Film Critics Association.

All of this has led me here, giving you the latest entertainment news for the DMV and the entire nation, and I am truly excited for whatever will come next.

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