Comedian Adam Ferrara Performs Winter Carnival

On Friday, Feb. 19 the McCullough Social Space was once again the platform used for the annual Winter Carnival stage show. This year the College welcomed comedian and actor Adam Ferrara.

Before Ferrara hit the stage, the crowd was treated to the comedic stylings of Greg Dorris ’13. Dorris discussed a time when he found himself in charge of mascots for a local baseball team. The audience received Dorris very well as he delivered his bits with confidence. Notable in his performance was that his stand-up was very clean and appropriate for all ages. This is a quality not commonly seen in many stand-up comedians and offered a refreshing change of pace.

Following Dorris came Adam Benay ’13, which discussed various things that he had observed, contrasting with Dorris’s story-telling style of humor. When Benay began talking about Spiderman, specifically Peter Parker’s relationship to the spider that would eventually give him his signature super powers, I could not help but be brought back to Wyatt Cenac’s show that occurred in the fall of 2012, who also briefly discussed Spiderman.

It made sense that these two students were the opening act: both are members of Otter Nonsense, one of Middlebury’s improv groups.

Eventually, Ferrara took the stage. Almost immediately, Ferarra exploded with a comic energy that foretold that this was going to be a good show. Ferrara explored many different topics, beginning almost immediately with the fact that Middlebury is in the middle of nowhere. As the evening progressed, Ferrara picked a couple of targets from the crowd and he often play-mocked them to add to the hilarity. Despite being on campus for less than a day or so, Ferrara was able to find some nuggets of truth about the College. After asking multiple students what they wanted to do with their degrees post-graduation, almost all of the students answered with the familiar phrases, “I’m not too sure” or “I don’t know.” This is where Ferrara’s frustration with our lack of participation began to show.

“I go to Middlebury College, I majored in indecisiveness!” said Ferrara.

Ferrara had great energy, was willing to poke fun at the College and really engaged with the student body.

After the show, Ferrara, Dorris and Benay met with the Middlebury Campus for a brief interview.

Middlebury Campus (MC): Tell us a little bit about your work with “Top Gear.”

Adam Ferrara (AF): It’s funny ... the stuff we actually think up on the show gets done. I mean you’re sitting in a creative meeting and they say ‘What do you want to do?’ [and you say,] I want to put guns on cars! ‘Brilliant!’ And that’s when I realized: there’s no f***ing adult in the room. So we put paintball guns on an El Camino and Rut, the other guy on the show, put them on a Honda and we shot at each other because it was amazing. I went to Iceland, I drove on a volcano, I drove on a glacier … There’s my episode that comes out this year and I got to drive a GT 40 .. it’s an $11 million car and they let me drive it six feet. I got to roll it, start it up, put in gear — and that was about it. But, I got to drive it — not far — but I got to drive it.

MC: In terms of your stand-up, who or what inspires your material? What is your source?

AF: I’m a confessional comic so I pretty much just talk about my life. I didn’t do a lot of that tonight because a lot of it was improv. A lot of it is about that I’m married now, [and that] my father passed away, so there are just certain things in my life that I want to examine and make funny and when I can make those funny, even though they might be serious things [and] it connects with somebody it’s that much more of a experiential laugh. Well my dad was going through cancer on my last special, and I actually talked about his chemotherapy and it was nice to connect with someone else. I got a lot of nice letters about their families going through it. Bottom line: it’s got to be f***ing funny. No one wants to hear your troubles — everyone’s got their f***king troubles — make it funny! So if I can draw from that, put that through the filter, and make it funny, that’s the most rewarding stuff for me. I didn’t do a lot of it tonight because I’m at a different point in my life, so I just like to talk to the students and see where they’re at, and to see what’s important to them. You can just tell that by talking or taking the temperature [of] what they’re laughing at, what they’re not laughing at, and to improv with them. We will do a lot of improv at college shows because we’re all in a space together. It’s still a performance but it’s like we are creating this together and using the audience as the chisel.

MC: What comedians do you personally like?

AF: Greg and Adam, they were the best two tonight.

MC (to Adam Benay and Greg Dorris): What is the process when someone like [Ferrara] comes to Middlebury to open for them?

Greg Dorris (GD): They asked the Otters if we wanted to open because [Ferrara] was coming up here without his own opener and we said, “That’s a terrible idea; we don’t want to do a 20-minute improv set before stand-up.” Adam and myself have been doing lots of stand-up this year and we were scratching for a chance to perform, [so when] we asked about doing some time, they were like, “Yes please!”

MC (to Adam Ferrara): Where’s your next show?

AF: I’ll be at the Improv in Chicago ... the weekend of the 21st.

MC: Did you start in stand-up?

AF: I started as a stand-up comic first and foremost. That’s kind of how I define myself. I’ve been fortunate — I used to do a lot of different things — but I get to do my stand up. [This] is the purest expression of yourself because you’re the writer, you’re the producer, you’re the performer and it’s immediate feedback. You know if it sucks, the audience will let you know.

And then I got to be an actor and I really studied the craft of it because it’s just something I wanted to do. It was an adjustment coming from stand-up because there’s no guidelines … You can use the audience as a wave you’re surfing on, and there’s rhythm between the two energies. When you’re an actor that rhythm can happen in two different people; its much more of an intimate thing. So it’s a little more difficult for me as a stand-up [comic] because it’s easier to tell your truth to 400 people than it is to one person. You know, I can look at 400 faces [and] be totally comfortable, but when you’re looking into someone else’s eyes and say whatever that truth is, then that is a little more daunting. So I started as a stand-up, got to be an actor [and] now in “Top Gear” I get to drive all these cool cars. But I also get to be back and acting, as I’ll be on “Nurse Jackie” this season. I did seven out of 10 episodes in that show.

MC: Have those episodes premiered?

AF: No, April 14 is the premiere of the show, but the episodes have already been shot.

MC: Is there anything you can tell us about your role on the show?

AF: I play Sergeant Frank Bareli; I am a police sergeant who is Jackie Paton’s love interest.

MC: What is it like working with Edie Falco?

AF: She’s great. To work with someone of that level is truly great. I’ve been really fortunate. I got to work with Dennis Leary for two, three different shows? And now I get to work with Edie. I’m a very fortunate man.

MC: What got you into stand-up originally?

AF: I saw Richard Pryor when I was 12 years-old. I went to one of his family parties … All the adults … left to have coffee in the other room and I snuck in ... pushed play, and it just blew my head. I didn’t understand a lot of it because I was a kid, but it just seemed important to me. It made an impression. I just remember thinking, “Wow, look at what this man can do.” And I remember the bit [when] he was just walking through the forest ...  about why white people get bit by s*** all the time. [In the bit he says] black people don’t get bit because they walk all cool through the forest, and he’s just walking across the stage. He’s taking forever, and he gets to the end and he just goes “snake.” And he gives that one f***ing glance and boom! The audience blows up and it was just like it seemed very important what he was doing. I just remember that memory, “That’s what I want to do!” I didn’t have that; I had “Look at what this guy can do.”

MC: What is your favorite joke?

GD: I listen to John Moloney talk about “Law and Order” over and over again. I’d have to say his joke about that show and people stacking boxes or looking at pictures. He’s got a way of talking about things that I’ve seen a million times ... Every time I hear him it makes me angry and sort of want to quit but also makes me want to write a lot.
Benay: I saw Mike Birbiglia’s show outside of Burlington, and he has this one line [about] when he was in middle school, he was talking to a girl on the phone about homework. And she said, “Mike stop it, you’re gonna make me laugh so hard I’m gonna pee.” And then he said, “And that’s what I’ve been trying to do my entire life because it was the closest thing I had ever come to a vagina.”… I really liked it.

AF: My favorite bits ... Pryors heart attack bit — that was brutally funny. Louis Black’s weather bit ... I saw that one live … Greg Proops has nine f***ing bits I want to steal … There’s just too many.