He may be approaching his 20th year as a stand-up comedian, but there are still some things, and places, that intimidate Kyle Kinane. One of those places is Boston’s Wilbur Theatre, where he will be setting up shop for a one-night stand this Wednesday (June 6).
Performing in the area for the first time since appearing at The Sinclair in 2015, “the voice of Comedy Central” sees The Wilbur as “a prestigious venue.” To mark the occasion, he’ll not only be bringing his A-game, but also a hearty brew of brand new observational and surreal material that fans didn’t see on his half-hour spot on the Netflix comedy baby The Stand-Ups.
“The material that I used on The Stand-Ups was from an hour that I already had ready to go, then I mangled it down to a half hour,” Kinane tells Vanyaland. “So I won’t be using any of that material with this new hour, and it should be all fresh for everybody to enjoy.”
A self-proclaimed spoiled brat when it comes to the amount of material he has been able to record and release over the course of his career, the six-time @midnight champion is working on fine-tuning his current material as he progresses toward recording his next full hour, but he does have other minimal-pressure projects to help him fill his free time while he isn’t touring — like his podcast, The Boogie Monster, which he co-hosts alongside fellow comic Dave Stone.
“It’s a podcast where we’re supposed to be talking about conspiracy theories, but we usually just wind up talking about food,” says the Chicago-bred funnyman. “Dave and I figured we would start a podcast, because this is the kind of stuff we talk about anyway, as two idiots who talk about stuff we’re really not informed about. I find it odd that it took us this long to start a podcast, though, because it seems like it’s required by law to have a podcast if you’re a comedian today.”
Speaking of the state of comedy today, Kinane, who has seen a lot of change in the game since he started at the turn of the century, is in a bittersweet spot. He’s somewhere between loving the attention the comedy scene is getting right now — thanks to the success of heavy hitters like John Mulaney, Donald Glover, and Michelle Wolf — and hating the over-saturation that he feels will eventually serve as the pin that bursts the comedy bubble.
With the cookie-cutter, machine-like turnout of sitcoms about the life a comic, the memoirs that every comedian seems to publish, and the new Netflix specials that are pumped out nearly every week, Kinane uses his apocalyptic viewpoint of what he feels is the inevitable future of comedy as fuel to be the best stand-up comedian he can be, even if it means he’ll be alone on the outside when that bubble goes boom.
“How soon are we going to get sick of comedy? Pretty soon, nothing is going to be special about a stand-up special because everyone will have one,” he says. “People are going to get sick of hearing about it really soon, and I need to make sure that when that happens, that I’m on the other side of that bubble bursting. So, all I can guarantee is that I’ll continue to put out the best material I can put out there, so that when that when people get to that point of like ‘I’m sick of hearing about stand-up,’ they’ll still think about me and go ‘but Kyle’s still pretty funny!’”
KYLE KINANE + SHANE TORRES :: Wednesday, June 6 at The Wilbur Theatre, 246 Tremont St. in Boston, MA :: 7:30 p.m., $27 :: Advance tickets :: Wilbur event page :: Featured image via The Wilbur