Will Durst
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Will Durst | |
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Born | American politics, popular culture | March 18, 1952
Website | willdurst |
Will Durst (born on March 18, 1952) is an American political satirist. He has been likened to Mort Sahl and Will Rogers.[1]
Early life
Durst was born in
Career
In 1974, he started performing stand-up comedy at a weekly open mic at a bar in downtown Milwaukee called the Rusty Nail. He also gained onstage experience sharing a stage with various sketch groups such as "Same Player Shoots Again," "Better Than a Sharp Stick in the Eye," and "Will Jon Rip Marian?" After studying with director Paul Sills in Milwaukee for two years at the Century Hall theater complex, Durst moved to San Francisco in 1979.[3]
In 1987, he unsuccessfully ran for mayor of San Francisco.[4]
In 1992 Mr. Durst performed for a SRO crowd at FCI Sheridan in Sheridan, Oregon.
Durst composes a weekly political humor column that is contributed by Cagle Cartoons. He also co-hosts a monthly
He has performed at events starring Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush, and Al Gore. He also performs stand up comedy at many events as a keynote speaker including a Governors Conference and a Mayors Convention. He was a correspondent for The Comedy Channel during the 1992 political conventions. His humor and commentaries accentuate his perspective of illogical and absurd aspects of politics, leadership, and human behavior.
He pens down several
Will premiered his one-man show—The All-American Sport of BiPartisan Bashing—in August 2007 at
In 2016, he updated his Elect to Laugh show and performed a post-Trump one-man show called Durst Case Scenario every Tuesday at the Marsh (a theater complex in San Francisco) since July. He has also taken the show to many Northern California theaters and venues in Wisconsin, Washington, Nevada, and Colorado. He is working on an updated version of the show called Durst Case Scenario: Midterm Madness.
Durst has written three books, including Elect to Laugh and The All-American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing. He has also released five audio recordings, None of the Above, You Can't Make Stuff Up Like This, Warning, Raging Moderate, and Elect to Laugh, the last two on the Stand-Up! Records label. Along with Larry Bubbles Brown and Johnny Steele, Durst is one of the titular characters in the feature documentary 3 Still Standing directed by Robert Campos and Donna LoCicero, which focuses on the San Francisco comedy scene of the late 1980s and beyond.[6]
Television
Durst has been fired by the San Francisco Examiner twice and PBS cancelled three of his shows, two of which he hosted and created, The Durst Amendment and Citizen Durst.[6]
His pilot A Year's Worth with Will Durst was nominated for a CableACE Award after airing on A&E during New Year's Eve 1994, but it was never picked up.
On February 24, 2000, Durst was contestant Rudy Reber's phone-a-friend lifeline on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.[7] Durst wrote an article for TV Guide on the incident.
A five-time
Personal life
Durst lives in San Francisco with his wife Debi Ann Pickell Durst, an actress, improviser and director. She is an executive producer of San Francisco's annual Comedy Celebration Day in Golden Gate Park.[8]
On October 7, 2019 Durst suffered a hemorrhagic stroke, backstage before a performance at the Presidio Theatre.[9]
References
- ^ "Will Durst". PBS.
- ^ Rothstein, Betsy (July 20, 2005). "Will Durst Still pissed off after all these years". thehill.com. Retrieved January 6, 2018.
- ^ a b Holden, Stephen (April 5, 1988). "Comic Sees Politicians As Good for Nothing Except His Jokes". New York Times. Retrieved January 6, 2018.
- ^ "Will Durst". Castproductions.com.
- ^ "WILLIE BROWN AND WILL DURST INTERVIEW JOE D'ALESSANDRO ON "WILL & WILLIE SHOW" BROADCAST". sftravel.com. Retrieved January 9, 2018.
- ^ a b c Weisman, Brad (June 9, 2015). "Will Durst Focuses His Satiric Gaze on the Endangered Boomer Generation". Westword. Retrieved January 6, 2018.
- ^ Farhi, Paul (March 25, 2000). "A Friend Worth His Weight in Gold". The Washington Post. Retrieved January 6, 2018.
- ^ Bartlett, Jean (August 13, 2016). "Pacifican Debi Durst in the Durst, Durst, Bossier and Mari comedy night in Redwood City". The Mercury News. Retrieved January 9, 2018.
- ^ Whiting, Sam. "Will Durst suffers stroke, cancels comedy shows for first time in 30 years". sfchronicle. Hearst Communications, Inc. Retrieved 12 May 2022.
External links
- Official website
- Will Durst at IMDb