Rich and Mulaney first met at S.N.L. in 2008, but Mulaney already knew Rich by reputation. He had been so tickled by Rich’s 2007 humor collection Ant Farm: And Other Desperate Situations that he gifted it to his mother for Christmas. “I didn’t normally get her things like that, but she loved it,” Mulaney tells Vogue during a video call with Rich earlier this week. “She spit out what she was drinking, laughing at the first story.”
Rich had seen Mulaney’s S.N.L. audition, and “like everybody who watches John’s stand-up, [was] really blown away.” When Mulaney first arrived at 30 Rock, Rich made a beeline to his office. “Within a few minutes literally of shaking hands, we were writing our first piece together.”
Today, they still collaborate whenever Mulaney is at 8H. “It honestly feels exactly the same as it did when we were in our early 20s,” says Rich. “I think we’ve become maybe nominally more self-aware.”
“A little bit,” Mulaney adds.
Photo: Nina Westervelt
Alex Timbers, who directed Mulaney and Nick Kroll on Broadway in Oh, Hello, first approached Rich with the idea of adapting his prose for the stage in February 2024; Mulaney came onboard shortly thereafter. They then held a series of readings and workshops—some over four hours long—to suss out which of Rich’s pieces would play best for a live audience.
The resulting show has a late-night storytime vibe: A quartet of cast members sit facing the audience in comfortable-looking armchairs, water vessels by their sides, each reading their parts from an oversized book. (The backdrop, by scenic designer David Korins, recalls an eccentric study—all sparkling chandeliers, towering bookcases crammed with hardcovers, and abstract art.) The actors are joined onstage by indie band the Bengsons, who cleanse the palate between sketches with love songs written by the Magnetic Fields. A smoke machine, lighting, and projected illustrations by The New Yorker cartoonist Emily Flake also interject moments of visual magic.
Photo: Emilio Madrid
