The first ever comedy special filmed at and in partnership with South By Southwest (SXSW) is set to air on Showtime tonight, July 24, 2015. Produced by Audible's Rooftop Comedy, it is part of Audible's renewed focus on original comedy programming, to be followed by additional comedy releases later this year.
The annual South By Southwest Festival in Austin, TX has long promoted top and emerging talents from the worlds of music, film and interactive media. Increasingly, SXSW is building a reputation as a leading showcase for the hottest comedians. The SXSW Comedy special captures the excitement and energy of SXSW while featuring some of today's most in-demand comics.
Filmed during the 28th annual SXSW this past March, W. Kamau Bell (CNN'sUnited Shades of America) hosts the show. Featuring sets from Beth Stelling (
Jimmy Kimmel Live, @midnight), Nate Bargatze (Maron, @midnight), Iliza Shlesinger (The Tonight Show, Last Comic Standing), Mark Normand (Inside
Amy Schumer, Trainwreck), and Matt Braunger (Maron, Garfunkel & Oates), the two-part special also includes comics Todd Glass and Beth Stelling exploring the streets of Austin and bumping into the likes of
Jeff Ross, Ron Funches and a number of festival-goers.
The second episode will feature additional performances from Joe DeRosa, Rachel Feinstein, Jon Huck,
Wyatt Cenac, and Todd Glass. The special was directed by Steven Feinartz (The Bitter Buddha, Eddie Pepitone: In Ruins) with Shane Kelly (Boyhood, A Scanner Darkly) serving as Director of Photography.
This is the first of a slate of comedy specials now being produced by Audible's Rooftop Comedy which will include Brian Posehn's forthcoming special, being filmed in San Diego on the eve of Comic-Con.
SXSW Comedy with W. Kamau Bell will premiere July 24th at 11pm ET/PT on Showtime, and will also be available on
Showtime On-Demand beginning on July 25th. The audio version of the special, along with additional, exclusive audio programming recorded at SXSW, will be released via Audible later this year.
Watch the trailer below!
Audible, Inc., an Amazon.com, Inc. subsidiary (NASDAQ:AMZN), is the leading provider of premium digital spoken audio information and entertainment, offering customers a new way to enhance and enrich their lives every day. Audible's mission is to establish literate listening as a core tool for anyone seeking to be more productive, better informed, or more thoughtfully entertained. Audible content includes more than 225,000 audio programs from leading audiobook publishers, broadcasters, entertainers, magazine and newspaper publishers, and business information providers. Audible is also the preeminent provider of spoken-word audio products for Apple's iTunes Store.
