Mike Birbiglia to Return to Berkeley Rep With THE OLD MAN AND THE POOL

Berkeley Repertory Theatre announced today that comedian Mike Birbiglia will kick off the New Year with his latest show Mike Birbiglia: The Old Man and The Pool at the Theatre beginning January 4. Written and performed by Birbiglia with direction by Seth Barrish, this limited engagement show runs January 4-23, 2022 in the Roda Theatre. Tickets are now on sale to the general public at berkeleyrep.org or by calling 510-647-2949.

In The Old Man and The Pool the comedian and storyteller returns with a tale of life, death, and his visits to a highly chlorinated YMCA pool. Like all of Birbiglia's shows, it blends absurd jokes and surprising stories for what amounts to one single story. It's a rumination on middle age that celebrates life while making detours into pizza math, pulmonary tests, and glass jars of peanut M&M's.

"I have been lucky enough to attend Berkeley Rep shows for many years," said Birbiglia. "My sister Patti lives in the Bay Area and she introduced me to The Theatre in the early 2000s, so performing there is a dream come true. I love everything about it. The theatre itself. The folks who run the theatre. The people who come to the shows. The Bay Area has smart, theatre-savvy audiences and when an artist is creating new work that's what they crave most. I debuted The New One at Berkeley Rep in 2017 and that show went all the way to Broadway. So maybe Berkeley has some kind of secret magical energy? It seems that way. Magic aside, I can promise the Berkeley audiences this: My director Seth Barrish and I constructed The New One to be a hybrid of comedy and emotionality into a single evening of theatre and The Old Man and The Pool has the exact same goal. We want you to laugh. We want you to feel. We try to delve into some big themes: life death, and mortality. But with jokes. And stories. A lot of them. I've been writing this show for three years and developing it on my Working It Out podcast with guests like Ira Glass and Tig Notaro and others, and Berkeley will be the place where people first get to see it formed as a single evening of theatre. I couldn't think of a better place." https://www.berkeleyrep.org/shows/mike-birbiglia-the-old-man-and-the-pool/

ABOUT Mike Birbiglia

Mike Birbiglia is a comedian, storyteller, director, podcaster, producer, and actor who has performed in front of audiences worldwide. His solo shows Sleepwalk With Me, My Girlfriend's Boyfriend, Thank God For Jokes, and The New One enjoyed successful off Broadway runs and his most recent show The New One moved to Broadway where he received the Drama Desk Award for outstanding solo performance. The New One and Thank God For Jokes became critically acclaimed Netflix specials. Birbiglia also wrote, directed and starred in the films Sleepwalk with Me and Don't Think Twice. His books, Sleepwalk with Me and Other Painfully True Stories and The New One are both National Bestsellers. He's appeared in the films Trainwreck, The Fault in Our Stars and Popstars as well as TV roles in Orange Is the New Black and Billions. He hosts a podcast, Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out, and is currently touring with his newest show The Old Man and The Pool.

Learn more at berkeleyrep.org

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