#zack willis

These are the four performers that will be performing in the UCB TourCo. show during Bellwether, on November 9th.

DAN BLACK:

Dan Black is a sketch/improv comedian living in New York City. He can be seen performing improv every Saturday night with the UCB house team Death By Roo Roo, and performing monthly with his UCB Maude sketch team Fambly. Dan can also be seen in ASSSSCAT 3000. Dan is a comedic commentator on Fuse TV's "Video on Trial" and can be seen in commercials for AT&T, Greenpeace and Corona. He also recently performed in a sketch on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon." He played the lead in the UCB Sketch show the Sit Down and Shut Up NYPD Variety Hour, which ran for ten months at the theatre. It is currently being developed into a web series and will premiere in its entirety at UCBeast this Summer. Dan often contemplates signing up for the force when passing NYPD recruiting stands in the subway.

DON FANELLI

Don performs with The Stepfathers every Friday night at 9pm and travels across the country with The Upright Citizens Brigade Touring Company. He also occasionally performs with Hot for Teacher, the UCB Faculty Show, at the UCB East on Wednesday nights. Don has studied improv under many amazing teachers at the UCB and is also a graduate of the William Esper Studio, having studied with Bill Esper in the two year acting intensive. UCB Theatre credits include The Chris Gethard Show, Chris Gethard's ( ), Sketch Cram, Death Wears Stilettos, The Movie, Cops & Robbers, The Brooks Brothers Clambake, and A Harry Potter Musical. Don has been on many Harold Teams including Sandino and Salmon Diane and Maude Teams Gramps and Dinner. He can also be seen performing often with his indie teams: Fuck That Shit! A Comedy Team), Dreadnought (Performed in a sushi restaurant), and Sabonis (Winner of the 2011 & 2012 3x3 Tournament).  Don has appeared on 30 Rock, The Late Show with David Letterman, MTV's Failosophy, Hey Girl, and Girl Code, Comedy Central's Inside Amy Schumer, and in various College Humor, UCB Comedy, and LandlineTV videos. Don has also performed at the NY Sketchfest and Chicago's Just for Laughs Festival.  Diddy personally gave him the nickname, Luther, with no explanation. So he will answer to that now.

JOEL WEIDL

Joel is an actor and writer in NYC who is from Columbus, Ohio He can currently be seen at UCB with his Harold team Graceland.  Joel has developed and been featured in original material for UCBcomedy.com, and can be seen in content for Collegehumor, Landline TV, Dailymotion, MTV, and Comedy Central. Joel worked as a professional chef for a few years, and can cook a meal that will make your socks roll up and down. 

ZACK WILLIS

This is a tricky one.  It seems like the formula for when to justify is equal parts instinct and...well, gut intuition.  

Justification, for those of you who might not be familiar (Hi Aunt Becky!), is taught as a way to ground scenes that have the potential to leave the audience going "Why are they doing this?".  There are moments on stage when players are running around doing funny voices and throwing improv poop on each other.  At least, I have been in scenes like this.  And it always feels like "OH GOD, WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?  MAKE IT MAKE SENSE, MAKE IT MAKE SENSE".  Which is what the audience is feeling too, times one billion.  They want to be in on the joke, in on the world.  But there are times when explaining the "why" of a scene takes all the fun out of it, as Mick Napier writes in Improvise:

...a weaker improviser will become uncomfortable with the scene and want to dilute the mystery by answering the question "why are we behaving like this?"  ...It would be like Abbott or Costello turning to the audience and saying "In case you didn't realize it, we are using pronouns in the place of baseball players' names." 

Happy Spring Ya'll.

I've been very lucky to work with a lot of lovely ladies, but I rarely feature all the great gentlemen that I get to work with because I'm silly like that. JD, Peter and Zack are all great guys and very active in the NYC comedy community so I felt really lucky that they come to me to get their headshots taken.

Gentlemen, when getting your headshots taken there are a few things you should do so that we can get the best optimal results.

Grooming

Do you want to have a beard? Will you be clean shaven? I do not recommend shaving 20 minutes before coming to your shoot, give your skin sometime to heal and moisturize. 

Do not get a haircut in the week leading up to your session. Something always happens and then we have to try to fix it during the session, and you're focusing on your hair rather than relaxing...so let your hair be. Also if you have longer hair/curly hair, definitely be aware of it and how it will photograph. Bring a comb & styling products if needed.

Wardrobe

My favorite thing about taking pictures of these lovely dudes is that they really do bring a lot of clothes so our options are always open. Nothing is off limits, from the super fancy to a regular V-neck. I love this because sometimes we get so stuck in our heads on what we think looks good that we forget that we also need to have what photographs well. Sometimes they are completely different things.

Starring Gusta Johnson & Zack Willis