Mike Birbiglia on Emmy-Nominated Special

Summary

Podcast Summary: All Of It with Alison Stewart

Episode: Mike Birbiglia on Emmy-Nominated Special

Date: September 13, 2024
Host: Alison Stewart, WNYC
Guest: Mike Birbiglia, comedian, writer, and creator of "The Old Man and the Pool"

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Overview

In this episode, Alison Stewart sits down with Emmy-nominated comedian and writer Mike Birbiglia to discuss his special, “The Old Man and the Pool.” Birbiglia shares the creative process behind his acclaimed one-man show, touches on the intersection of humor and vulnerability, and reflects on life, health, mortality, and connection. The conversation also explores Birbiglia’s open style, how he crafts personal stories for the stage, and his experience appearing in Taylor Swift’s "Anti-Hero" music video.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Breaking the Fourth Wall and Audience Interaction

• Mike loves addressing the audience directly, seeing each show as a collaborative, joyful experience:

  “It is just joyous. I mean, it's just a joyous experience to do it every night with a different scene partner and the scene partner's your audience.”
  — Mike Birbiglia (02:17)

Crafting Personal Material & Finding Universality

• Birbiglia writes an “unfiltered version” for his director and dramaturg, then refines it:

  “The role often of a dramaturg is to hear what you're trying to convey and then say, well, what I'm getting from what you're saying is this.”
  (03:00)

• Comedy’s sweet spot:

  “Sometimes it gets so personal that it's...no, that's just you. No one else is experiencing that. But the sweet spot, I think, for comedy, is finding something where people see themselves or hear themselves in the writing.”
  (03:33)

Workshopping Material and Handling Failure

• Constantly testing pieces at the Comedy Cellar:

  “It's very scientific. I'm pounding out the specific beats and punchlines to make sure that it's comedically sound.”
  (05:40)

• Unsuccessful jokes don’t sting:

  “If something doesn't work, it oddly doesn't hurt my feelings... you can watch one of the best comedians in the world...and you can watch him die on stage.”
  (06:20)

Writing as Coping and the Power of Vulnerability

• Journaling for perspective:

  “I find that if you write down what you're saddest about or angriest about, you can start to see your own life as a story.”
  (07:20)

• Connecting via embarrassment:

  “If you tell people the thing that you're most embarrassed about...typically, more often than not, people go, ‘Oh my God, I have something just like that.’”
  (07:55)

Social Media, Image, and Vulnerability

• On #nofilter honesty:

  “I think that my...role...one of the things I try to do with these shows is just do the—it's no filter. Hashtag no filter.”
  (09:04)

• Cultural shifts & self-curation:

  “With people who are older...they're more comfortable telling stories about themselves that are compromising or show their flaws. With younger...the stories are smart, but maybe not revealing things that are vulnerable.”
  (09:39)

• The life-dysmorphia analogy:

  “I think it might be creating...life experience dysmorphia, kind of like body dysmorphia, only for your life.”
  — Alison Stewart (10:31)

Health, Parenthood, and Motivation

• Fatherhood changes the stakes regarding health:

  “Now that I have a child, there is some part of me that when I'm getting news...I often just think of my daughter...and how much I took on myself when my parents were having health problems.”
  (11:15)

Comedy and Mortality

• Laughing at death as catharsis:

  “Why are we laughing when we talk about death? A lot of reasons. We're laughing because we're uncomfortable. We're laughing because it's all so absurd...”
  (12:53)

• Impact on audiences:

  “Honestly, it's just a conversation starter...people saying, ‘this was so healing for me...I felt like I was laughing with my dad’...Or they brought their 12-year-old, and they could talk about things they weren't comfortable talking about before.”
  (13:45)

• Warren Zevon’s advice:

  “Enjoy every sandwich.”
  (15:13)

Pop Culture: Appearing in Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero” Video

• Big Swiftie—family bonding:

  “When the ‘Folklore’ album came out, it was just a huge bonding thing for me and my daughter and my wife.”
  (15:42)

• Taylor’s casting method:

  “She texted me, like, I think it would be funny if you wore a blonde wig and played my nightmare son.”
  (16:06)

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On performing with the audience:

  “It's just a joyous experience to do it every night with a different scene partner and the scene partner's your audience.”
  — Mike Birbiglia (02:17)

• On the goal of vulnerability in comedy:

  “The sweet spot...is finding something where people see themselves or hear themselves in the writing and...that’s why people are laughing.”
  (03:33)

• On writing as a coping tool:

  “When you see your own life as a story, sometimes you can zoom out and encourage the main character to make better decisions.”
  (07:22)

• On laughter and mortality:

  “We're laughing because it's all so absurd, you know, like life and death...and how we treat people's bodies after they died. All this stuff...”
  (13:01)

• On the show’s impact:

  “Our goal is to make people laugh for 80 minutes, but also to have some kind of call to action...we were finding that the call to action is typically like, I went home and I called my parents...or I told this person I love them...”
  (14:30)

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Key Segments & Timestamps

• [00:51] — Alison Stewart introduces Birbiglia and his one-man show, “The Old Man and the Pool.”
• [02:17]–[04:09] — Birbiglia on audience interaction, writing personal material, and his creative process.
• [05:13]–[06:54] — Workshopping at the Comedy Cellar and what he learns from failures on stage.
• [07:13]–[09:13] — Writing and journaling as therapy, audience connection through vulnerability.
• [09:13]–[10:53] — Cultural observations about storytelling and the impact of social media on vulnerability.
• [11:10]–[12:10] — Reflections on health, fatherhood, and personal motivation.
• [12:10]–[15:20] — The intersection of comedy and mortality, why we laugh at death, and the show’s emotional impact.
• [15:20]–[17:44] — Mike’s experience in Taylor Swift’s "Anti-Hero" video and family pop-culture bonding.

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Memorable Moments

• A potent, funny, and moving exploration of why people laugh at taboo topics like death—and how it opens conversations with loved ones.
• "Enjoy every sandwich" as a refrain encapsulating the show’s life philosophy.
• Behind-the-scenes story of Mike being cast as Taylor Swift’s nightmare future son—a playful connection between comedy and pop stardom.

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Tone & Style

Throughout, Birbiglia is candid, self-deprecating, and thoughtful, often using gentle humor to approach serious or uncomfortable personal subjects. Alison Stewart brings a warm, supportive touch, drawing out both the process and the humanity behind Birbiglia’s art.

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This summary captures the essence and key insights for listeners interested in the craft of comedy, storytelling, and finding meaning (and humor) in the hardest parts of life.

Transcript

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Listener supported this is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. Mike Birbiglia has an Emmy nomination for his comedy special the Old man and the Pool. Mike is not the old man, but he did see an old man at a pool and it made an impression. Mike started spending a lot of time at the Brooklyn Y because his doctor told him he needed to start doing cardio five times a week for his health. The only problem is he hates going to the public pool. It's got naked old men in the locker room, overwhelming chlorine smell and pee in the water. But for the sake of his health and his family, especially his daughter Una, he gets in the pool. This renewed focus on a serious health issue unfolds on stage in a one man show that gets at the discomfort we can feel when we have to face really big issues. End of life, why it's hard to say I love you and how life can change in a split second. The Old man in the Pool got its start on Broadway, but made its way to Netflix and now it's Emmy nominated in the outstanding writing for a Variety special. Mike Birbiglia came on the show to talk about it when it was on Broadway. I started by asking him how many times in the show where he addresses the audience directly and why he enjoys breaking the fourth wall.

[B]

It is just joyous. I mean, it's just a joyous experience to do it every night with a different scene partner and the scene partner's your audience.

[A]

You have gotten very good about being very open about things in your life. You're very open about your various health issues. You're open about mental health on stage. When you're writing your show, do you have an internal sense about when to stop, when to go a little farther, when to pull back on personal information?

[B]

The super unfiltered version gets heard by my director and dramaturg Seth Barish, who, you know I would say I've written. This is an 80 minute show. I would say the uncut version is five, six hours. You know what I mean? It's so much writing and so much. You know, the role often of a dramaturg is to hear what you're trying to convey and then say, well, what I'm getting from what you're saying is this. And you go, oh, okay. Well, actually, I was meaning to convey something like this. And so maybe I should rewrite towards that. And so a lot of the stuff, like, sometimes it gets. Sometimes it gets so personal that it's. It's like, no, that's just you. No one else is experiencing that. But the sweet spot, I think, for comedy is finding something where people see themselves or hear themselves in the writing and can, can, can. And that's the goal. That's. I mean, yeah, that's why. And theoretically, that's why people are laughing.

[A]

Is there a crossover between the work you do for your stage work versus your stand up?

[B]

Oh, my God, there's a huge crossover. But I mean, basically what I do is I've been working on the Old man in the Pool for about four years. And what I'll do is I'll start by just putting on stage, like, the funniest stories, the things that I'm obsessed with. I mean, I think that the job of a writer, I think, really is like, write about what you're obsessed with. Because if you're obsessed with, chances are some other people are obsessed with it. And you can find common ground, common interest in that. And. And so it starts out with, what are my obsessions? It's like, oh, I have this funny wrestling story from high school where I never won a wrestling match my entire career. And I have this funny story about going to the YMCA pool after I hated going to the YMCA pool as a kid so much, and I vowed I would never return. And then I start putting these things on stage and at a certain point, like, Seth, my director and I will take a look at it and go, like, well, what is this? Like, what, what is this now? And what could it be? And that's sort of where the process begins.

[A]

It's interesting. One of our producers saw some of the material that you. That ended up in the show, you working it out at the Comedy Cellar. How does it feel when. This is a hard question, but how do you feel when it's a story you love and you're rolling it out at the Comedy Cellar and it just crickets, but you love it, but you.

[B]

Like, that's so funny.

[A]

Hey, this is me and my life, people.

[B]

Well, I take like sections of like, you know, four minute, five minute sections of the larger show and I bring it to the comedy seller. And the idea is that it's very scientific. I'm pound, I'm pounding out the specific beats and punchlines to make sure that it's comedically sound. And then in the larger 80 minute version that it's kind of structurally and story wise, dramatically sound. And so when I'm at the comedy seller and like, if something doesn't work, it oddly doesn't hurt my feelings. Like it's, it feels like, yeah, that's. I mean, I came up in comedy clubs. Like I, when I was 19, I started working the door at the Washington D.C. improv. And so I would, you know, it would be George Lopez and Margaret Cho and Dave Chappelle and all these like, you know, comedy club headliners from the 1990s who were killers. They're crushing, crushing, crushing, crushing. And so it was a real education in that. And I would open and I would, you know, sometimes, and sometimes I would just seat people and bring them their food and. But it really taught me that like, you can watch, you know, one of the best comedians of the world in the world. You could watch Paul Mooney, you know, and you can watch him die on stage. And like, he's one of the best probably comedy writers ever. He wrote for Prior, you know what I mean? And like, that's actually a real, that was a real education for me.

[A]

My guess is Mike Birbiglia, you know, we're talking about this sort of in a. Not clinical, but in sort of the processy way of the way you make a show. But again, it is about your real life. Is the writing something that helps you cope with some of the bigger problems, or is this something that helps you personally to write the story?

[B]

I think it does. I mean, I write, I mean, in the show, I reference that. Like I write my journal every few nights. Cause I find that if you write down what you're saddest about or angriest about, you can start to see your own life as a story. When you see your own life as a story, sometimes you can zoom out and encourage the main character to make better decisions. And so, and, and there's a few journal entries in the show that are pretty intense and they're pretty serious and things that I have written. And I actually do find that to be very helpful. And I find the process of putting it on stage to Be very helpful because also I like, I found this, this is my fifth solo show. The first one was Sleepwalk with Me at Bleecker street Theater in 2008. And I find that, and that was all about my very, very serious sleepwalking disorder where I jump through a second story window. And I find that if you tell people the thing that you're most embarrassed about, you're most self conscious about, what I find is typically more often than not people go, oh my God, I have something just like that. And then you listen to the thing that's quote unquote, just like that. And, and it's sort of nothing like that.

[A]

But there's something that they're, there's some frequency that they're picking up on.

[B]

Precisely. You know, they're, they're, they're seeing that you're bearing your soul to them and it in, and in some way, hopefully it makes them feel the permission to bear their soul to the people they're close to. And I think like, you know, it's funny, it's like there's so many things culturally right now where people are, are, have these tools for self projection of an image or like on Instagram, TikTok, whatever it is, like this is who I am and more often than not, it's not who they are. Right. And I would say almost always and, and I think that my, I would say my role, you know, or what. One of the things I try to do with these shows is just do the. It's no filter hashtag, no filter.

[A]

Yeah. The idea that even we are grown up people and you still look at Instagram and intellectually you understand this is somebody's highlights reel of their daily life, but it can just, it can seep in. I think, I don't think anyone's completely immune to that.

[B]

Not at all. No. And I think it's a very odd, I mean this is whole, this is for a whole other show. And I certainly think that I've written about this privately and I feel like maybe the next show might be about this. But it's like I think there is going to be a reckoning with that downstream at some point. Because what I find is that like my director Seth and I like, we've, we've taught like storytelling workshops and things over the years. And what we find is that with people who are older, in middle age, they're more comfortable telling stories about themselves that are compromising or show their flaws. And that with some of like the younger, like high school, like college age, it's like the. The story. The stories are very sharp and they're well told and they're really smart, but they're maybe not revealing things that are. That are vulnerable. And I think a lot of that is this cultural construct we've created, which is that you can't present with flaws.

[A]

That's super curation, right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it's sort of. I think it might be creating. I don't know if it's life experience dysmorphia, kind of like body dysmorphia, only for your life. Like your life. You're absolutely right, you know.

[B]

No, I mean, I think that's absolutely true. And I think. And of course it ebbs and flows. I mean, I'm sure it'll go in the other direction, I hope.

[A]

My guest is Mike Birbiglia. The name of the show is the Old man and the Pool. So we learned in the show you had this tough conversation with. It wasn't even that tough. Your doctor's like, hey, you gotta exercise more. Your health's in trouble. What actually went through your mind when you first had that conversation?

[B]

It's so strange. You know, it's like my last show was about. My last show was called the New One, and it was at the. What was the Court Theater now is the James Earl Jones, and it's on Netflix now if people want to see it. But it's all about having a child and my reluctance to have a child. And I feel like one of the reluctances I had to having a child was actually that I have all these things wrong with me. I say in the show, my body's a lemon. You know, and so when I. Now that I have a child, there is some part of me that when I'm getting news that's like, oh, you know, you have type 2 diabetes or you have, you know, like, I've gotten a lot of weird, tricky, not weird, tricky diagnoses. And there is. I often just think of my daughter. I mean, I just think about when I was a kid and how much I took on myself when my parents were having health problems, which is. It's just so hard.

[A]

There's a moment in the show and I'm not giving too much away. You start talking about someone who has passed away as part of being in the swimming pool, and people start laughing. And you are. And I know it's part of the show, but you sort of call out people for laughing about this person's expiring in the pool. What have you learned about human nature doing that section of your job.

[B]

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Without getting into too much detail on it, like, there's, there's a thing where, when I was workshopping material for this show, I would find sometimes, because it's all about death and mortality and all these things that sometimes I would tell a joke or I would, I would say a setup to a joke and people would laugh so hard and it actually shocked me. I was like, whoa, that's like that, that laugh is too aggressive. That is off putting. And so I would vote, I would vocalize that to an audience. I would go like, hey, that's a little too much. And then the more I would say it, the more they would laugh. And then my director, Seth and I thought, well, that's a really funny thing to talk about. Why are we laughing when we talk about death? And we're, you know, a lot of reasons. We're laughing because we're uncomfortable. We're laughing because it's all so absurd, you know, like life and death and how we die and, and how we treat people's bodies after they died. All this stuff. And, and yeah, I mean, I think like one of the things that I. That has been so rewarding about the show is that honestly it's just a conversation starter. Like I get a ton of messages in my Instagram and stuff like that from people saying, like, this was so healing for me because it, I, I felt, you know, I lost my dad a few years ago and I felt like I was laughing with my dad. And you know, or like a lot of people have said they brought like their 12 year old son or daughter and they were able to talk about things that they weren't comfortable talking about before. I mean that I view that because I do these hybrid shows. If people don't know my shows, like, they're a hybrid between storytelling, stand up comedy and plays. And we try to sort of check the box of all three. And our goal is to make people laugh for 80 minutes, but also to have some kind of call to action. And the call to action in this case, we don't decide what the call to action is, but we were finding that the call to action is typically like, I went home and I called my parents, or I called my kids, or I told this person I love them, or I, you know, or I started to value things that were smaller. You know, I referenced the great Warren Zevon quote when he was dying of terminal cancer in the show, I say he was on the Letterman show. Letterman said, what can you teach us about Life or death? Life and death. And Warren Zevon said, enjoy every sandwich. And it's so simple, but it's worth reminding ourselves, enjoy every sandwich.

[A]

You know, those 12 year olds might be coming because you're in the new Taylor Swift video. I just wanted to say that for people who don't know you played Taylor's son in the video for Anti Hero. Quickly. Are you a Swiftie?

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Huge, huge fan. Oh, my God.

[A]

What direction did you get to play Taylor's daughter? Son?

[B]

Speaking of. Well, speaking of bonding, the. When the Folklore album came out, I mean, it was just a huge bonding thing for me and my daughter and my wife. And then. So when Taylor asked me to, I mean, I. I know Taylor socially through. Just a little bit through Jack Antonoff, who's a close friend of mine and has been for a long time. And it was just a fluky thing. She was writing that song. It just so happened that I. I met her and in her head, it clicked. She had seen me in some other stuff, but. Yeah, exactly. Like, it clicked. Like, oh, this could be the nightmare version of my son in the future. She texted me, like, I think it would be funny if you wore a blonde wig and played my nightmare son. It was a dream. I mean, she's. I mean, obviously a generational writer and generational talent and beyond nice. Just beyond kind to everyone around her.

[A]

Let's hear a little bit of it. The family gathers around and reads it.

[B]

And then someone screams out. She's laughing. She's laughing up at us from hell. Wha. What does it say? It's the worst.

[A]

But who got the beach house?

[B]

She's having it turned into a cat sanctuary. What?

[A]

Cats don't even like the beach.

[B]

What about the rest of the assets? I flew all the way here from Ibiza to my children. I leave 13 cents. No, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, you guys. There's probably a secret encoded message that means something else. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what mom would always do. P.S. there's no secret encoded message that means something else. Loved, Taylor.

[A]

Hi. Great. Well, good job, Chad. You finally pushed it too far.

[B]

What are you implying by that? I think she's implying that you haven't hesitated to trade on mom's name. Excuse me? Um, and do you not remember your book going at Swift and your stupid podcast Life comes at you swiftly, which I'm pretty sure you're recording for on your phone right now, Chef. Come on.

[A]

That is acting. That was my conversation with Mike Birbiglia, who was nominated for his writing for his comedy special, the Old man and the Pool. And that is all of it for this hour. We'll have more. Stick around. There's more. All of it on the way. Our state has changed a lot in the last 140 years. We know because MultiCare has been here guided by a single purpose, making our communities healthier. That comes from making courageous decisions, partnering with local communities to grow programs and services, and expanding healthcare access to those who need it most. Together, we're building a healthier future. Learn [e-mail].

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