Transcript
A (0:00)
My first person I, like, studied in improv with was Del Close. And a lot of people had a guru relationship to him or some people. Not a lot, but some people did. I never did. I might not have, like, probably when I was younger, I was too emotionally distant to actually allow myself to join the cult, you know what I mean? And also too much of a skeptic to get involved in the culture. Some part of myself, the part whose father died when he was young, was like, you be my daddy. It was, I'm sure in there, but I never, never acted on it. That's a fitting aside to say. He used to say, you're not improvising. You're just letting the universe channel through you. If you just open up all your senses, that's it. Your job is to open up all the stops on the organ.
B (0:42)
That's it.
A (0:43)
And so that you. So it can just flow through you. And he would take out his little pentagram and put it on his chest before he performed because he said the stage was a sacred space.
B (0:53)
And it is, I mean, showstoppers, Stephen Colbert throwing showstopping pitches all day. Foreign. It's Mike Birbiglia. We are back with working it out 2026. That was the voice of the great Stephen Colbert. This is a re air of an episode from almost exactly a year ago, January 2025. We loved having Stephen in the studio. It was such a dream. I've been on his show many, many times. I've been a fan of his for so many years. The Late Show, Stephen Colbert, the Colbert Report, the Daily Show, Strangers with Candy, on and on and on and on. One of the great highlights of the year. In a week we will be back with an all new episode with Sarah Sherman from SarantLive. But today, I hope you enjoy Stephen Colbert. By the way, thanks to everyone who signed up for Working it Out Premium. We just dropped our third bonus episode. It is an episode with my wife, the poet J. Hope Stein. We're doing a thing called Jokes and Poems that we do every few months at Joe's Pub in New York City. And in the episode we rolled audio and recorded the preparation for Jokes and Poems. We just thought, huh, well, we're working out in the studio. Why don't we record it and edit the best parts together? And that's what that is. You can sign up for Working it out Premium on Apple Podcasts. If you click on our podcast and then see the thing it says working out premium, you can subscribe. And then in every single episode, you get no ads. And then about once a month we put a bonus episode in the feed. We did an episode with me and Pete Holmes punching up your listener jokes. And yeah, we really appreciate it. We appreciate your support. We care deeply about this podcast you're listening to and we appreciate you supporting if you can. Thanks to everyone who has signed up for the text message alerts. As you know, I've had my email list for, God, about 25 years. I've been staying in touch via emails and secret public journal entries. In the last year we added this thing, which is just text alerts. And the reason why is that in some people's email it goes to spam. I don't even know why sometimes it goes to my spam, which is absurd because it's me. So anyway, if you want to make sure to be the absolute first to know about these club dates in Philadelphia, Palm Beach, Florida, Madison, Wisconsin, Buffalo, New York, Raleigh, North Carolina, Los Angeles and Nashville, just text the word burbigs to 917-444-7150, text for Biggs to 917-444-7100 and then you'll be the first to know about those shows. I'm really excited about the new material. It's a combination of things that didn't make it into the last special, the Good Life, for whatever reason. Usually it's like thematic reasons not not that it's not funny enough, but that it doesn't quite fit what the causality of the storytelling is. And so I've got some of that stuff again, probably 20 minutes of that stuff. I have like 30 minutes of just new, new jokes that I'm doing at the comedy seller, working out things that I'm just kind of obsessed with. And then probably like 20 minutes of of things that are like just stories I like to tell. Like I've looked through the years and like sometimes I'll do the Scrambler story. Sometimes I'll do the wrestling story from Old man in the Pool. I'd love to kind of dig through and see from my other specials through the years, which stories hold up. Some of them don't. Some of them you go, oh, that was just a moment in time. And then some of them you go, oh, that's actually kind of fun. Timeless. The Scrambler story is like that. Like I I've been doing it lately again, and it's so fun because it's so weirdly like nostalgic, both for when I recorded it in Girlfriend's Boyfriend and also just being in seventh grade reliving being in seventh grade and throwing up on the scrambler. Anyway, if you don't know that story, you don't know what the hell I'm talking about. Just take my word for it, it's a good story. Anyway, I'm going to be performing new material at those clubs. Text for bigs to 917-444-7150 if you want to be the first to know. Also, I'll be on Broadway next week in the show all out alongside Cecily Strong, Wayne Brady and Beck Bennett January 13 through 18. It's a great show written by Simon Rich with the band Lawrence. You can get tickets@allout broadway.com Love this episode with Stephen Colbert. You should know we recorded this before everything went down with the Late show where it's ending this year and all the political elements of it that is not addressed in this episode. This is all the conversation before that all went down. But let that not take away from the fact that I'm talking to one of the great comedy legends of the last 50 years, Stephen Colbert. Stephen's resume is second to none. The Late show with Stephen Colbert, the Colbert Report, the Daily Show, Strangers with Candy, on and on and on. He is just a brilliant person and I just love being able to chat with him. Enjoy my conversation with the great Stephen Colbert. Okay, so how do I interview you best? What's the best. What's the best you are being you're an expert interviewer. How would you come.