Comedian Myq Kaplan has appeared on “The Tonight Show,” “The Late Show with David Letterman,” “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson” and his own Comedy Central Presents special. In 2010 he performed in Tucson in the Last Comic Standing Tour. Next month, he’s bringing his act back to Tucson for the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s Men’s Night Out.
The event, which includes dinner and beer, will be held on Thursday, April 10 at 6 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. If you attend, Kaplan told the AJP, and “you like what I say, or if you don’t have a good time, you’ll enjoy not having a good time. Jewish history has a longstanding tradition of suffering. So if you don’t have a good time you’ll be doing your duty as a Jew.”
Kaplan’s droll sense of humor has been a hit in the entertainment world. The Comedians magazine calls him “a comedy machine, in the best possible way … Myq Kaplan does comedy relentlessly, methodically, unblinkingly.” Myq, in case you’re wondering, is pronounced “Mike,” as in Michael from Livingston, N.J.
“The main reason I went to grad school is I didn’t want to start real life,” says Kaplan, 35, who completed a master’s degree in linguistics from Boston University in 2008. As it turned out, he started his career as a full-time standup comic that same year. His first CD, “Vegan Mind Meld,” was one of iTunes’ top 10 best-selling comedy albums in 2010. He followed up with “Meat Robot” in 2013 and the forthcoming “Small, Dork and Handsome.”
Kaplan’s official bio describes him as “a Jewy-ish atheistic vegan who enjoys words, social justice, Netflix, and comic books. Also non-comic books, ping-pong, and being great with women. And grammar and run-on sentence fragments. And of course, being hilarious to his demographic, which is anyone who might know the word ‘demographic.’”
Richard Belkin will receive this year’s MENtor award at the April 10 event. “Dick Belkin is truly an amazing asset to our Jewish community,” says Brian Pisetsky, JFSA campaign manager. “He has chaired the boards of Federation, Tucson Hebrew Academy, the Arizona Jewish Post, the JCC and more with enthusiasm and expertise. In January, he and his wife, Sherry, co-chaired Super Sunday along with Kris and Ben Silverman, with great success. He has been an inspiration to many.”
The cost for “Men’s Night Out” is $36 plus a $180 minimum campaign pledge (under 30, $36 pledge; students, $18 pledge). Register at www.jewishtucson.org, or for more information, contact Pisetsky at 577-9393, ext. 126, or bpisetsky@jfsa.org.
