Carnegie Hall in New York opened in 1891 and was built by the Scottish born Andrew Carnegie.
Its website describes it as an aspirational destination for artists such as “Tchaikovsky, Dvořák, Mahler, Bartók, George Gershwin, Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, The Beatles, Elton John” (I added a couple of names to the list – see their History page).
Some of the biggest names in comedy have appeared there – including a few old school legends:
- Lenny Bruce
- Bob Newhart
- George Carlin
- Robin Williams
- Eddie Murphy
- Steve Martin
There is no definitive list available but there is a search function and you can use it to find a certain Jimmy Carr. He played there on November 9th 2023 in the Isaac Stern Auditorium, Ronald O. Perelman Stage. Capacity is somewhere around 2,790 and Jeff Ross was one of the warm up acts, alongside Mark Normand (see 2026 update, below).
He was there as a part of the New York Comedy Festival 2023 with his Terribly Funny 2.0 show. The dates that he performed were:
- David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Centre, NY on Nov 6th – Stand Up For Heroes (with Bruce Springsteen – see here).
- Wang Theatre, Boston on Nov 8th
- Carnegie Hall, NY on Nov 9th
- The Paramount, Huntington on Nov 10th
The “practice, practice, practice” line comes from this old joke answering the question “how do you get to Carnegie Hall?”.
Jimmy’s previous appearance at the NY Festival was in 2018 – here.
2026 Update
Some more information (about this show) from this episode of We Might Be Drunk (here).
Around the 3.5 minute mark Sam is clearly excited because he’d performed at Carnegie Hall and Jerry Seinfeld (and wife) had been in the audience. Plus he had an after party and Dave Attell turned up.
Mark briefly picks up the thread and mentions that he’d done Carnegie “with Jimmy Carr”. He wasn’t advertised as the support act but lives in New York so it seems like Jimmy asked if he wanted to drop in and do a spot.
When Mark says “Louis was in the front row trying to get applause going for him” he was referring to Louis CK (mate of Jimmy’s).
I like this aspect of comics like this – that they turn out to support each other and also offer “smaller” comedians spots, to expand their audience. Not to mention giving them the chance to play in an iconic venue.
WMD is the podcast of Mark Normand and Sam Morril (US comics) and Jimmy appeared on it in Nov 2023 (here).
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