Comedian John Mulaney performed his stand-up routine Kid Gorgeous to a sold out crowd in Boulder Thursday night, drawing huge applause.
Mulaney, a stand-up comedian from Chicago, formerly wrote for Saturday Night Live and recently starred in the Broadway play Oh, Hello alongside comedian Nick Kroll. He has two stand-up specials, New in Town and The Comeback Kid, featured on Netflix. He performed at CU Boulder’s Macky Auditorium which seats over 2,000 people. The event was sponsored by CU’s Program Council.
Comedian Max Silvestri opened the show for Mulaney, performing a half-hour set that riffed on his relationship with his girlfriend, his inability to make friends with other men and his former apartment in New York City, which was right next to an elementary school.
After Silvestri, Mulaney entered the stage wearing his trademark suit and tie, drawing cheers from the audience. He said he was happy to be in Boulder.
“This place is like the country if the election had gone the other way,” Mulaney said.
Mulaney opened his set by complimenting Macky Auditorium, remarking on others who had spoken there, such as the Dalai Lama, and asking the crowd if the auditorium was haunted. (According to the audience: yes.)
From there, he covered a range of subjects, some of which he mentioned in his previous shows, including his wife, makeup artist Annamarie Tendler, and their French bulldog, Petunia. He joked about what it’s like being married to someone of a different religion (Mulaney is Catholic and Tendler is Jewish), sharing an anecdote about how Tendler thought the Last Supper was about the disciples celebrating Thanksgiving.
He interacted with the crowd during the event, asking one woman in the front of the auditorium what she was studying at CU and what she recommended he do while he was in Boulder. He drew laughs when he referred to CU Boulder at one point as “UCB,” causing audience members to yell out “It’s CU!” when he asked what was wrong.
While discussing his alma mater, Georgetown, where he majored in English, Mulaney mocked the school for sending him a letter soliciting a “cash gift” after he paid such a steep tuition price, a complaint that drew appreciation from the student crowd.
In an effort to pander to the young Boulder audience, Mulaney jokingly warned against meditation, citing that being present in the moment is overrated.
“I’ve been in the moment,” he said. “It’s mediocre at best.”
Mulaney ventured into politics near the end of his set, saying that he has never been very political, but finds the current political situation alarming. He compared President Trump to “a horse in a hospital,” saying that not only does no one know what to expect anymore, but that “the horse doesn’t know what it’s doing either.”
His 90-minute set drew near-constant cheers and applause from the audience, and he left to a standing ovation.
Contact CU Independent Senior News Editor Carina Julig at carina.julig@colorado.edu.
