Adam Ferrara Stands Up for Comedy at Northern Lights Theater

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Photo Courtesy of Innovative Comedy

“You don't sleep much.” 

Less rest is the price comedian, actor and podcaster Adam Ferrara pays when he fits his first love—making people laugh in person—into a schedule including the long hours needed to make television and cinematic magic. Here’s trusting he won’t be fatigued when Bonkerz Comedy Productions brings his American Comedy Awards-winning stand up to Potawatomi Hotel and Casino’s Northern Lights Theater for 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. shows on Friday, Oct. 26.

The interdisciplinary nature of Ferrara’s career has given him the insight to allow each aspect of his career to inform the others. Feerrara’s acting on shows such as Denis Leary’s “Rescue Me” and the Edie Falco's “Nurse Jackie” has given the professedly confessional comic a better ability to craft material from perspectives other than the first person.

As he tells it, “Acting opened up a door for standup because it made me look at a situation from different angles. When writing stand up, I would tend to see a situation from my point of view. After studying acting, I would look at the circumstances and purpose of the scene first to determine the best choices to make as far as playing the part. By using this approach, I’ve noticed now I often have more options for comedic possibilities when writing stand up.” 

Honing his comedic chops has worked in Ferrara’s favor in his acting assignments as well, even when the role he plays isn’t out to amuse viewers. Of a time he elicited a nigh-fatal amount of laughter from a fellow ensemble member for the sake of her staying in character, he relates, “There is a scene in 'Nurse Jackie' where I had to make Edie Falco laugh on a phone call while a bunch of drunken cops were singing to her. So, to keep the scene going, I kept improvising. It was all muscle memory from stand up. Once I got the first laugh, I just kept going until she couldn’t breathe anymore.” 

Comedy and acting overlap for Ferrara. “There’s a rhythm and music to stand up that’s very similar to acting a scene, be it comedy or drama,” he says. “In both cases, you have a part in the whole of the energy exchange between you and an audience, and you and your fellow actors.” Where acting and comedy part ways for Ferrara is up to his own choices, though; he offers a comparison appropriate to the Halloween season to differentiate his work.

“The most distinct difference is, there is more control in stand up because I’m choosing what I want to talk about and how I want to deliver it. I’m Doctor Frankenstein creating life. As an actor, you’re the monster. You’re given circumstances and motivations to bring somebody else’s vision to life.” 

He continues, “I realized I was funny when I was a kid. It was very much a defense mechanism on the school bus; if you make the bullies laugh, they would beat you up last.” As he matured, it wasn’t his menacing peers’ but his parents’ approval he sought as he told them of his plans to make a career of comedy. “The first step I took towards being funny professionally was when I got out of college. I told my parents, ‘Well we’ve done one of your things; now I’m going to try one of mine.’ I went on stage at an open mike night in Long Island New York on July 13, 1988. I’m still going, but it could just be a phase,” he adds in acknowledgement of life’s transitory nature.

The latest portion of that phase is The Adam Ferrara Podcast: 30 Minutes You'll Never Get Back. Co-hosted with his actress wife, Alex Tyler (of whom he says, “Truth is, I’d be lost without her”), the online show also harkens to his childhood memories. Ferrara recalls, “When I was a kid, the best nights’ sleeps I ever got was when I was upstairs in bed and would hear my parents and their friends downstairs laughing. This is the vibe I’m going for with the podcast. We open by discussing a topic and laughing. There is an interview in the middle and like any good group of friends, we talk about them when they leave. It’s a lot of fun and getting great reviews. People are picking up on what I’m going for and that is very satisfying.”

Among his and Tyler’s guests on the 12 episodes produced thus far, there are fellow humorous celebrities including Lisa Lampanelli, Chris Mancini, Andrea Martin and  Ferrara’s Paul Blart: Mall Cop co-star, Kevin James. 

“We all have problems anxieties and worries,” he says. “Many a night, I’m staring up at the ceiling wondering, ‘How the hell is all this crap gonna work out?’ If you come to see me, I will take all that away for an hour. Oh, they will be there when the show is over, but for an hour, I’ll make you laugh, and, hopefully, we will go on the ride together.”

The set ups for most of Ferrara’s punchlines at Northern Lights aren’t apt to be heavy as this, but the following bit about his father receiving chemotherapy is worth watching to get sample of his mastery of the stand-up stage: