Don’t Tell Takes Comedy by Surprise

×

Expand

Photo: Don't Tell Comedy - donttellcomedy.com

Don't Tell Comedy

Don't Tell Comedy

Don't Tell Comedy Milwaukee promoter-comedian Judd Reminger and his co-producer, Ben Hoffman, have been having fun not sharing the names of the comics playing their shows or even the locations of those gigs since 2018. “The secret part is what makes things fun,” Reminger declares. But they have lifted the embargo for Don't Tell Comedy’s next show at The Fitzgerald, 8 p.m. Saturday. Feb. 17. 

“We don’t usually give out the location to a show this early," Reminger admits, “but with it being a special show in collaboration with The Fitzgerald, we really want to pack the place. Of course, this takes away a bit of surprise element, but with such a killer lineup, we want to make sure everyone knows it’s a show they won’t want to miss!” 

Exactly who will grace The Fitzgerald's stage that night remains a mystery, but Reminger is forthcoming enough to share, “The Fitzgerald show will feature comedians from LA, Chicago, Milwaukee, New York and even Japan. And these comedians are great, with credits from Netflix, NBC, Laugh Factory, Comedians You Should Know and more.” 

Unique in Milwaukee

Don't Tell may be a unique concept for Milwaukee, but it's not a merely a local phenomenon. The city is but one of many where comedy lovers can be surprised at where they will be going and who they will be seeing on a regular basis.  

“Don’t Tell Comedy started in 2017 as the brain child of Kyle Kazanjian-Amory, who wanted to create a local stand-up show that felt more both more casual than a comedy club but more professional than other local independently ran shows. Don’t Tell Comedy first started producing shows in locations around Los Angeles before expanding to over 100 cities worldwide now," Reminger explains. And Reminger, who had previous experience booking independent comedy shows in Milwaukee and West Bend before joining forces with Don't Tell, was an early adopter. “When I first started running Don’t Tell comedy shows in Milwaukee there were only around 10-15 cities having secret pop-up shows,” he says. 

As a global movement responsible for hundreds of shows every month, however, Don't Tell isn't so secretive as to not be on the internet. Its website is, in fact, integral to participating in its secretive hilarity. 

Reminger continues, “The name of Don’t Tell itself is not a secret by any means. People can get more information from our website, donttellcomedy.com, and search Milwaukee.

“This website has all of the dates of our upcoming shows. Each date also has the neighborhood in which the show will be in, if it is BYOB or has drinks available for purchase, and information about the parking. So, people can plan their evenings and know where they are needing to go by showtime. Once they purchase a ticket to the show, they just wait until show day! The day of the show they will get an email from Don’t Tell Comedy that reveals the location and what time doors open. After the show they will also get an email with social media links for the comedians that were featured on the show.” 

Bring Your Own

The bring-you-own-bottle arrangement of some Don't Tell dates has facilitated its own kind of fun apart from the schtick being shared on stage, too. 

“BYOB shows are fun because the audience can bring in whatever they like to drink,” Reminger says. “I have seen some fun things in my six years. People take BYOB to a whole new level I’ve seen bags of wine, cases being passed all around the crowd, and even a pizza being ordered to the show. However, the Fitzgerald will not be a BYOB event. There will be drinks for purchase at both shows this month.” The next Don't Tell Comedy Milwaukee revue after the Fitzgerald fete will be at 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 23 somewhere in Walker's Point. 

Whether or not Reminger grabs a sip—or a slice—from generous Don't Tell patrons, he is giving of his time with the shows he and Hoffman organize apart from the effort of organizing the shows. “I enjoy testing out new material on Don’t Tell shows in some capacity. Sometimes it’s hosting or sometimes featuring, but I try to be a part of the show in some way to bring some laughs,” he offers. Reminger is also able to share what he gets from his local Don't Tell experiences beyond Milwaukee. “I also still get to tour and perform comedy all over the U.S., so I bring some of that Don’t Tell energy elsewhere.”

Reminger is pleased with amassing a following among fans for whom surprises are part of the fun of going out for a night of laughter. “I have loved working with Don’t Tell Comedy and the opportunity to connect with comedians from all over the globe,” he says. ‘It means a lot when audience members come up to me to say they drove over five hours just to see the show. But the best compliment Don’t Tell Comedy can get is someone coming back again and again!”

Here Reminger regales a Madison audience regarding the meanness of teens on TikTok, Catholicism in his hometown of Clintonville, a friend mistaking his computer for a urinal, and more...

In Memoriam 

The world of classical music hasn't never really lacked humor. Dedicated humorists in the field, however, have been rare. The classical world lost one of its funniest practitioners on Jan. 18, 2004 when Peter Schickle died of natural causes at 88.

Though Schickele was no slouch as a composer of serious works under his own name, he will be at least as well remembered as the “historian” and popularizer of P.D.Q. Bach, the fictitious, last-born son among Johann Sebastian Bach's 20+ children. The character allowed Schickele since the mid-1960s to write and record not only pieces parodying the Baroque era contemporaneous to the Bachs, but other eras of art music as well and play fanciful instruments of his own invention. Among the four consecutive Grammy awards Schickele won for comedy album of the year from 1990-93, one was for a spot-on spoof of the stuffiness of the now-rare classical music radio format. 

Schickele's breadth of media reach extended to literature via a hilarious P.D.Q. Bach "biography" (the author-read audio book is also a hoot in its own right) and a show on public radio show, “Schickle Mix,” wherein he exemplified the Ellingtonian proposition of genre agnosticism; good music for Schickele could originate as easily from concert and recital halls as from the novelty records populating Dr. Demento's playlists and his son and daughter's indie rock band, Beekeeper.