Adam Weightman Can't Resist Comedy

If you like your com­e­dy a bit on the absur­dist side, have we got a treat for you. Adam Weight­man launched his time with me and bonus co-host Travis (aka Jeff Jef­fer­son as he’s known on stage) with an audi­to­ry assault on our ears. Don’t wor­ry, no pro­fan­i­ty ensued, but it was may­hem from the sec­ond we hit record. Weight­man was a great (and quite mem­o­rable) guest, but he let us know from the onset that my con­ven­tion­al inter­view rules would be large­ly meaningless.

Weight­man is what I like to call a mul­ti-hyphen­ate, he per­forms stand-up, improv, has writ­ten exten­sive­ly for Dai­ly Dot, was a radio DJ, was a slam poet, and cur­rent­ly per­forms for The Din­ner Detec­tive. But the rea­son my son sat in on this inter­view is that Weight­man com­pris­es 50% of the per­for­mance art group The Lava­ca Street Boyz (Doug Heinz rounds out the remain­ing 50%). The LSB are a mix of per­for­mance, improv, stand-up, crowd-work, and gen­er­al insan­i­ty on stage. If you haven’t seen them per­form at their name­sake the­ater’s street address (Fall­out The­ater), it’s time to right that wrong.

Giv­en his pro­lif­ic back­ground and expe­ri­ences, you’d be (per­haps) stunned to learn that rather than the typ­i­cal migra­tion to LA or NYC that we cov­er with oth­er guests based in Austin, Weight­man hails from LA and made the choice to move to Austin to improve his com­e­dy chops. At every turn, Weight­man sur­pris­es us and the ratio­nale for the move makes you real­ize that every­thing he does is done with cal­cu­la­tion and mea­sure. He observes ​“All the most suc­cess­ful peo­ple that I know in Los Ange­les are not from LA.” And it’s cer­tain­ly a fair obser­va­tion that the comics I’ve talked to who now live in LA, did­n’t get their start in LA. Giv­en the strong siren call made by the LA and NYC com­e­dy scenes that draws so many of the Austin comics we talk to, you won­der why any­one lucky enough to already live in one of those scenes would choose to leave for a small­er scene. As you’ll hear tell in the inter­view, we’re glad Austin won out over oth­er can­di­date scenes, and he’s glad too.

LA is an amaz­ing scene — if you’ve been lucky enough to watch com­e­dy there, you know there are dozens of choic­es on any giv­en night. But what he found about the LA scene was ​“It did­n’t make me a hard work­er. It made me not focus.” After all as a young per­former, you need that focus to hone your skills. If you don’t focus, if you don’t hone those skills, you will nev­er make it in LA or NY. So why not make a counter intu­itive move if it means you’ll be that much bet­ter when you do make the move to a big­ger scene? That’s the cal­cu­lat­ed gam­ble that Weight­man made, and it’s paid off both on stage and off.

There are no rules of thumb in com­e­dy and it’s clear that Weight­man does­n’t per­form accord­ing to any con­ven­tion­al rules. To be hon­est, I was­n’t sure how many of Weight­man’s sto­ries were based in truth vs cre­at­ed for comedic effect for me and my son. They cer­tain­ly cre­at­ed a fun and live­ly inter­view. But, if you think he’s not gen­uine in sen­ti­ment, you’d be com­plete­ly off the mark. One of the most hon­est moments Weight­man shared is the impor­tance of hav­ing some­one he loves in his life. Cir­cling back to the con­cept of focus­ing on per­for­mance, Weight­man pro­claims ​“now that I have some­one that loves me and sup­ports me, by my side, I can focus in and try hard­er.” Clear­ly one bonus of the move to Austin is meet­ing some­one who he could share life with off-stage. And while Com­e­dy Wham does­n’t endorse any mail-order bride/​groom sit­u­a­tions, it is an obser­va­tion we’ve made that those comics we sit with that are in com­mit­ted healthy rela­tion­ships tend to have com­pa­ra­ble suc­cess on stage as well. There’s a con­fi­dence gained from know­ing some­one will love and sup­port you off stage even if you take great risks and make an absolute fool of your­self on stage. We’re lucky that even as Weight­man is will­ing to make a great fool of him­self on stage, the pay­off is always a hap­py and laugh­ing audience.

Weight­man has played a big role over the last few years fol­low­ing a non-tra­di­tion­al com­e­dy path. A chance encounter and pair­ing at Moon­tow­er Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val sev­er­al years ago led him on a path of being an Asso­ciate Pro­duc­er of The Com­e­dy Resis­tance, a com­e­dy move­ment ground­ed in polit­i­cal activism and increased vot­er turnout with some of the coun­try’s best com­e­dy voic­es. Local­ly, Weight­man hosts show­cas­es fea­tur­ing local and tour­ing comics and brings in the mes­sage of polit­i­cal involve­ment to ensure that our gov­ern­ment reflects our voic­es. Paired with this impor­tant and seri­ous mis­sion, Weight­man has spent the last few years work­ing for Austin’s edi­tion of The Din­ner Detec­tive, an inter­ac­tive com­e­dy mur­der mys­tery din­ner show with week­ly week­end per­for­mances. And we’d be remiss if we did­n’t point out the archive of Weight­man’s arti­cles on The Dai­ly Dot where he inter­viewed nation­al­ly renowned comics.

While talk­ing with Weight­man, you real­ize you’re talk­ing to some­one com­plete­ly com­fort­able with the absurd and some­one will­ing to carve a unique path for him­self because the norm does­n’t apply to him. It’s a recur­ring theme in our con­ver­sa­tion and we see it as a recur­ring theme to his life. We’re excit­ed to see what’s next for him. We know it’ll be dif­fer­ent, it’ll be noisy (or maybe whis­pered), and per­haps it’ll be unbe­liev­able. But we’ll be here for it — who are we to resist?

Catch Adam Weight­man at these upcom­ing shows:

• The Com­e­dy Resis­tance — Month­ly show­case at Native Hos­tel. See native​hos​tel​.com for event dates.
• The Poet­ry Broth­el — Immer­sive lit­er­ary cabaret fus­ing poet­ry, advo­ca­cy, bur­lesque, vaude­ville, live music, visu­al art, mag­ic, mys­ti­cism, and poet­ry expe­ri­ences. Launch­ing in Austin with an event on Sat­ur­day Feb­ru­ary 15 at The Infi­nite Mon­key The­o­rem — the​p​o​et​ry​broth​el​.com/​A​ustin
• The Din­ner Detec­tive — the biggest live mur­der mys­tery show in the US. A dark com­e­dy based on real life cold cas­es. Week­ly on week­ends — Din­ner Detec­tive — Austin
• The Lava­ca Street Boys and TV Par­ty (improv groups) — Keep an eye out for upcom­ing per­for­mances at Cold­towne The­ater, The Insti­tu­tion, and Fall­out Theater
  

…and fol­low him on social media:

• Twit­ter — @adamweightman
• Insta­gram — @AdamWeightman
• Do512 — @adamweightman
• YouTube — Youtube​.com/​a​d​a​m​w​e​i​g​htman
• Rep­re­sent­ed by Acclaim Tal­ent