Raised in Boston as the child of a biomedical engineering professor and a real estate attorney, Edelman was petite, floppy, and had a stand-up job since his teens. (He had long-term romantic relationships with female cartoonist Katherine Ryan and, most recently, Hannah Einbinder, but they broke up a month ago.) It wasn’t very good,” he explained. To be honest, I’ve seen a lot of racist, self-proclaimed, self-righteous comedies. ’” He says he discovered his voice when he went to London during college, when British cartoonist Josie Long took him aside and said, ”What you’re doing is garnering laughter. and it’s not you,” was an important turning point.
More importantly, when I was 23, I met Brace at Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s birthday party. They talked about comedy, after which Brace asked him if he could give him a note. Brace paid particular attention to the show’s dramaturgy, and he argued that jokes that did not match the momentum he had lost were effective. When Edelman riffed too much, Brace told him, “It’s jazz tonight.” Their conversation continued for the next decade.
In early June, I accompanied Edelman to the New York Public Library of the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center to peruse old recordings of Broadway performances by artists such as Billy Crystal (whom Edelman also handed me notes after the show) and Eric Bogosian. Appreciated. When the man at the front desk said he could only see The Producers with director Susan Stroman’s approval and that she was in London, Edelman looked down at his phone and texted. Approval sent and contacted her within a minute. The man at the desk looked taken aback and added that the show’s set designer, Robin Wagner, had also passed away the previous week, requiring approval. After her pregnant silence, Edelman said deadpan. “It’s beyond my capabilities.”
When asked how he seemed to know everyone, Edelman replied that these were all people he approached because he was genuinely interested in them. “What everyone says, but you probably don’t internalize, is that you just have to show up,” he explains, adding that it’s a privilege to know that you can.
Last month, while in Boston, he knocked on the door of 94-year-old comedy legend Tom Lehrer, whom he had never met just to talk. “I told him I was a comedian,” reported Edelman. “And he said, ‘What problem do you need to solve?’
As an example of a more serious manifestation, Edelman approached Mike Birvilia in 2019. “We were brother-brother,” Bilviglia said by phone. “He wants me to pick my brain, so I said I’m very busy.”
But this time, when Edelman explained “Just for Us,” Bilviglia heard a more possible, surprising and relatable story. He told Edelman to continue the work. Virubilia, who is not Jewish, advised him to strengthen his spine after one performance. He laughs and remembers there was a note to make it more Jewish.
