Like most rising star comics today, Joe Pera is taking his latest special, Joe Pera: Slow & Steady, directly to YouTube. Taped to a packed house at The Opera House of Williamsburg on June 15th, his new hour will premiere on Friday, October 6th at 8:00pm ET, exclusively on his YouTube channel @JoePeraComedy.
A trailer teasing the special can be found above. It was independently financed and produced and comes to the internet following the conclusion of his cult favorite Adult Swim series, Joe Pera Talks With You. Little has been revealed about the subject matter being addressed, but it’s based on material performed to sold-out theaters and clubs across the U.S., Canada and Europe and will of course be marked by Pera’s singular slow, gentle style as more or less the Mister Rogers of comedy.
In Pera’s words, “The ‘Slow & Steady’ special is the culmination of a year and a half on the road, over a decade of doing stand-up, and of working closely on many projects with director Marty Schousboe, composer Ryan Dann, and production designer Caity Birmingham. Producers Michelle Caputo and Shannon Hartman were pretty cool too.”
With regard to self-financing and independently producing the project, he deadpanned, “It’s okay, it cost my savings, but we made a stand-up special just the way we wanted to. I think it’s pretty good and hopefully people will laugh and say ‘that was a well-spent 56 minutes.’”
In addition to writing and performing the special, Pera exec produced alongside Michelle Caputo and Shannon Hartman of Art & Industry, Olivia Gerke of 3 Arts Entertainment, and director Schousboe, with Grant Farsi as associate producer and Danny Sanchez as line producer.
A stand-up comedian, writer, and filmmaker from Buffalo, NY, Pera was both the creator and star of the soothing Joe Pera Talks With You, which saw him playing a fictionalized version of himself and speaking directly to the viewer to spotlight the beauty of what some might call mundane topics — like beans, for example, or the building of a chair. In addition to that show, which ran for three seasons, he’s made a number of other projects for Adult Swim, such as the animated special Joe Pera Talks You to Sleep, while directing projects for collaborators like Connor O’Malley through his production company, Chestnut Walnut.
Also a bestselling author and a recent member of the voice cast for Pixar’s Elemental, Pera most recently launched the new sleep podcast Drifting Off with Joe Pera, in concert with composer Ryan Dann, which debuts new episodes on the first Sunday of each month.
Pera is repped by UTA, 3 Arts, and Ginsburg Daniels Kallis; Schousboe by UTA and 3 Arts.
