Courtesy of Personal Publicity
PAULA POUNDSTONE
Saturday, Feb. 27 at 8 p.m. — RUTLAND — The Paramount Theatre welcomes comedian Paula Poundstone on Saturday, Feb. 27 at 8 p.m. Thirty two years ago Paula Poundstone climbed on a Greyhound bus and traveled across the country—stopping in at open mic nights at comedy clubs as she went. She went on to become one of our country’s foremost humorists. She’s a regular panelist on NPR’s popular rascal of a weekly news quiz show, “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me.” Most recently, she lends her distinctive voice to the character “Forgetter Paula” in the Disney Pixar film “Inside Out.”
Poundstone tours regularly, performing standup comedy across the country, causing Bob Zany with the Boston Globe to write: “Poundstone can regale an audience for several hours with her distinctive brand of wry, intelligent and witty comedy.” Audience members put it a little less elegantly: “I peed my pants.”
While there is no doubt that Poundstone is funny, the thing that probably separates her from the pack of comics working today and that has made her a legend among comics and audiences alike is her ability to be spontaneous with a crowd. Poundstone says,“No two shows I do are the same. It’s not that I don’t repeat material. I do. My shows, when they’re good, and I like to think they often are, are like a cocktail party. When you first get there, you talk about how badly you got lost and how hard it was to find parking. Then you tell a story about your kids or what you just saw on the news. You meet some new people and ask them about themselves. Then, someone says, ‘Tell that story you used to tell,’ and then someone on the other side of the room spills a drink, and you mock them. No one ever applauds me when I leave a party, though. I think they high five.”
Over the span of her career, Poundstone has amassed a huge list of awards and accolades, and not only shot through the glass ceiling, but never even acknowledged that it was there. In the early 90s she was the first woman to win the cable ACE for Best Standup Comedy Special and the first woman to perform standup at the prestigious White House Correspondents dinner where she joined the current President as part of the evening’s entertainment.
In November, 2012, Paula was honored, along with Nina Totenberg, NPR correspondent; David Brooks, New York Times columnist; and Bob Mankoff, New Yorker Cartoon Editor, with the 2012 Moment Magazine Creativity Award at their 35th anniversary symposium and dinner, followed by a one-hour panel on the intersection of humor and politics. Just weeks later Paula was hand-picked to interview Calvin Trillin for the Los Angeles-series-darling, “Writers Bloc,” a series that presents conversations between the featured author and another interesting thinker.
Poundstone goes on record about how much she loves being part of the internationally recognized “Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me,” saying, “I am a proud member of the endorphin production industry. They allow me to say whatever I want on ‘Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me.’ The panelists are unscripted, so it’s perfect for me. I feel like I’m a batter in a batting cage. I get lobbed topics. Sometimes I just watch them go by, but every now and then I get a piece of one. If the others didn’t cheat, it would be an almost perfect work experience.”
Tickets to see Pounstone live in Rutland are $39.75, available by calling 802-775-0903, online at www.paramountvt.org, or at the Box Office. The Paramount Theatre is located at 30 Center Street, Rutland.
