It turns out that stand-up comedian, actor, and writer Paul Reiser isn’t just funny on TV and movie screen or on stage, he’s equally funny via email. He’ll be appearing at the Lobero Theatre (33 E. Canon Perdido St.) on Friday, February 14.
Reiser is probably best known as the star and co-creator of the beloved TV series Mad About You, but more recently he’s been doing movies. This year he starred opposite Matt Damon and Michael Douglas in the Steven Soderbergh-directed HBO movie Behind The Candelabra, a film about Liberace that won 11 Emmy’s. He also appears in two highly anticipated Sundance Film Festival contenders this year, Life After Beth and Whiplash.
Reiser is also a talented musician. He wrote the Mad About You theme song (with Grammy-winning producer Don Was) “The Final Frontier,” which has the unique distinction of having been broadcast on Mars. NASA mission directors chose the song as the “wake up call” for the Sojourner Rover on Mars. He recently collaborated with British singer/songwriter Julia Fordham on Unusual Suspects—an album of original songs on which Reiser also arranged and played piano.
I interviewed Reiser via email this week. Here are few tidbits:
SEASONS: Your publicist mentions your musical talents. Will there be music in the Santa Barbara show or will it be strictly stand-up?
Paul Reiser: Just standup, maybe a little Q&A at the end—but no music. However people are invited to sing along at any point, should they be so moved.
SEASONS: Your show takes place at the Lobero on Valentine’s Day. What will your wife be doing while you’re in Santa Barbara entertaining all of us?
Paul Reiser: That’s a good question. Your guess is as good as mine. The woman remains a mystery. Though seeing as how it’s Valentines Day, I might persuade her to come along for the ride.
SEASONS: Any chance of a creative reunion of some sort between you and your TV wife Helen Hunt?
Paul Reiser: Well, that depends on what you call ” creative.” We get together for lunch pretty regularly, and while I like to think we order pretty creatively (for example, I recently had soup, she had a salad, and then—wait for it: we split a couple of sides) – which I thought was a bit outside the box—these events are generally not broadcast for public consumption and probably not what you had in mind.
SEASONS: No, not exactly.
But we are excited that after all of these years of having Reiser make us laugh on TV and movies (and most recently on email), we’ll finally get to him perform live, up close and personal. Not only that, we have a few tickets to give away.
Check out our Facebook page on Thursday, February 6, Tuesday, February 11, and Thursday, February 13 to see how you can win a pair of tickets to celebrate Valentine’s Day with Paul Reiser at the Lobero Theatre on Friday, February 14 at 7:30 p .m.
To purchase tickets call 805/966-4946 and visit www.lobero.com.
—Leslie Dinaberg
Originally published in Santa Barbara SEASONS on February 6, 2014.