History’s Clown Car with Andy Borowitz

Caroline Aaron is an actress known for her wide range of theater, film, and television credits, as well as being a published author and playwright. She most recently starred in the Broadway Center Stage production of Bye Bye Birdie at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and in film, as Rita Cohen in Molly Gordon’s and Nick Lieberman's film Theater Camp. Her additional film credits include Nancy Drew, Edward Scissorhands, Sleepless in Seattle, 21 Jump Street, 22 Jump Street, and Deconstructing Harry. She made her broadway debut in The Iceman Cometh and since then has accumulated many Broadway and off-Broadway credits, including I Hate Hamlet, Social Security, Relatively Speaking, An Imaginary Life, and Madwomen of the West. Along with her repertoire of theater and movie credits, she starred as Shirley Maisel in the Emmy-winning series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and has appeared on Chanshi, Transparent, Episodes, Sex and the City, Grey’s Anatomy, Frasier, all of the CSIs, and all of the Law and Orders. She can be heard in such podcasts series as Listening In, The Pack Podcast, and Around the Sun. Aaron is an alumni and Instructor of Acting at HB Studio in New York City and can currently be seen guest-starring on the series Ghosts and the feature film Between the Temples, which recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Upcoming projects include 31 Candles and 4th Dementia.

Andy Borowitz is an award-winning comedian and New York Times bestselling author. He grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and graduated from Harvard College, where he was President of the Harvard Lampoon. He is the creator of The Borowitz Report (BorowitzReport.com), a news satire site with millions of readers around the world. He has contributed humor to The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker, for which he has written more than a thousand pieces. As a storyteller, he hosted Stories at the Moth from 1999 to 2009. As a comedian, he has played to sold-out venues around the world, including during his national tour, Make America Not Embarrassing Again, from 2018 to 2020. His most recent book, Profiles in Ignorance: How America's Politicians Got Dumb and Dumber, was an instant New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Indiebound bestseller, and was named one of the 7 Best Nonfiction Books of fall 2022 by Kirkus Reviews. He is the first-ever winner of the National Press Club’s humor award.

Ophira Eisenberg is a standup comedian, writer, and the host of the comedy podcast Parenting Is a Joke with iHeart Radio and Pretty Good Friends. She also hosted NPR’s Ask Me Another, where she interviewed hundreds of celebrities, including Sir Patrick Stewart, Rosie Perez, Yo-Yo Ma, Awkwafina, Roxane Gay, Nick Kroll, Chelsea Handler, and more. She’s appeared on Comedy Central, This Week at The Comedy Cellar, Kevin Hart’s LOL Network, HBO’s Girls, Gotham Live, The Late Late Show, The Today Show, and VH-1. Eisenberg is a regular host and teller on The Moth Radio Hour, and her stories are included in three of The Moth’s best-selling collections, including the most recent: How to Tell a Story: The Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling from The Moth. Her memoir, Screw Everyone: Sleeping My Way to Monogamy, was optioned for a television series, and her most recent comedy special, Plant-Based Jokes, is streaming on YouTube.

Carlos Greaves is an Afro-Latino electrical engineer turned comedy writer. He is a contributor to The Onion, The New Yorker, and McSweeney's, and wrote for Kevin Hart and Keenan Thompson's TV special, Back That Year Up, in 2023. He also writes a weekly humor newsletter, Shades of Greaves, and his debut book, Spoilers: Essays That Might Ruin Your Favorite Hollywood Movies, was highlighted in Vulture's "Best Comedy Books of 2023."

John Cameron Mitchell is the co-creator of Hedwig and the Angry Inch and director of the films Shortbus, Rabbit Hole, and How to Talk to Girls at Parties. His television acting credits include Joe vs. Carole, The Sandman, Shrill, Girls, and The Good Fight. He tours with a Bowie-themed concert, Black Star Symphony, and a career retrospective called Cassette Roulette, which will run at Joe's Pub this fall. With Bryan Weller he created the musical podcast series Anthem: Homunculus starring Glenn Close, Patti Lupone, and Laurie Anderson, and his forthcoming scripted podcast series, Cancellation Island, stars Holly Hunter; both were produced by Topic Studios.

Alexandra Petri is a humorist and columnist for TheWashington Post and author of Nothing Is Wrong and Here Is Why, a Thurber Prize finalist, and Alexandra Petri’s US History: Important American Documents (I Made Up). Her satire has also appeared in McSweeney’s and TheNew Yorker’s Daily Shouts and Murmurs.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain (1835 – 1910), published more than 30 books, hundreds of short stories and essays, and gave lecture tours around the world. His books include The Innocents Abroad, Roughing It, The Mysterious Stranger, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Renowned for his wit and satire, Twain has been lauded as the first great American humorist.

Ikechukwu Ufomadu is an Emmy-nominated, Drama Desk Award–winning actor, writer, and comedian, named a “Comedian You Should and Will Know” by Vulture/New York Magazine and a “Comic to Look Out For” by Time Out New York. He co-wrote and stars in Inspector Ike and Words with Ike, which earned him an Emmy nomination for Best Actor in a Short Form Series. His solo show, Amusements, played a sold-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe and is currently touring. Ufomadu has written for Ziwe, Stephen Colbert Presents Tooning Out the News, and Paid Off. On screen, he can be seen in Judas and the Black Messiah, Los Espookys, Three Busy Debras, Joe Pera Talks with You, and Your Monster. He has performed at events and venues including The Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, SXSW, The Public Theater, Joe’s Pub, Ars Nova, New York Comedy Festival, and the Netflix is a Joke Festival. He was in the world premiere production of Clare Barron’s Dance Nation. Ufomadu was an inaugural recipient of the Jerome Foundation Artist Fellowship. He appeared in the film The French Italian, which was released in June 2024.

Meg Wolitzer is the New York Times bestselling author of The Female Persuasion, The Interestings, The Ten-Year Nap, The Position, and The Wife. She is a faculty member in the Creative Writing and Literature Program at The Lichtenstein Center at Stony Brook University, where she co-founded and co-directs BookEnds, a one-year, non-credit intensive for emerging novelists. Wolitzer, who was the guest editor of The Best American Short Stories 2017, is the radio and podcast host of Symphony Space’s Selected Shorts.

Joe Yan is a comedian whose writing has appeared in McSweeney’s. His interests include computer engineering, the Great American Songbook, and wealth redistribution policy. He is currently based out of Seattle, where he lives with a blind Labrador retriever.

CREDITS

“I’m Abraham Lincoln and I Beg Of You, Please Commemorate My Birthday With Mattress Sales,” by Joe Yan, from McSweeney’s Internet Tendency (February 18, 2022). Copyright © 2022 by Joe Yan. Used by permission of the author.

“Seneca Falls for You” and “John & Abigail Adams Try Sexting,” by Alexandra Petri, from Alexandra Petri’s US History: Important American Documents (I Made Up) (W. W. Norton & Company, 2023). Copyright © 2023 by Alexandra Petri. Used by permission of the author.

“Running for Governor,” by Mark Twain. In the public domain.

“A Very Nixon Halloween,” by Andy Borowitz. Commissioned by Symphony Space. Copyright © 2023 by Andy Borowitz and Symphony Space.