Will Durst (born March 18, 1952) is an American
political satirist. He has been likened to
Mort Sahl and
Will Rogers.
Early life
Durst was born in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Milwaukee is the List of cities in Wisconsin, most populous city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it is the List of United States cities by population, 31st-most populous city in the United States ...
. He went to 14 different schools before graduating from
Waukesha South High School, in
Waukesha,
Wisconsin
Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...
. He then attende
Waukesha County Technical Institute University of Wisconsin
A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...
, Waukesha County Campus,
Marquette University
Marquette University () is a Private university, private Jesuit research university in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. It was established as Marquette College on August 28, 1881, by John Henni, the first Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Ar ...
, and the
University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee, but never graduated.
Career
In 1974, he started performing
stand-up comedy
Stand-up comedy is a performance directed to a live audience, where the performer stands on a stage (theatre), stage and delivers humour, humorous and satire, satirical monologues sometimes incorporating physical comedy, physical acts. These ...
at a weekly open mic at a bar in downtown Milwaukee called the Rusty Nail. He also gained onstage experience sharing a stage with various sketch groups such as "Same Player Shoots Again", "Better Than a Sharp Stick in the Eye", and "Will Jon Rip Marian?" After studying with director
Paul Sills
Paul Sills (born Paul Silverberg; November 18, 1927 – June 2, 2008) was an American director and improvisation teacher, and the original director of Chicago's The Second City.
Life and career
Sills was born Paul Silverberg in Chicago, Illinois ...
in Milwaukee for two years at the Century Hall theater complex, Durst moved to
San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
in 1979.
In 1987, he unsuccessfully ran for mayor of San Francisco.
In 1992 Mr. Durst performed for a
SRO crowd at
FCI Sheridan in
Sheridan, Oregon.
Durst composes a weekly political humor column that is contributed by
Cagle Cartoons
Cagle Cartoons, Inc. is a Print syndication, syndication service for political cartoons and Columnist, opinion columnists.
Started by editorial cartoonist Daryl Cagle in 2001, Cagle Cartoons distributes the cartoons of sixty cartoonists and four ...
. He also co-hosts a monthly
talk radio
Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues and consisting entirely or almost entirely of original spoken word content rather than outside music. They may feature monologues, dialogues between the hosts, Interview (jo ...
show with former
San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
Mayor
Willie Brown called
The Will and Willie Show which for a year ran as a morning show on
San Francisco's progressive talk radio station,
KQKE.
He has performed at events starring
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...
,
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker BushBefore the outcome of the 2000 United States presidential election, he was usually referred to simply as "George Bush" but became more commonly known as "George H. W. Bush", "Bush Senior," "Bush 41," and even "Bush th ...
, and
Al Gore
Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American former politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. He previously served as ...
. He also performs stand up comedy at many events as a keynote speaker including a Governors Conference and a Mayors Convention. He was a correspondent for
The Comedy Channel during the 1992 political conventions. His humor and commentaries accentuate his perspective of illogical and absurd aspects of politics, leadership, and human behavior.
He pens down several
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
columns, contributes to Independent Media Institute's
Alternet.org and the
Huffington Post
''HuffPost'' (''The Huffington Post'' until 2017, itself often abbreviated as ''HPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and covers ...
consistently, is a former contributing editor to ''
National Lampoon'' and
''George'', and has contributed to various periodicals such as the ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', ''
Funny Times'' and ''
San Francisco Chronicle
The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. ...
''. His weekly podcasts can be heard on various radio stations and his website
willdurst.com He also writes a bi-monthly column for
The Progressive Magazine, published in
Madison, Wisconsin.
Will premiered his one-man show—''The All-American Sport of BiPartisan Bashing—''in August 2007 at
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
's
New World Stages Off Broadway. In 2012, he premiered his one-man show focused on the presidential election, ''Elect to Laugh'', which ran for 41 weeks at th
San Francisco Marsh Theater In 2013, Durst wrote a show based on being an aging baby boomer called ''BoomeRaging: From LSD to OMG''. Since then, he has performed it in over 50 different cities, mostly in
Northern California
Northern California (commonly shortened to NorCal) is a geocultural region that comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California, spanning the northernmost 48 of the state's List of counties in California, 58 counties. Northern Ca ...
.
In 2016, he updated his ''Elect to Laugh'' show and performed a post-
Trump one-man show called ''Durst Case Scenario'' every Tuesday at the Marsh (a theater complex in San Francisco) since July. He has also taken the show to many Northern California theaters and venues in
Wisconsin
Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...
,
Washington,
Nevada
Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...
, and
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...
. He is working on an updated version of the show called ''Durst Case Scenario: Midterm Madness''.
Durst has written three books, including ''Elect to Laugh'' and ''The All-American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing''. He has also released five audio recordings, ''None of the Above'', ''You Can't Make Stuff Up Like This'', ''Warning'', ''Raging Moderate'', and ''Elect to Laugh'', the last two on the
Stand-Up! Records label. Along with
Larry Bubbles Brown and Johnny Steele, Durst is one of the titular characters in the feature documentary ''3 Still Standing'' directed by Robert Campos and Donna LoCicero, which focuses on the San Francisco comedy scene of the late 1980s and beyond.
Television
Durst has been fired by the ''
San Francisco Examiner
The ''San Francisco Examiner'' is a newspaper distributed in and around San Francisco, California, and has been published since 1863.
Once self-dubbed the "Monarch of the Dailies" by then-owner William Randolph Hearst and the flagship of the He ...
'' twice and
PBS cancelled three of his shows, two of which he hosted and created, ''The Durst Amendment'' and ''Citizen Durst''.
His pilot ''A Year's Worth with Will Durst'' was nominated for a
CableACE Award after airing on
A&E during
New Year's Eve
In the Gregorian calendar, New Year's Eve refers to the evening, or commonly the entire day, of the last day of the year, 31 December, also known as Old Year's Day. In many countries, New Year's Eve is celebrated with dancing, eating, drinkin ...
1994, but it was never picked up.
On February 24, 2000, Durst was contestant Rudy Reber's phone-a-friend lifeline on ''
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
''Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?'' (WWTBAM) is an international television game show franchise of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (British game show), British origin, created by David Briggs, Mike Whitehill and Steven Knight. In its format, cu ...
''. Durst wrote an article for ''
TV Guide
TV Guide is an American digital media
In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, vi ...
'' on the incident.
A five-time
Emmy
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award catego ...
nominee and host/co-producer of the
PBS series ''Livelyhood'', he is also a recurrent commentator on
NPR,
CNN, and
C-SPAN
Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American Cable television in the United States, cable and Satellite television in the United States, satellite television network, created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a Non ...
. He has appeared on television over 800 times including ''
Late Night with David Letterman
''Late Night with David Letterman'' is an American television talk show broadcast by NBC. The show is the first installment of the '' Late Night''. Hosted by David Letterman, it aired from February1, 1982 to June 25, 1993, and was replaced by ...
'',
Comedy Central
Comedy Central is an American Cable television in the United States, cable television channel, channel owned by Paramount Global through its Paramount Media Networks, network division's Paramount Media Networks#MTV Entertainment Group, MTV Ente ...
,
HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...
, and
Showtime. He received seven consecutive nominations for the
American Comedy Awards
The American Comedy Awards were a group of awards presented annually in the United States recognizing performances and performers in the field of comedy, with an emphasis on television comedy and comedy films. They were first presented in May 19 ...
Stand Up Comedian of the Year.
Personal life
Durst lives in San Francisco with his wife Debi Ann Pickell Durst, an actress,
improviser and director. She is an executive producer of San Francisco's annua
Comedy Celebration Dayin
Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park is an urban park between the Richmond District, San Francisco, Richmond and Sunset District, San Francisco, Sunset districts on the West Side (San Francisco), West Side of San Francisco, California, United States. It is the Lis ...
.
On October 7, 2019 Durst suffered a
hemorrhagic stroke, backstage before a performance at th
Presidio Theatre
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Durst, Will
American satirists
American humorous columnists
American satirical columnists
American political writers
American comedy writers
American male non-fiction writers
American talk radio hosts
American stand-up comedians
Writers from Milwaukee
1952 births
Living people
Stand Up! Records artists