Providence-Born Comedian Paul Mecurio Promises Laughs and Connection at Upcoming March Shows

“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and guest Paul Mecurio. Photo: Scott Kowalchyk/CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Think back to your school’s class clown. While probably successful in their own right, it’s probably pretty safe to say they didn’t go on to become a hotshot lawyer in New York. I feel even more confident that they probably didn’t end up a famous professional comedian, either (hey, it’s Rhode Island, we keep tabs on who makes it big outside of our little state).

Well, that is unless you went to school with Providence-born-and-raised Paul Mecurio. He did both.

His is a multifaceted background that makes him the ideal host for (and creator of) Permission to Speak, the interactive Broadway show that connects people through both comedy and shared stories. If anyone knows not to judge a book by their cover, or their contents, it’s him. We caught up with the Emmy-and-Peabody-award winning comedian ahead of his upcoming return to the United Theatre on Friday, March 7 and Saturday, March 8 (note: the latter is nearly sold out so be sure to get tickets while you still can), and talked everything from his Rhode Island roots (which involve his equally quick-witted mother) to his untraditional Wall-Street-to-“Late-Show” career path to what audiences can expect when given the Permission to Speak.

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Which part of Providence are you from?

I grew up on Charles Street. My grandparents came over from Italy and settled in that area. My parents were first generation American and they met at Hope High School. My wife and I went to Classical.

That’s how you met?

Yeah, she couldn’t keep her hands off me, you know how it is. I’m kidding. We met on a ski trip. I didn’t know her because she was a year behind me, but I saw her and thought, “Oh, she’s cute.” She was with a guy and I was just determined to keep them apart. The whole weekend I’d be like, “Hey, whatcha up to?” I was that guy. But it turned out he was just a childhood friend. So, I asked her out and she ended up saying yes. Our first date was at the Seekonk Movie Theater. I don’t remember the movie because the whole time I was thinking about if she was going to let me kiss her. We’ve basically stayed together ever since.

Clearly your Rhode Island roots run deep.

Oh yeah. My brother lives in Cumberland. He worked at the Bradley Hospital for years and then my sister is a nurse at South County Hospital.  We also owned Kam’s Furniture for sixty-three years up on Mineral Spring Avenue. We had to sell it off because my mother’s 97 now. She was like, “I don’t understand why you want to close it.” “Well, let’s start with the fact that you’re locking customers in the store in the middle of the day.”

Please explain.

She would forget somebody was in the store and she’d decide to go out and get some clothes or whatever, and she’d lock the door behind her. I go there one day and there’s this woman in the store by herself. I ask what happened and she said she had looked around for my mother for a while and eventually realized she couldn’t get out. I asked how long she had been there, and she said hours. She goes, “I browsed a lot and I took a nap on that sofa. Also, is your name Paul?” “Yeah?” “I heard the phone ring and I took messages for you.”

That is hilarious. I can see why it might have been time to close shop, though.

But you can never win with your parents.  I said to her, “You can’t lock people in the store!” And she says, “Don’t get so upset. The woman liked [the sofa] so much she’s going to buy it. I made a sale, and I wasn’t even in the store!”

I mean, she’s not wrong! 

Right? I’m sure it’ll be a sales tactic that catches the world by storm. But anyway yeah, there’s a lot of local connections. We’re up there all the time. We have a beach house in Narragansett, and then we have a place just over the line in Stonington. I also went to Providence College [for undergrad].

Paul Mecurio and Jon Stewart. Photo courtesy of Paul Mecurio.

Speaking of school, were you the class clown growing up?

I actually was voted class clown. I was just a cut up. I’d go to the locker room and tell jokes and do kooky things… Our lockers were stacked on top of each other, but there was one that didn’t have a floor in the middle [to separate them]. I was skinny enough I could stand in it. I’d get in and take my pants down so that when my friend would open the bottom door, they’d just see legs with underwear  

Courtesy of Paul Mecurio.

That’s pretty good.

And that’s ultimately what you get Emmy Awards for!

I see the pipeline! But just how did you go from class clown to working on Wall Street?

Nobody in my family is in the entertainment industry. My parents are high school-educated with a business and I always had to work for them, so I was business-oriented. I was an accounting and economics major in college and then went to law school and decided to do corporate law.

So it just didn’t occur to you to pursue comedy?

Absolutely not. I always liked comedy, but just as a consumer of it. I was in law school when I started writing. Then when I got out, I bought a camera. I started making short films and writing more and more jokes. I was working at this big corporate law firm doing big merger and acquisition deals, but I would write jokes and keep them in a password protected file at work. I got to see Jay Leno at a private function my firm was invited to and at that point I had a bunch of jokes written. I just went up to him and said, “I don’t know if you need jokes, but I’m never going to use these and you can have them.” A couple days later, my phone rings and I hear, “It’s Jay Leno, is Paul there?” And I’m like, there’s no way. I thought it was my friend playing a prank. I go, “David, I’m really busy,” He says, “No, really, it’s Jay Leno.” And then I said to Jay Leno, “You do a lousy Jay Leno.”

Oh no.

He says, “I think I do a pretty good me.” And I’m like oh man, this is actually him. He said, “I need jokes — I’ll hire you. Whatever I use, I’ll pay you 50 bucks a joke.” But then he asked what I did for a living, and when I told him I was a lawyer, he goes, “I knew it. You write like a lawyer, too wordy. Get to the punch line already.” But yeah, a week later he called me to say he was going to do one of my jokes on “The Tonight Show.” It just blew my head off my shoulders and changed everything.

What came next?

Leno told me to try the jokes out before sending them over. I was already working 100 hours a week [at the firm] and then I started sneaking out on dinner breaks to perform at dive bars’ open mic nights around New York City. One place was called Downtown Beirut 2. One night, I’m on stage there when two guys get in a fight, and one gets cut with a knife. I say, “It’s nice to be here, I always wanted to follow a slashing.” The guy goes, “Are you making fun of me?” He then throws all these bloody napkins at me and they stick to my shirt. I finished the rest of the set with a grapefruit-sized bloodstain. Then I went back to work. It was a crazy time of trying to find myself. Like, am I going to leave the security of Wall Street to do this comedy thing? It was really scary.

How long did you live this double life?

At least a couple years. It was a lot. When I finally told my girlfriend, now my wife, about the shows and that I wanted to be a comic, she was like, “Oh thank God, I thought you were cheating on me.” I was coming home from ‘work’ with blood stains and cigarette smoke on my clothes, women’s number in my pockets —  those numbers were just other comedians. I’d been too embarrassed to tell her or anyone. It felt very frivolous.

What was the big push to make you do comedy full time?

I couldn’t keep both worlds together. You can’t get good doing it as a hobby. I also didn’t want to look back and have regrets. I didn’t want fear to dictate my decisions. Specifically, the fear of not having nice things, like the big fancy house and a bunch of cars. I felt like, well, I’d have those things, but I’d be empty inside because I wasn’t doing what I felt in my heart. It wasn’t an easy decision though. I had to sell my nice apartment across from Museum of Natural History and move into a rooming house. I had a 10 by 12 room with a hot pot on the floor.  My neighbors were two ex cons, two recovering addicts and a 300-pound phone sex operator. I could hear the calls and I’d get grossed out have to go walk around the neighborhood till she was done. I started to live the life of a comedian full time, just going around driving from show to show.

What was your big break after that?

I think it was passing at the big comedy clubs. You have to audition and get passed at the big comedy club in New York, like Caroline’s or the Improv or Comedy Cellar. The other big thing was getting hired on “The Daily Show” as one of the original writers. We helped create the voice of that show. When we won our first Emmy Award, it was like, “Wow, we’re just a bunch of idiots and they’re giving us awards for this.”

And now you work regularly on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

He and I go back to “The Daily Show” together. We’ve known each other a long time. I worked on “The Colbert Report” and then when he got this show, we all kind of moved over. I don’t write on the show, it’s mainly performing, on-air and sometimes some audience warm up. That’s kind of always been my home base: “The Daily Show,” “The Colbert Report” and now this show. But, there’s all these other things that I do on my own that take up a lot more of my time.

Like your podcast, Inside Out with Paul Mecurio.

Yes. I do one-on-one long form interviews with people who are are at the top of their game in their industry. Guests like Bryan Cranston, Kevin Costner, Paul McCartney….

Paul Mecurio and Bryan Cranston at the screening of “No Half Measures: Creating The Final Season Of Breaking Bad” DVD Launch. Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images.

I heard you have a funny story about how you landed Paul McCartney.

He was a guest on “The Late Show.” I was going into the studio after his rehearsal, and when I rounded the corner, Paul McCartney is just hanging outside his dressing room all alone. My whole world slows down when I see him. He’s a gazelle on the Serengeti planes and I’m a lion about to pounce. I go up and say it’s an honor to meet him. He asks my name, and what do I do, and we just start chitchatting about life. Five to ten minutes go by and on the outside I’m chill, but on the inside, I’m like the girls you see in Shea Stadium screaming over the Beatles. Eventually I blurt out, “I know this is crazy, but I’d love to talk about how you make music. Would you do my podcast? He goes, “Yeah,  How would we do it?”

It threw me, so I said, “Uhh I’ll come to London?” And he goes ,“Well, we’re in New York, why would you come to London.” And I say, “I don’t want to be a bother. You can do it on your phone, naked from your toilet, whatever you want.” Like, my God, what am I saying? I tell him I’ll just get his assistant’s number, but e says nah they’re going to make it too complicated. “You and I will do it, but when I call, you gotta be ready.”

He goes and does the show. An hour goes by and then my phone rings as I’m leaving the studio. I don’t recognize the number, so I let it go to voicemail. This is the message on my phone:

“Hi Paul. It’s Paul McCartney here. I’m going to ring you back in five minutes time to do the podcast thing. I’ve got some time now. Otherwise, I’m gonna run out of time. So, if you’re there in five minutes time, you call me. Okay, bye.”

Oh my God. Naturally you drop everything.

Absolutely. I have that message saved in about 900 places. But he was really great and we talked about how he makes music. That’s kind of the upshot of this podcast. Interviews with people who are really great at what they do and long form discussions about their creative processes.

Paul McCartney andPaul Mecurio at the 15th Annual Critics’ Choice Movie Awards. Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic.com

But you do so much outside the podcast, too.

I’ve done some acting, like the movie Chuck with Liev Schreiber. Also appearances on shows and networks like “CBS Sunday Morning,” CNN, MSNBC and Fox News. My experience on “The Daily Show” and so on of being a guy who can take news and make it funny lends itself to being a commentator on those. I’m kind of everywhere at once.

Quite literally with your current touring Broadway show, Permission to Speak. How did that come about?

Courtesy of Paul Mecurio

I always liked to talk to the audience at my stand-up shows. I think I developed a bit of a gift for gab from working in my parents’ furniture store. The more questions I asked, the crazier and better the stories. It started as crowd work where you start talking to somebody about their hat, but it’s not about the person — the comedian just wants to do a bit about a hat. I’ve never been a big fan of that. I liked to follow up. It’s when you get to that third or fourth question that you get some really great answers. One night some Broadway producers saw me doing it. They thought the people I talked to were plants. And I was like no I’m just asking the audience questions. They said, “We think there’s a show in that.” That’s how Permission to Speak came about.

The point of the show is it’s a place where you get to come and say whatever you want. You don’t have to worry about being overly politically correct, or people shutting you down or canceling you. The premise is we’re all nameless and faceless and disconnected with devices, especially now, but if we get together and share stories, we realize we have more in common than we think. Maybe we don’t have to be so divisive.

I do a lot of my stand up and share my own stories, but I also hear from the audience. Everybody truly has a story, and I find a lot of people want to share because they feel unheard. One of the common comments we get about the show is that it’s a nice place to be because no one’s judging. The idea is for people to see how other people live their lives, because sometimes we get stuck in our own way of looking at things. You can expand your horizons a little bit.

Are there any standout audience members you’ve met? 

There was this guy from the Bronx. I said, “You look like you’re in a bad mood.” He says, “Yeah, I just broke up with my girlfriend.” When I asked why, he said, “She wouldn’t listen to me. I told her not to shoplift at CVS.” I’m like, “What?” He said, “Yeah, she wanted me to teach her how to shoplift. That’s how I make money. But I shoplift nice things from Saks or Neiman Marcus. I told her I didn’t want to teach her because I knew she was going to go to stupid places, like CVS.”

Now the crowd is going crazy. He’s serious. So, I asked what happened. “Well, she finally wore me down. I taught her how to do it and what does she do? Gets busted for stealing a lipstick and a hand mirror from CVS. I broke up with her in the back of a squad car.”

That’s what I mean when I say, well, I’m not going to live my life like that, but that’s how he lives his and I’m not going to judge. His story is interesting; it’s real life.

You wouldn’t hear these stories or even meet these people otherwise.

Exactly. After these shows, people are going up to each other and saying, “I can’t believe your dad named you after the woman he had an affair with, that’s wild!” They’re connecting in a world where we’re more and more isolated from each other. That’s the reason Frank Oz [of Little Shop of Horrors directing fame, amongst many other accolades], got involved. He really loved the story of humanity and the message that we can bring people together through shared stories because he thinks we need that in our culture right now.

What else can audiences look forward to when they come to the shows in March?

The set design has a box theme because I “unbox” people. We project 3D images of boxes that open up to show photos of the audience. We also have some really cool animation done by [“SNL TV Funhouse Shorts” and “Beavis and Butthead” alum] JJ Settlemire. It’s not just a stand up show, but a whole interactive visual multimedia presentation. You can come up and tell your story if you want, or just sit there and be entertained. You’re going to leave going, “I can’t believe I heard some of the things I heard. I’ve never seen a show like this before.” You’ll also  without being too ‘Kumbaya,’ leave with a nice positive message of we’re all in this together. The feeling I want to convey is we’re all hanging out, having drinks and telling stories in someone’s basement.

You must be excited to return to your home state, too.

Yes, for the second time! We sold out last year, we’re hoping to sell it out again. We actually just added a second show on the 7th because the show on the 8th is close to selling out.

Everybody really embraced it and just loved how unique it was. The United Theatre is also a beautiful old school theater. It’ll be so nice to be back. And of course, I’ll be getting myself some Del’s Lemonade, Olneyville hot wieners and coffee milk when I’m there.

Spoken like a true Rhode Islander. If you’d like to grab your tickets to Permission to Speak when it comes to the United Theatre on March 7 and 8, before they sell out, visit unitedtheatre.org/shows/paul-mecurios-permission-to-speak.