David Alan Grier

He uses a massive, classically trained baritone to yell about the indignities of getting older. He paces the stage with heavy, deliberate steps, working himself into a visible sweat over minor frustrations. The rhythm is less setup-and-punch and more of a slow boil. He takes a small annoyance and escalates his reaction until he is shouting into the microphone, his eyes wide with exasperation.

His decades of television and film work, particularly In Living Color, precede him, but in a club he represents an older, louder school of showmanship. He does not stand still and mutter. He puts on a show. He brings a physical presence to the stage that makes standard observational comics look stiff by comparison.

He plays the haughty, put-upon older man well. He leans into his age, treating his physical limitations and modern inconveniences as personal insults from the universe. He will stop walking, let the room go completely quiet, and then deliver a highly vulgar punchline with the crisp diction of a stage actor reciting a monologue.

The stagecraft is literal. He holds an MFA from the Yale School of Drama and a Tony Award for his work on Broadway. When he does standup, he takes decades of rigorous theatrical training and points it directly at the broadest laugh in the room.