Gabe Liedman
He delivers breathless, high-speed gossip about his own terrible decisions.
1 special · 2013
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He walks on stage looking like he just burst through the door with unbelievable news. He operates at a high-speed clip, leaning heavily into vocal fry, long dramatic pauses, and exasperated sighs. He builds momentum by piling extreme details onto minor events. When he describes a bad date or a hangover, he reports the specifics with the urgency of a natural disaster.
Specials
On stage
He is a central architect of 2010s comedy. Alongside Jenny Slate and Max Silvestri, Liedman ran Big Terrific, the weekly showcase that anchored the Brooklyn alternative scene for seven years. While he eventually left the stage to write and run television shows, his conversational looseness shaped an entire cohort of comics who learned how to perform in Williamsburg spaces.
His standup hinges on a specific stance: he performs as a hyper-confident mess. He discusses his dating life, his body, and his television habits with intense vanity, right up until the moment an anecdote requires him to play the fool. He highlights the contrast between his aggressive self-assurance and the indignity of his actual behavior. He rarely relies on traditional joke construction. Instead, he talks in long, spiraling loops, getting louder and more frantic until the audience is laughing just to keep up with his pace.
Liedman met Slate while attending Columbia University, where they formed a comedy duo before building the live shows that eventually pulled them both to Los Angeles.
Turning points
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2008–2015
Co-Founding Big Terrific in Williamsburg
Liedman teamed with Jenny Slate and Max Silvestri to run the critically acclaimed NYC weekly comedy show Big Terrific, which served as a crucial launchpad for their standup and television careers.
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Taping First Standup Special on Comedy Central
Liedman made his television stand-up debut by filming a half-hour special for Comedy Central's The Half Hour series.
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2018–2021
Showrunning and Producing PEN15
Liedman served as showrunner and executive producer on Hulu's acclaimed comedy series PEN15, earning multiple Writers Guild of America Award nominations.
At a glance
- On stage
- since 2001
- Style
- alt comedy, standup, storytelling
- Breakout
- The Half Hour
- Topics
- Elsewhere
- Wikipedia
Fans also like
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Jenny SlateLiedman and Slate began performing together in college as the duo Gabe and Jenny, co-founded the acclaimed live show Big Terrific, and share a close conversational comedic chemistry.
Podcasts
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I Need You Guys · co-host
Longtime friends catch up, share personal advice, and welcome guest comedians into their public group chat.
Also on screen
- Inside Amy Schumer
- 2013–2015
- Kroll Show
- 2013–2016
- Brooklyn Nine-Nine
- Obvious Child
- Transparent
A clip to start with
Netflix Knows You’re Gay - Gabe Liedman