Song & Dance Man

Sean Sullivan uses his debut comedy album to take aim at suburban life, bad theater, and the mild indignities of aging. Recorded at The Rockwell in Somerville, Massachusetts, the set captures Sullivan at a transitional point in his life. He is a Boston-area veteran who has recently traded city living for the quiet compromises of the suburbs, a move that provides plenty of early fuel for the performance.

He spends a significant portion of the set on his unexpected irritation with musical theater. Sullivan devotes tracks to tearing apart the premise of Grease before moving into a closing bit that details the absurdities of Our American Cousin, the nineteenth-century play Abraham Lincoln was watching when he was assassinated.

The 53-minute album, released by Comedy Dynamics in October 2017, showcases a comic who excels at finding frustration in mundane details. He builds his set out of dieting struggles, suburban geography, and the realization that having growing kids means he can no longer walk around his own house naked.