The Pride of Hagerstown

Will Abeles spent the pandemic year of 2020 back in his Maryland hometown before packing up for Nashville, where he immediately fell to the bottom of the gig-economy ladder. This hour of stand-up relies on the grim realities of the service industry, anchoring his material in the distinct misery of waiting tables for Sunday brunch crowds and delivering Chick-fil-A orders to strangers’ living rooms. Abeles avoids preachiness, preferring to examine how humiliating it feels to beg for a tip from people who cannot quite remember his name.

Filmed in March 2023 at The 5 Spot in Nashville, Tennessee, the set serves as a polished, live-audience evolution of a pandemic Zoom album Abeles released in 2020 under the same title. The show marks his transition from a Brooklyn transplant trying to find his footing in the South to a localized road comic who understands how to work a dive-bar crowd. Throughout the hour, he shares anecdotes about family vacations, the terror of Taylor Swift fans, and why children do not belong at wedding receptions. Four by Three Productions released the special on YouTube in September 2023.