Photos by Marc Giuffre and Jade Greene, Words by Marisa Whitaker
Photo credit: All by Greene in collage, besides top right of Diva Smith by Giuffre; all photos below by Giuffre
Going into Wednesday night’s (Feb. 25) ninth happening of The Thing Is..!, a New York City-bred variety show, it was the first time I walked into a reporting job with little to no prior knowledge about the event and its players. I figured, I’ll wing it, because isn’t that what show biz is about?
Helmed by the host who “knows everyone” and funny-girl performer Alex Arthur, alongside her co-producer and presenter, Cole Spike, who was stuck on her flight from LA (thanks to the second blizzard we’ve endured this winter), The Thing Is..! took place at the duo’s dream venue – the beloved NYC staple Joe’s Pub. Sometime last year, I had attended one of the occasions just next door at the event’s home base, Jean’s, which gave Arthur and Spike their blessing and helped facilitate the expansion of the show at Joe’s.
Sitting in the crowd at Joe’s, I felt adult. Everyone sits at a table, likely with people they don’t know, waiters are taking and serving drink and food orders, and it’s a beautifully snazzy, modern-day performance-club-type room. The Thing Is..!, Joe’s is a pretty fitting space for the chic, mixed bag of a downtown nightlife-goer gathering.
That night’s crowd enjoyed sets by stand-up comedians Aaron Chen, Daniela Mora, and Sahib Singh; social media personality/writer Delaney Rowe; singer-songwriter Diva Smith, and, of course, Arthur herself, who took on MCing, singing, piano-playing, and some cracking of jokes.
Singh kicked off the night donning a casual hoodie fit, discussed growing up Sikh, and questioned whether or not Osama Bin Laden could be his father. Mora sported a red sweater and matching nails, shouted out to her fellow Latinas, and wondered what role she would play in a gang. With harmonizing help from Arthur, Smith performed a heartfelt, acoustic rendition of “These Days,” the hit made famous by NYC-sweetheart Nico (but apparently written by Jackson Browne, Smith informed me). Rowe wooed the crowd reading from her book of non-fiction essays, including stories about her big move from Idaho to NYC. And closing the night, Chen quickly apologized after calling the audience the “stupidest,” and more quickly proclaimed, “NYC is a beautiful place.” Before, in between, and after sets, Arthur did what she does best: talking, singing, joking, and charming her audience.
The Thing Is..! is, at its core, a reflection of Arthur, just as much as it is a quintessential NYC-born-and-bred spectacle of art, laughs, and delight. The next one is coming up on April 8, back again at Joe’s, and you won’t want to miss it.
Sneak a peek behind the curtain of The Thing Is..! by checking out some backstage flicks by Giuffre, Q&As with Arthur and Spike, and the best quotes from the night’s performers below.
Q&A with Host Alex Arthur
Marisa Whitaker: The Thing Is..!, we’re here. You started at Jean’s?
Alex Arthur: We did start at Jean’s, yes.
MW: And now you’re at fucking Joe’s Pub. How does it feel?
AA: It feels really great. It was a natural progression in terms of what we wanted to do with the show, which is bring a wider audience to it. We’re so grateful that Jean’s let us build the audience there for 15 months. They have a really great relationship with Joe’s Pub, so they really facilitated us connecting with them. Joe’s Pub has been so great. Also, they’re literally next door, so it was perfect.
MW: How does it feel to have a packed-out show? It was a lovely crowd, lovely night. It looks beautiful in there.
AA: Yeah, it felt so good. When we did the show at Jean’s, they were historically on Mondays, and I was always so surprised and blown away by people wanting to come out on a Monday night. I do go to a lot, but Monday is tough, but we always ended up packing the house. I think people love the community that’s been built around The Thing Is..! It’s beautiful for me to see an audience of people who live in NYC, and might want to feel cool a lot, but they’re very down for whatever comes. There’s this innocent quality to the show that I love. People are very open to whatever is gonna happen, which I love.
MW: That’s 100% the vibe I got from everybody I talked to tonight. Everybody was just down to do it. I think almost everybody that I talked to said that you know everybody, and so that’s how this happened. You got a star-studded lineup. How did this all come to be tonight?
AA: We’re living in pretty harrowing times, so I’m very YOLO when it comes to asking guests to do the show. I’m not above cold DMing Chris Rock, which I have done. Chris Rock, if you read this, please do my show. I’m DMing or messaging people that I, according to society, have no business DMing; their rates are crazy. I’m more often surprised, but actually not really surprised, that people say yes. Maybe they are curious or just down to do it. Especially with stand-up comedians, they always want to have an audience to be able to work stuff out. That’s been really fruitful for us. In terms of the audience, I mean it when I say that this is a love letter to all of the things that I took in for four years when I first moved to NYC. I was so inspired by all of the different bands that were playing and plays that were happening and comedy shows that I saw. I tried to see as much as I could because I feel like NYC is, geographically, conducive to that, Let’s-see-six-shows-in-one-night mentality. And I was raised on watching all the variety shows, like Sonny and Cher, and those celebrations of a variety of art that you can experience. I thought we might as well do our iteration of that here since there’s so much to be seen.
MW: The show is very reflective of you as a person. You’re a mixed bag, my gal. You’re talented, a singer, funny, social. It’s really beautiful what you’ve put together here. What was special about tonight that stood out amongst all of The Thing Is..! shows you’ve put together?
AA: Everyone who did the show tonight is a first-time The Thing Is..! guest, except for two. When first-time guests come, they’re always surprised at what they walk into in a good way. They’re either like, How did you pull this audience? or There were so many different kinds of people here. Who is this crowd?, which I love to hear. It’s letting any of the guests see that this kind of audience exists, especially for stand-up comedians. They’re always doing six shows a night at Comedy Cellar and places like that. Those entities are iconic, and they pull a specific crowd. So for these stand-up comedians, who are used to that specific kind of crowd, to be introduced to another crowd that’s so open to what they have to say, and want to hear what they have to say, ultimately, is my greatest joy.
MW: What do you want to do going forward? What’s next for The Thing Is..!?
AA: We are booked for April 8th at Joe’s Pub. You can publish that. We just want to keep doing it. Jean’s gave us their blessing, and they’re so excited and supportive and want us to do it at Joe’s. That was sort of the whole goal. The management wanted us to, inevitably, be able to do it at a venue that is built for this. We just want to keep bringing as much variety as we can. I imagine sketches, and making it a tight hour, but packed with variety.
MW: The Thing Is..!?
AA: The Thing Is..! a variety show. And The Thing Is..! NYC.
MW: Any final words?
AA: All I really enjoy doing, ultimately, is walking around and listening to music, and Alt Citizen keeps music discovery alive. I’m not even saying this because Nasa is one of my best friends, but music is really the thing that keeps me so inspired and alive. I’m grateful for entities like Alt Citizen because they help me discover new artists. I’m grateful that Alt Citizen likes The Thing Is..!
Q&A with Cole Spike
MW: Why did you make The Thing Is..!?
Cole Spike: There’s a particular kind of night out that NYC used to promise. One where you walked in not quite knowing what you were about to experience and walked out feeling very alive. We made The Thing Is..! because that feeling shouldn’t just be nostalgic – it should be available. Alex and I looked at the extraordinary artists moving through this city – comedians, singer-songwriters, and performers who defy the category entirely – and felt that what was missing wasn’t talent, it was a room that could hold all of it at once, with a sense of occasion. The show, inspired by classic variety shows of the past, became our answer to that absence.
MW: The Thing Is..!?
CS: Bold. Fun. Comedic. Gleeful chaos. It’s a live variety show hosted by Alex Arthur. An ode to the great variety shows of the past, made entirely for and by the artists defining NYC right now.
MW: What is important about bringing people together for a variety show in NYC?
CS: NYC has always rewarded people who show up not knowing exactly what they’ll find and trust the room to deliver. A variety show honors that instinct. When you gather a comedian, a band, a poet, and a magician under one roof, you’re creating an argument that art doesn’t need to stay in its lane, and that an audience doesn’t need to either. No algorithm replicates the moment a room of strangers laugh together, fall quiet together, or discover an artist they’d never encountered before. That is what we’re protecting.
MW: What is the most NYC thing about The Thing Is..!?
CS: The show exists at the intersection of the city’s downtown renaissance and its deep institutional memory, belonging to the same spirit as every legendary room that was just someone saying yes before anyone fully understood what they were saying yes to.
MW: What is most important about the curation of the show?
CS: Curation is everything, and the principle behind ours is almost deceptively simple: the lineup should feel like it couldn’t happen anywhere else, or at any other moment. We don’t book talent to fill a genre quota. We book people whose work we believe in and whose presence collectively tells a story about what it means to be an NYC artist right now. The balance matters enormously: between the established and the emerging, the comedic and the sincere, the expected and the genuinely surprising. The best variety show feels inevitable in hindsight, but it only gets there through a very considered and loving hand in the making.
