Comedian Jeff Ross has spent decades as the razor-tongued Roastmaster General, a moniker earned through decades of mercilessly, but hilariously, roasting celebrities, including Alec Baldwin, Justin Bieber and Tom Brady.
However this summer, Ross is losing that edged armor and taking center stage on Broadway to reveal a gentler, more emotional part of himself.
Ross is set to perform one-man show, on his new album, Jeff Ross: Take a Banana for the Ride, where he will forego the one-liners in favour of personal anecdotes. Starring in the show are CB and the show is scheduled to open on August 5 and close on September 29 at the Nederlander Theatre for a limited eight week run.
It seems easy to me, I just need to leave behind a little of my armor, a little of my roastmaster, and to be open to the audience, to get to me, so that I can then get to them, Ross explained to Associated Press. I believe it is healthy to switch it and surprise others.
And Surprise them he will. Ross instead of roasts and roars of laughters at the cost of another person will be providing the audience with the emotional rollercoaster of his past, which was full of love, loss, strength and other human moments.
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The core of the show is the history of the childhood of Ross, the part that he had with the grandfather, who was on the maternal side. Following the demise of both his parents when he was just in his teens, it is his grandfather who came in and stood him up. Ross refers to him as the boyhood hero and most of the episodes in the show center around it.
The show title is in continuation of a fond memory of those days, Take a Banana for the Ride. During his adolescence, Ross spent about a year with his grandfather in New Jersey and would frequently commute into NYC to perform on open-mic nights. His grandfather would send him some money to use in the bus and a banana each time.
Ross remembered him saying, When you come riding with me take a banana. I would take it out of reluctance and most of the time I would be sitting in a traffic or I would have a low blood sugar and that banana would save me.
However, to Ross, the gesture was as much more than a snack. It was actually his kind of way of saying, Be prepared for anything and also, You know, I can not be with you but I am with you in spirit. So it was an emotional, it was a practical thing. Something I still do.”
The show will look at the family life of Ross especially the close yet complex bonds that existed between him and his family such as his mother, uncle and aunt. It was really autobiographical, said Ross, but it is not exactly about me. It is the people. When I speak of my uncle or my mom, I wish you to find your uncle and your mom in the stories. That matters a lot to me.”
The show, says Ross, has the same tone, even though upbeat in the end. It is quite cheerful. It makes loss and sickness a bit less stigmatized and leaves people with the idea that no matter what will happen, they will be fine.”
The germ of the show was sown years ago. In the middle of 1990s, Ross started to work on a stand-up set that centered on his grandfather. He was not ready in terms of being emotionally ready. Emotionally I could not maintain it. It was simply too much of me as a 30 year old man, he confessed. But 30 years later I can actually go at it and look back and put another layer of experience over it all.
Why did Ross re-read the material? The tide of individual loss. Over an eight-month period, Ross has lost three of his close comedy friends in Bob Saget, Gilbert Gottfried, and Norm Macdonald. Their deaths made a great impact on him.
This is what inspired Ross to rewatch the old show of decades ago and make it an entirely new one based on the current brain and his current abilities.
Ross on Broadway is part of a recent trend of comedians performing onstage in intensely personal shows. Names such as John Mulaney, Mike Birbiglia, Amy Schumer, Keegan-Michael Key, Billy Crystal, and Colin Quinn have recently had solo shows on Broadway. This year Bill Burr also made his Broadway debut as part of a revival of Glengarry Glen Ross.
However, in the case of Ross, his Broadway dream dates back even earlier. He was an upcoming comic who as a youngster was taken with his aunt to watch a one-man show by Jackie Mason, called the World According to Me!, during the 1980s. It made a lifetime impression. It was fancy, yet it was also punk rock, since he was being crass and raunchy and funny and uttering forbidden words, said Ross. It lingered, lingered, lingered with me long, long time.”
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Decades after, Ross is now ready to tread on the steps of Mason not as a curser, but as a comprehender.
I still think it is funny, Ross assured. I am not changed. But I am also opening people up. The difference is that. I want them to get the idea that they are on the bus with me and my banana.”