Michael Gull and Michael D’Aquisto on life-and-death comedy

Welcome to 2010, and a new year of Backstage with Mark Metcalf! Now that the season of holiday cheer is over, the champagne bottles are empty and the cookie jars are full of crumbs, we figured the only way to keep things buoyant around here was to invite some funny people into the studio to make us laugh.

Mark’s stand-up series starts this week with comedic collaborators Michael D’Aquisto (Michael D) and R. Michael Gull, who open a brand-new Milwaukee comedy school this month: the Stand-Up Dojo.

Michael and Michael are each fixtures of the local comedy community in their own respects, and they’ve both done stand-up full time at some point in their careers. They talk to Mark about why comedians say “I killed” or “I died,” the violence and anger of comedy and where it comes from, what’s beautiful about hecklers and what it feels like to choke when you’re opening for Lewis Black (at Niedermeyer’s restaurant, no less).

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For more of this uproarious pair, you can see Michael Gull as the host of the Full Frontal Funny open mic contest at Grainger’s Pub and Michael D’Aquisto as part of Potawatomi Bingo Casino’s comedy series on Saturday nights at Northern Lights.

The hilarity doesn’t stop as our series continues with Patrick Schmitz of The Gentlemen’s Hour next week and the lovely ladies of Broadminded Comedy the week after that. Stay tuned!