An evening with David Sedaris

Saturday’s evening with David Sedaris at the Riverside Theater is billed as “an evening of cutting wit, social satire, and riveting conversation.”

Those who might be unfamiliar with Sedaris’ sense of humor would do well to look up his essay on the “Stadium Pal” urinary catheter (which he wrote for Esquire on the topic of men’s style) for a primer for what to expect tomorrow night.

Many are no doubt familiar with the name David Sedaris, in no small part due to the massive success of his books Me Talk Pretty One Day and Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim.

It’s one thing to be an accomplished author — and his track record speaks for itself — but it’s entirely another to be able to translate that ability to the stage. Sedaris’ contributions to NPR actually precede his literary career, and he won a Grammy in 2004 for the audiobook version of Dress Your Family.

In some ways, this will probably be similar to a night of stand-up comedy, or at least the audience can expect to be entertained in a similar manner. The main difference being that Sedaris will give you something infinitely more clever than the average comic could dream up, and the fact that his spoken work holds up so well in print (and vice-versa) speaks to his strengths as a wordsmith, a truly lost art in the world of humor.

Sedaris’ latest book, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary, is a collection of humorous short stories pertaining to animals. Some of the essays originated as spoken word pieces for This American Life, so it stands to reason that they’re already battle tested enough to work in Saturday night’s format.

If you have had an opportunity to hear Sedaris on NPR, or seen one of his many appearances on Late Night with David Letterman, you know exactly how much fun this is going to be and probably have had this date circled on your calendar for quite some time. If you’re not familiar with his spoken work, this is a great opportunity to acquaint yourself with one of America’s funniest humorists, both on the page and in the flesh.

David Sedaris will appear at The Riverside Theatre, 116 W. Wisconsin Ave., on Saturday, October 23 at 8 p.m. For more information and tickets, click here.