Neal Brennan and Derek DelGaudio on Grey Areas and Talent Traps

Tomorrow evening on September 9, the comedian and writer Neal Brennan will take the stage for the opening night of  Unacceptable, his new performance series at New York City’s Cherry Lane Theatre. Brennan—who famously co-created the smash hit Chappelle’s Show alongside the show’s namesake—has spent recent years building a name for himself as an idiosyncratic solo presence in the comedy circuit. In his 2017 Netflix comedy special 3 Mics, Brennan used three microphones— one for one-liners, one for traditional stand-up and one for emotional childhood anecdotes—to deconstruct his set into its component parts before the audience’s eyes.

Unacceptable, which runs through the end of November (tickets go on sale the 9th), is directed by the magician and writer Derek DelGaudio, whose critically-acclaimed Hulu special, 2020’s In & Of Itself, put the slight of hand artist on the map. Together, Brennan and DelGaudio have crafted a genre-bending show focused as much on fun and laughter as it is on intimacy and honesty. Below, we caught up with Brennan and DelGaudio to learn more about the making of Unacceptable.