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'COMEDY CENTRAL Live Starring Mike Birbiglia: I'm in the Future Also' Tour - The Stories Begin August 15 in Newport, RI

Posted on: Tuesday, 9 June 2009, 12:38 CDT

Tour Info And Links To Purchase Tickets Available At www.comedycentral.com And www.birbigs.com

Tickets To The Nationwide Theater Tour On Sale Now

NEW YORK, June 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Comedian Mike Birbiglia hits the road this summer with his "COMEDY CENTRAL Live Starring Mike Birbiglia: I'm in the Future Also" Tour. The nationwide stand-up tour featuring Birbiglia's captivating storytelling-style of stand-up kicks off in August with sponsor Smirnoff Ice and travels to more than 20 cities, with additional shows to be announced (full tour schedule at the end of this release).

For tour info and links to purchase tickets, viewers can log onto www.comedycentral.com or www.birbigs.com. Tickets for "COMEDY CENTRAL Live Starring Mike Birbiglia: I'm in the Future Also" are on sale now.

"COMEDY CENTRAL Live Starring Mike Birbiglia: I'm in the Future Also" marks the third stand-up tour that COMEDY CENTRAL has produced with Birbiglia as the headliner, but the first time that he and the leading brand in comedy have taken to the road exclusively in theaters. Previous tours were booked in and around college markets (2006's "The Medium Man on Campus" tour and 2007's "The Secret Public" Tour). In addition to the tours that Birbiglia has headlined for COMEDY CENTRAL, he also appeared on several dates during the "COMEDY CENTRAL Live Starring Dave Attell and Lewis Black" tour in 2003. In 2008, he performed at "COMEDY CENTRAL Park," a night of free stand-up comedy live from Central Park's SummerStage to a capacity crowd of 5,000.

In addition to sponsoring the tour, Smirnoff Ice has partnered with COMEDY CENTRAL in a national sweepstakes running from April through September in which Smirnoff Ice will award 20 winners a VIP package to an "I'm in the Future Also" performance, including four tickets and $1,000 in cash. For additional details or to enter the sweepstakes, visit the Smirnoff Ice Web site at www.smirnoffice.com.

In 10 years, Mike Birbiglia has grown from struggling comic to a popular talk show guest to a groundbreaking, original storyteller. The results? Two critically-acclaimed CDs, three COMEDY CENTRAL specials and a Nathan Lane-produced Off-Broadway show called "Sleepwalk with Me" that was recently nominated for both a Drama Desk Award and an Outer Circle Critics Award for "Best Solo Performance." One thing has remained constant: Birbiglia puts out one of the funniest live shows in comedy: different every time and unique from any other comedian or trend in comedy. Said Nathan Lane of Birbiglia, "Every once in a while, someone comes along who renews your faith in the art of stand-up comedy. It happened when I first saw Mitch Hedberg and it happened again when I saw Mike Birbiglia."

Birbiglia's comedy built him a cult following in colleges, then clubs, then concert halls nationwide. And has earned him fans in the most unlikely of places. Ira Glass, host of the Peabody award-winning radio show This American Life said of Birbiglia in a recent interview with the Chicago Tribune: "I feel he's a big rising star. He's somebody I feel, like, whenever we have him on the show I just feel, like, wow, he's gonna be so much more famous than all the rest of us."

Birbiglia isn't dirty nor is he a prude. He isn't shocking or forgettable. He simply tells stories from his life in the most honest way possible, sparing no painful detail: Stories like trying to shake the hand of a sports writer he didn't realize was blind or meeting his girlfriend's parents in high school and then realizing that she had another boyfriend, and then meeting his parents. Sometimes Birbiglia's details are so painful that the audience audibly gasps -- to which Birbiglia often replies, "I know. I'm in the future also." Thus the name of the tour was born.

What held Birbiglia back early on are some of the strengths of his present live show: his difficult to pronounce last name, (he was once introduced as Mike Bahooski!), his awkwardness (Birbiglia: "I have a habit of making awkward situations even more awkward.") Birbiglia has made numerous appearances on "The Late Show with David Letterman," "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," "Jimmy Kimmel Live," and recently, yes, "The View." Birbiglia's popular blog, called his "Secret Public Journal," chronicles his awkward adventures on the road. In 2007, Birbiglia released a live rendition of his favorite stories via COMEDY CENTRAL Records entitled, "My Secret Public Journal LIVE," which both Time Out New York and Time Out Chicago hailed as the "Comedy Album of the Year."

In 2008, Birbiglia teamed-up with award-winning director Seth Barrish and producer Nathan Lane on "Sleepwalk With Me," a passion project he'd been developing under the radar for the previous four years. "Sleepwalk With Me," is a painfully funny one-man show about first love, denial and how the sleepwalking disorder that nearly killed Birbiglia might have saved his life. The New York Times called the show, "simply perfect." And The Boston Globe called the new stories "as honest as any Richard Pryor confession, and as engaging and inclusive as an old Bill Cosby record." It's that inclusiveness that has made Birbiglia a popular contributor on shows as diverse as "This American Life" and "The Bob & Tom Radio Show" and has continued to make Birbiglia one of the most popular touring acts with audiences of all ages.

About Diageo

Diageo (Dee-AH-Gee-O) is the world's leading premium drinks business and industry leader in promoting responsible drinking, with an outstanding collection of beverage alcohol brands across spirits, wines, and beer categories. These brands include Johnnie Walker, Guinness, Smirnoff, J&B, Baileys, Cuervo, Tanqueray, Captain Morgan, Crown Royal, Beaulieu Vineyard and Sterling Vineyards wines. Diageo is a global company, trading in more than 200 countries around the world. The company is listed on both the New York Stock Exchange (DEO) and the London Stock Exchange (DGE). For more information about Diageo, its people, brands, and performance, visit us at http://www.diageo.com. Celebrating life, every day, everywhere, responsibly.

COMEDY CENTRAL, the only all-comedy network, currently is seen in more than 95 million homes nationwide. COMEDY CENTRAL is owned by, and is a registered trademark of, Comedy Partners, a wholly-owned division of VIACOM Inc.'s (NYSE: VIA and VIA.B) MTV Networks. COMEDY CENTRAL's Internet address is www.comedycentral.com. For up-to-the-minute and archival press information and photographs visit Press Central, COMEDY CENTRAL's press Web site at www.comedycentral.com/press.

MTV Networks, a unit of Viacom (NYSE: VIA, VIA.B), is one of the world's leading creators of entertainment content, with brands that engage and connect diverse audiences across television, online, mobile, games, virtual worlds and consumer products. The company's portfolio spans more than 150 television channels and 350 digital media properties worldwide, and includes MTV, VH1, CMT, Logo, Harmonix, Nickelodeon, Nick at Nite, Noggin, The N, AddictingGames, Neopets, COMEDY CENTRAL, Spike TV, TV Land, Atom, Gametrailers and Xfire.

"COMEDY CENTRAL LIVE STARRING MIKE BIRBIGLIA: I'M IN THE FUTURE ALSO" TOUR DATES DATE CITY VENUE August 15 Newport, RI Newport Yachting Tent August 27 Hyannis, MA Cape Cod Melody Tent September 16 Terre Haute, IN Hatfield Hall Theatre September 17 Nashville, TN James K. Polk Theater September 18 Indianapolis, IN Egyptian Room September 19 Chicago, IL Vic Theater September 23 Cape Girardeau, MO Rose Theater September 24 St. Louis, MO The Pageant September 25 Milwaukee, WI Pabst Theater September 26 Minneapolis, MN State Theater September 27 Royal Oak, MI Royal Oak Music Theater September 30 Madison, WI Barrymore Theater October 1 Columbus, OH Capitol Theater October 2 Lorain, OH Palace Theater October 3 Pittsburgh, PA Rex Theater (2 shows) October 10 Washington, DC Warner Theater October 16 Los Angeles, CA Avalon October 17 San Francisco, CA Herbst Theater October 23 Seattle, WA Moore Theater October 24 Portland, OR Aladdin Theater November 5 New York, NY Town Hall November 6 Boston, MA Wilbur Theater November 7 Boston, MA Wilbur Theater November 13 Dallas, TX House of Blues November 14 Austin, TX Paramount Theater

SOURCE COMEDY CENTRAL Corporate Communications

Source: PR Newswire

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