Michael John Ciszewski: IF MEMORY SERVES
SEX, SOBRIETY, AND PROFOUND STUPIDITY… the horrors are indescribable, but you’ve still got to serve!
And if memory serves, NYC comedian Michael John Ciszewski made a fine, fabulous mess of things before getting sober five years ago. Help him remember everything he wishes he could forget—from transformative pop culture and hookups with radical leftists to queer villainy and accidental car theft. Make new memories on the scorched earth of a gay youth quite literally WASTED in this hilarious and searingly honest hour of comedy JAM-PACKED with LAUGHS about anxiety, identity, relationships, and the inscrutable conundrum of existence!
Heralded as “superbly written and immaculately performed” and “hilarious and brutally honest,” IF MEMORY SERVES debuted at a sold-out Brooklyn performance in February 2024 before acclaimed engagements in Boston and Manhattan. It arrives back at the PIT and the Philly Fringe fresh and HOT off a run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with Just the Tonic, one of the UKs leading comedy presenters, where the show was long-listed for the Queer Performer’s Award at the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where BingeFringe magazine called the show “slick, sensitive and deeply enjoyable,” and lauded Ciszewski as “equal parts engrossing storyteller as he is whip-smart comic.” The show was also named as #50 on a list of the top 100 shows at the 2024 Fringe based on analysis of audience and critical reviews by Fringebiscuit.
IF MEMORY SERVES is the fourth solo hour from “a one-of-a-kind storyteller” that’s earned raves from critics and audiences with “its unmatched blend of pop culture, pathos, and silly queer-assery!” Ciszewski has previously packed raucous, rapt houses in New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Provincetown MA, and New Jersey.
IF MEMORY SERVES is directed by Noah Simes (Sh!t-Faced Shakespeare, The Penumbra Podcast) and produced by Brian Dudley.
