#BRIDGET EVERETT NEW YORKER SERIES#

Hiller quipped about finding his own version of Choir Practice - in the “pre-internet, but just barely” days - as a college student in his home state of Texas. “It was more the representation of what I dreamed it could be and can be, and maybe what it is and I just don’t know it.” It’s sort of this world of misfits that find each other and give each other a sense of place,” she said. “It’s meant for queer people and people that feel like they don’t fit in. She and the show creators conjured up a kind of aspirational home for Manhattan’s queer residents and anyone part of that tribe by nature of being an outsider. But there’s a gay community,” Everett said of the inspiration for Choir Practice. There’s not even a gay night at a bar, as far as I know. Led by the charismatic M.C., Fred Rococo (played by drag king Murray Hill), the open mic is a romping celebration of queerness and individuality, secretly taking place in a mall church, right in the heart of the buttoned-up hometown.Ĭhoir Practice offers Sam a lifeline and the audience a glimmer of hope on her behalf: Maybe life in Kansas doesn’t have to be that bad, after all. Still enamored with Sam’s singing from their student days, Joel pushes her to take part in a local underground night of entertainment, called Choir Practice. That’s pretty much the state of things until Sam is befriended by her co-worker Joel (Jeff Hiller), a former high school classmate and fellow show choir enthusiast. Her mother, father and surviving sister - played with a skillful combination of tragedy and comedy by Jane Brody, Mike Hagerty and Mary Catherine Garrison - are too busy avoiding their grief, and a whole host of other problems, to offer Sam solace.

No longer a caretaker, she spends most of her time looking despondent, sleeping on the couch in Holly’s empty home and working at a drab local testing center. In “Somebody Somewhere,” Sam Miller (Everett) is in a state of limbo after having moved back to her hometown of Manhattan, Kansas, to care for her dying sister and best friend, Holly, who has since succumbed to cancer.

#BRIDGET EVERETT NEW YORKER SERIES#

Billed as a “coming-of-middle-age story,” the series is chock-full of existential dread, nostalgia and comic relief, perfectly suited to what has been a disorienting, sometimes laughable time warp of the past two years. While it may be hard to imagine the larger-than-life performer ever losing her voice, her candidness - combined with wit, self-deprecation and, of course, talent - is part of what makes her, and the show, so charming. “Losing your voice, feeling like you’re rudderless through life, giving up on yourself - those are all things that hit close to the bone,” Everett told NBC News. While the show is fictionalized, she said the themes - including the loss of her sister Briton to cancer - pull from her upbringing. She has been developing “Somebody Somewhere,” along with co-producer Carolyn Strauss, since series creators Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen pitched her the idea in 2018. And in recent years, she’s charmed the rest of the country in small and big screen roles, on comedy series such as Comedy Central’s “Inside Amy Schumer” and HBO’s “Camping,” as well as a dramatic turn in the Sundance hit “Patti Cake$.” If you’re somebody who feels like you’re a little too much or you’re a little too big - and you never fit the hometown mold - what would it be like to go home?” she said of signing on to do the HBO series.Įverett, 49, has long been a fixture of Manhattan’s nightclub scene, making a name for herself by performing alt-cabaret and raunchy original songs at iconic institutions like Joe’s Pub. “I thought it was really interesting to think about what it might be like for somebody like Bridget Everett who doesn’t go to New York but stays home. Alongside a talented ensemble cast, she gives a convincing portrayal of someone who is saved from floundering by a town that never felt like home and, in the process, challenges notions of belonging - to a particular place or a version of themselves.

From New York’s nightlife scene to HBO, Bridget Everett has traversed genres to win audiences over to her irreverent, heartfelt brand of comedy.Īs the inspiration for and the star of the new series “Somebody Somewhere,” she plays Sam, a fictionalized version of herself still living in her Kansas hometown.

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