Catie Lazarus, a talent who passed away last month, was not just a “comedian” in the way one might ordinarily define that word. The closest word to accurately describe her could be “host.”
With her live show and podcast “Employee of the Month,” she left a substantive body of work as a light-hearted and light-footed interviewer who improvised witty, quick and sparkling banter with her guests.
“Employee of the Month” developed over a few years before beginning its run as a podcast. Lazarus talked about a previous live talk show she had done, in this 2007 interview. By 2010, the first live version of “Employee of the Month” ran at the 92Y Tribeca venue, with multiple guests. The podcast captured segments from her live shows that ran at increasingly larger venues in New York, along with some taped interviews.
The show ran from October 2011 to November 2017, then returned for another stretch from September 2018 to March 2019. She was first diagnosed with cancer in 2014, so she accomplished a lot of the run of this show while battling it. Yet, as you listen back to some of those episodes, she always exhibited an upbeat, positive tone.
As suggested by the show’s title, “Employee of the Month,” Lazarus focused on aspects of guests’ lives around how they established themselves in their career or their artistic pursuits, including many comedians, writers and actors, but also people from fields outside of arts and entertainment, such as Rachel Maddow, Obama staff member Alyssa Mastromonaco, activists, art curators, scientists, economists and more. Along the way, she uncovered many funny stories and moments, such as “The Wire” creator David Simon’s rebellious high school years, Maddow’s time on a “Morning Zoo” style radio show, and actor Jason Biggs’ fear of Woody Allen finding out he was not Jewish (while making “Anything Else” in 2003).
That upbeat tone Lazarus had helped bring out the silly in her interview subjects, even ones you might expect to be pretty serious personalities. In a December 2016 episode featuring highly respected actor and director John Turturro, Lazarus leads him to share funny memories of James Gandolfini (who he directed in the movie “Romance and Cigarettes”) and the origins of the foot problems his character had in the HBO series “The Night Of.” She also chooses a couple of the more outlandish moments in Turturro’s career to share with the live audience, including a penguin-killing scene from “Four Corners.” That all culminates in a discussion of how Turturro staged and appeared in sex scenes in both the Gandolfini movie and in “The Jesus Rolls,” the movie that revisits Turturro’s character from “The Big Lebowski.” Listen to the episode for yourself – these are funny stories that she brings out of him, and shouldn’t be spoiled.
Other interviewers or podcast hosts may go deeper with guests or be more serious, but Lazarus’ willingness to be corny and showing a sense of whimsy made her shows fun throughout, making them truly entertaining and unique.
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