A Night at Radio City Music Hall
A shooter on the loose, a new comedy special, and the fraught journey of NYC's longest Banh Mi. Ronny Chieng's "Love To Hate It" tour kicked off with several bangs.
February 8, 2024
Radio City Music Hall,
New York, NY
Part 1: “There’s a shooter on the loose downstairs.”
Tommy Russo popped his head into the green room and shared the news as calmly as a Tour Manager can, “Just letting you know, NYPD is locking down 6th Avenue. They haven't caught him yet.”
“Oh, shit… I’ll check Citizen.” Ronny stood up, buttoning his suit jacket as Tommy disappeared down the hallway. He pulled out his phone to discover that shots were fired at a store around Times Square. (We’d later learn they’d chased the guy towards 51st, losing him right outside Radio City Music Hall.)
At that moment, nearly 6000 audience members were being loaded into the sold-out theatre as the police locked down and taped off the entire block. Something unheard of in midtown at peak hour.
Ronny’s wife, Hannah, started ‘checking the scan’ to see how they were progressing in getting people inside the building safely. It was good news— nearly everyone was already loaded in. The security checkpoints were operating smoothly, and we could even start on time. It felt like a very New York response to potential danger: "Sure, there might be an armed suspect in the area, but I paid full price for these fuckin’ orchestra seats!"
As Hannah looked up from her phone, a tall man in a charcoal hoodie appeared in the doorway. He pulled the hood back as he walked into the room, his driver trailing him, “Wait, shots fired in midtown?” Ronny turned with a big smile to see that it was his old friend, Trevor Noah: tonight’s surprise guest opener for the show. He’d just come in through the stage door on 51st, oblivious to the seriousness of the incident unfolding nearby.
“I love that the thing you’re shocked about is that it’s Midtown,” Ronny said. Trevor greeted everybody in the room with a big smile as I sneakily drew a caricature of him in the sketchbook Ronny had gifted me a minute earlier. Only Ronny Chieng would think of bringing gifts for other people at his show. This is something you get used to with him.
Trevor had been driven straight from the airport and escorted up through the stage door by Mikala, the co-tour manager. Ronny was happy and relieved he’d made it, “Hey, thanks for doing this, man. I really—” Trevor jumped in, grinning. "Anything for Ronny Chieng." Ronny continued, "—Because, you know, when I asked you about this months ago, I was like, you know I never ask you for anything." Trevor laughed, "I know, you've never asked me for anything. So, when you do ask—” he looked at Esther and Hannah on the couch and pointed at Ronny “—when Ronny Chieng asks, you oblige.”
I’ve known Ronny since we were both doing bar shows and festivals back in Melbourne. We first met 13 years ago, right before we’d both moved to New York. We didn’t know each other very well back then, but I do remember him being the hardest-working young comic I knew. It made me feel lazier than a sloth on edibles. Nothing has changed. It’s been remarkable to see how far he’s come in the past decade.
Marcus Russell Price was quietly perched in the corner, snapping candids before Trevor disappeared to his own green room. Aussie opening act Aaron Chen joined the group as Marcus sat on the dressing station and propped his camera in front of Ronny. He was clicking through some video of the marquee he’d shot downstairs moments earlier. That night, he was to be the official videographer. He wore shiny shoes and a beat-up vintage leather jacket. The left shoulder was torn, making it look like it survived a Hell’s Angels bar brawl. Easily one of the best-dressed comedy photographers in New York.
The streets below began filling with an army of police cars and SWAT tanks, sirens blaring, the blue and red flashing lights seeping through the Venetian blinds. At this stage, we still didn’t know what was going on down there, but we had to assume everything would proceed as normal unless the police stepped in to tell us otherwise. People began posting Instagram stories of the scenes on the street below.
I continued scribbling away on my sketchbook as the clock counted down to curtain time. A screen in the corner of the room showed the enormous curtain in front of thousands of heads in the audience bopping to the sweet pre-show beats of DJ Poon.
Aaron was in typically calm spirits despite the surreal reality that, despite only recently moving to New York from Sydney, he was about to perform to a sold-out crowd at the most iconic theatre in America. The level of zen calm the man exhibited was impressive. I would have been rocking on the ground in the fetal position, sweating uncontrollably and humming the theme from Curb.
Hannah came over to sit on Ronny’s lap as they both talked shop with Marcus and plotted out coming dates for the tour. These two are a comedy dream team. The amount of work and effort that went into making Love To Hate It such a success is immeasurable, and it’s in no small part due to Hannah. Astonishingly, they manage to maintain a healthy marriage amid the litany of disasters that can (and do) unfold on a year-long international tour. They’re the two most impressive people I’ve ever met.
She sent a quick text to Saigon Social chef Helen Nguyen— confirming that the world’s longest Bahn Mi roll had made it safely into the building. This thing had made a fraught journey from the Lower East Side and, by some culinary science-defying magic, remained in one perfect piece the entire way to Midtown. It was being kept at the perfect temperature for the duration of the show, ready for everyone to scarf down during the post-show eat-and-greet.
These are the kinds of small miracles that are pulled off nightly by the tight-knit tour team as they’ve travelled from city to city, entertaining audiences and bringing local artists and business owners along for the ride.
The tour’s Associate Producer, Fawn Sullivan, looked up from her phone and reported that nearly everyone was loaded in, and we were ten minutes to curtain. It was time to go down for the show.
As we shuffled down the hallway towards the elevator, we passed a stack of McDonald’s big enough to give RFK Jr an aneurysm. Ronny pointed at it and said, “You should eat some nuggets before they go cold. Take some home.” Just as I reached for a cheeky little chicken nuggie, one of the photographers stopped me in my tracks— “Wait… Chatfield?” I took a minute to register who he was. My eyes popped out of my head as I realised the man saving me from potential food poisoning was Phil Provencio, one of the best comedy photographers in New York City—the man who took my first comedy headshots in New York nearly 10 years ago.
We chatted away, quickly catching up on a decade of gigs as the elevator descended to stage level. He told me this was his first time shooting at Radio City Music Hall. We walked along the steel gangway, past giant rows of black scaffolding connected to intricate pulleys and ropes, eventually arriving at the side of the stage. Aaron stood calmly in his Snoopy t-shirt and baggy black jeans as the tech staff did one last curtain test.
I receded into the shadows, propping myself against a railing and sketching the show from the side of the stage.
Ronny leant into the god mic and announced Aaron, who went on to crush his set. It was nice to see Trevor watching his set and laughing —comics aren’t an easy laugh at the best of times. LA Comic Andrea Jin and John Oliver were the guest openers for the January show.
It wasn’t long before a deafening roar welcomed Trevor to the stage. Ronny introduced him as a ‘struggling newcomer who’s just finding his feet in comedy after recently becoming unemployed.’ Trevor did a great bit about Martin Luther King and terrible white food that set the table perfectly for the rest of the show.
The moment had finally arrived: Ronny took a deep breath, adjusted his suit jacket, and walked on stage as the curtain rose to the 1970 Curtis Mayfield hit, “Move On Up.” (If you know anything about me, you know why this song is a particularly deep cut.)
The sketches were pretty rough, on account of my drawing them in the dark and using a backstage monitor for reference, but they show some of the poses that have become iconic to Ronny’s stage persona— the foot against the foldback speaker is a particular favourite.
Ronny got off stage after an energetic hour of comedy, and we all enjoyed the shit out of the world’s longest Banh Mi with a crowd of satisfied fans and friends at the after-party.
The police eventually arrested the gunman nearby about midway through the show. He turned out to be a 15-year-old Venezuelan kid trying to rob a sports store. He’d shot a Brazilian tourist in the leg. (She survived.)
Never a dull moment in New York.
This 84-show tour…
…named “Love To Hate It”, ended up spanning multiple continents over the past 12 months. It’s now permanently committed to film as a Netflix comedy special you can watch today. It was just officially named the Best Comedy Special of 2024 by the New York Times.
On the nights I watched it live, I’d noticed how much Ronny had been tweaking and improving the material. The show morphed and changed slightly each night, with syllables delivered differently, hand gestures and body postures being worked out, and very slight changes in timing to the delivery of certain jokes. Filling a theatre stage with one human body is a lot more challenging than just filling a riser at a comedy club.
Ronny is a student of comedy and a committed craftsman who fleshes good ideas into hilarious bits. (he would vomit at me saying any of this earnest bullshit, but it’s true. His success is no accident.)
LOVE TO HATE IT premiered this week. Click to add to your Netflix list.
(👇 Click to view video )
October 22, 2023
The Comedy Cellar,
Greenwich Village, NY
Part 2: It always begins at the Cellar.
When Ronny first asked me to illustrate the t-shirt and theatre screen artwork for these Radio City shows, we were sitting at the Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village. It was a cloudy Sunday night in October of 2023, and true to form, he couldn’t sit still until he’d made sure everyone at the table had everything they needed— cocktails, chicken over rice, enough water— he’s like a buzzing luncheon host the minute people are sitting down.
We talked about the various design options for the shirt, and the elements of Radio City he wanted to have included in the art. He continued getting up throughout the conversation to make sure everyone had enough to eat.
“Relax, Ronny. We’re fine,” Ryan Reiss said before busting my balls about my terrible glasses. Ronny had just done a set at the Village Underground and the Fat Black Pussycat (both Comedy Cellar venues), building out his new ‘egg freezing’ bit, then coming up to the table and hand-writing tweaks and tags in his tiny notebook. He worked hard on this hour, one set at a time, taking 2 years between specials to build it out slowly. He was about to go downstairs for his spot on the 10pm show.
I followed him down to peek at the set from the stairwell door. He was working on the bit about having to race from home to the hospital in a cab to make a ‘delivery’ because he couldn’t ‘go’ in the doctor’s office, which he called the “Medical Jerking-Off Room”. He added little pieces to the set-up and changed the pacing of the punchline when he blows up, yelling, “Sorraaaaaay! Ok? Sorry for not being a pervert who can just jerk off in a hospital on demand! Sorry for not being a sex offender who can just jerk off as people are dying above and below meeee. Sorraaaay!” — he waved his arms around and bent over as he landed each line. The audience was dying laughing. He left a pause, holding the same expression as a second wave of laughs rippled around the room. The bit grew into the chunk that he now opens the special with.
Related Post:
Sketchbook: Overheard at the Comedy Cellar
The New Yorker has been sending their cartoonists out into the city.
They’ve been instructed to “Eavesdraw” its inhabitants and publish their findings in their collection “Overheard in New York”. I perched myself at the Comedy Cellar & Olive Tree Café in Greenwich Village —my favourite place in all of New York— over the course of two months and scribbled down what I saw... and overheard. Verbatim.
There was a tiny moment in the bit when he compared the eggs to sprinkling salmon roe like Salt Bae as he made the swan-shaped arm pose from the viral steakhouse owner. When he came upstairs, I offered a tag, saying he could add, “—It’s like making little Salt Bae-bies”. He snorted and wrote it down. I figured he was humouring me because, rightly, he hates puns. I never saw him try it the first couple of times I saw the hour. A full year later, I was sitting in the audience watching his Beacon Theatre performance when he snuck in the tag. It got a nice pop! I was chuffed.
He asked me to create the artwork for that show, also— it was projected onto a giant screen on the stage before the show. I also did the art for his show at the iconic Chicago Theatre. Each time he had a lot of input into the artwork and design. He’s a good art director to work with because he has strong opinions. On everything.
His performances only ever got better and better as the tour progressed. It was already good in January, but every beat of the show had improved between January and October. By the time he shot the special in Hawai’i, it was tighter than my therapist's schedule after the election.
I’m lucky to have been a very small part of this epic tour and grateful to Ronny and Hannah for bringing me into their world for these special moments. I’m proud of them both and excited for you to see the hour without tearing up at the end.
I’m not spoiling anything by telling you Ronny closes the show with a very personal story. He and I both lost our dads recently. He and Hannah were two of the people that really helped me process it all at the time. They knew what it was like to be on the other side of the world when it happened. Ronny had a running joke about my dad that still makes me laugh whenever I think of him.
When he delivered the final line at the first show at Radio City in January, I kind of lost it. The screen showed the last thing on his dad’s phone wallpaper as the curtain came down and Jackie Wilson’s “Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher And Higher” played. I wept like a fucking baby.
You’ll see for yourself at the end of the special (which is actually, for once, something special.)
So cool to read your behind the scenes write-up and your personal connection to Ronny and Hannah. Thanks for sharing!
Your posts often make me feel like I'm sitting there backstage, too. Awesome photo by Marcus Russell Price there at the top, it almost looks staged! (with you as the villainous cartoonist eyeing his prey). That sketch of Trevor Noah is spot on. Thanks again for a great post!