David Sedaris has spent more than three decades finding the joke that everyone else was too polite to name — the small family humiliations, the social absurdities, the moments that are “equal parts hilarious and painfully true.” His Summer/Fall Tour stops at the Paramount Theatre in Rutland on Tuesday, October 6, and the draw here is specific: he is bringing all new, unpublished stories and commentary. Not a greatest-hits reading. New work.
That new material follows The Land and Its People, his most recent essay collection, which casts him as devout brother, itinerant traveler, grieving friend, and reluctant caretaker. It is the kind of Sedaris where the personal gets universal, and the universal finds its way back to something a little absurd.
About the Show
Sedaris is one of America’s best-selling humorists, a social satirist and regular contributor to The New Yorker and BBC Radio 4. He has been writing about the absurdities of modern life and sharing it in front of live audiences for more than three decades. His books include Me Talk Pretty One Day; Calypso, a Washington Post Best Book of the Year; When You Are Engulfed in Flames; Happy-Go-Lucky; and more than a dozen others — translated into 32 languages with over 16 million copies in print. He has received five Grammy nominations and has won the Terry Southern Prize for Humor, the Thurber Prize for American Humor, and the Jonathan Swift International Literature Prize for Satire and Humor. His audiobook narration of Happy-Go-Lucky won the 2023 Audie Award. In 2019, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Pre- and post-show book signings are included with admission. Phoenix Books will have a selection of Sedaris titles available for purchase before and after the performance, which makes this one of those evenings where leaving empty-handed feels like a missed opportunity.
Venue & Logistics
The Paramount Theatre is a historic theater in downtown Rutland, Vermont. At 838 seats, it is one of the more intimate rooms on a tour that also hits Kings Theatre in Brooklyn and War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco. For anyone making the trip from central or northern New York, Rutland is a natural road-trip destination in the north-country region. Lobby doors open at 6:30 p.m. and seating begins at 7 p.m.
Tickets
Tickets are $36.50 and $46.50, plus tax and fees. Tickets are on sale now. Buy tickets