Please Don’t Destroy spent four seasons writing and performing viral digital shorts for Saturday Night Live, and if the sold-out August stop at The Pageant in St. Louis is any indication, the trio lands just as hard in person.
About the Show
Martin Herlihy, Ben Marshall, and John Higgins bring an hour of live sketch comedy to Asbury Hall at Babeville on Saturday, September 12. Buffalo is the last stop on a six-city summer tour that kicked off in Providence in June.
The group’s origin story is well-worn by now: they met as NYU students in 2017, started posting sketches online, built an audience during the pandemic, and joined Saturday Night Live as writers in 2021. Over Seasons 47 through 50, they produced 39 digital shorts for the show, developing a reputation for fast-paced, absurdist short films. The Hollywood Reporter named them one of the 50 most influential people in comedy and called them SNL’s “viral weapon”; Forbes included them on its 2023 Under 30 list.
Since stepping back from SNL as a producing unit, the trio has moved fast. Their debut feature film, Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain (directed by Paul Briganti, produced by Judd Apatow and Jimmy Miller, featuring Conan O’Brien, Bowen Yang, and Meg Stalter), is available on Prime Video. Two more films are in development at major studios. They also run a monthly improv series, Please Don’t Birbiglia, with comedian Mike Birbiglia at New York’s Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre.
The post-SNL picture looks different for each member: Higgins departed the writing staff, Marshall was promoted to SNL’s featured player roster (the first of the three to join the main cast), and Herlihy has remained a writer. The live tour is where all three converge.
Venue & Logistics
Asbury Hall at Babeville is a historic music hall on Delaware Avenue in Buffalo. Doors are at 6 p.m., show at 7 p.m.; this is an 18-and-older event and no support acts are listed. More shows across the region are in the western New York calendar.
Tickets
General Admission Standing is $35; Limited Reserved Gold Circle Seating is $45. Tickets are available through the link below or at the Babeville Box Office (Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; cash purchases are fee-free, credit and debit card purchases carry a 3% fee). Buy tickets