Interview: Catching Up With Alex Edelman as He Brings Just For Us to Broadway

I first encountered Alex Edelman and his solo show Just For Us in February 2022 via an archival video I watched at one in the morning with my four-week-old daughter asleep on my chest to prepare for an interview. In the ensuing 16 months, Edelman’s comedy has played multiple off-Broadway runs, ran in Williamstown, Boston, and London, and earned multiple award nominations.

I am still dealing with a sleeping child, typing this one-handed as my now 17-month-old snores away in my arms. Edelman, meanwhile, is bringing his baby to Broadway’s Hudson Theatre beginning tonight for a summertime engagement. We caught up over Zoom to discuss how far he’s come.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Did you ever think, back when we first talked, that we’d be here over a year later with Broadway now entering the equation?
Never. Not in a million, billion years. It’s the craziest, silliest thing for a show like this to get this opportunity. I’m also really pleased by it. I love the show and it’s nice to be able to squeeze as much of the joy out of it as possible.

And also, as someone who loves Broadway, this is a fantasy. The Hudson has insane comedy credentials. It was where Steve Allen did the Tonight Show. Moss Hart did some of his first work there. Comedy Central would tape the Comedy Central Presents half-hour series there. That series made me want to be a comedian. I watched every single one and listened to every single one that was available. Getting to go on stage there and close the loop on my Broadway fandom and my comedy fandom all at once is going to be special. I’m suffused with gratitude and nerves in equal measure.

In your brain, do you see it as a Broadway show?
I didn’t envision it as a Broadway show. I didn’t envision it as anything other than a thing I was doing above a pub. Not to get too technical, but there’s something about a solo show that, when pitched correctly, can swell or shrink to the appropriateness of its space. The volume dictates what it is. This is a show that you can do for 20 people, which it was when I started, it’s a show you can do for 600 people, which is what I did for Williamstown. I did it the other night for 1,600 people in Boston. There’s a moment in the show where everyone gets quiet, and I was thinking, “Will it still be quiet in a room of 1,600 people?” And it was.

Every stage should be enough for you. Shows like this should have that portability that if someone said to me “All you’ve got are yourself and the clothes on your back,” I could still do a version that is decently faithful to the show.

Has the physical text of the show — the jokes, the setups, the storytelling — evolved over the last 17 or so months?
A lot of the big changes happened between December 2021 and March 2022. A few jokes have come out, a few jokes have gone in. Much of what’s been done is to make sure that the runtime of the show stays constant. You pick up jokes and you have to remember to shed them. I have a pretty strict “one in, one out” policy.

And then, in different places…you’d be shocked about how much a game of inches comedy is. A laugh that’s at a level nine in New York might get a laugh that’s at a level four in London. Just because it’s going up in New York doesn’t mean that the audience at the Hudson is going to be the same as the audience at an off-Broadway house. So there will be the process of bits coming out, but the priority will always be momentum for the story and laughter.

How do you keep track of the ins and outs? I know you used to listen to a recording of each show the next day. Do you still do that?
Once every three days. Now we just get a show report, where everything in bold is a line that’s different from how it usually is, and then we have show goals. We still record every show nad listen back if we need to, but for the most part, I would just check the show report with Adam Brace, my director, and then we’d talk about trouble spots. I don’t know what I’m going to do on Broadway.

It must be a bittersweet moment to come to Broadway following Adam’s passing.
He’s such a big part of the show that its hard to talk about process and not talk about the partner in the process. Part of doing the thing on Broadway is it will be nice to elevate this show that we worked on together to a place where this kind of feels like…I’m looking for a term that’s not like victory lap. Broadway is such a hard thing, and it’s not a thing where you can take your eye off the ball even for a second. But it’s a real celebration. I worked on this show with my best friend for five years, from 2018 until now, and this is sort of the end of our process. We will keep working on the show and there’ll be those detailed show reports and I’ll listen to the show once a week and finesse the trouble spots as they arise, because the show hasn’t stopped changing. The show has never been easy because solo shows are never easy. They’re never perfect all the way through. It won’t be easy on Broadway,  but this will be a nice culmination of the process.