Kevin Allison Biography

Kevin Allison creator and host of RISK! started his comedy career on the legendary sketch series The State on MTV. But in 2009 everything changed. “I was doing a solo show out West playing characters as usual” he says. “Afterward Michael Ian Black [also of The State] said ‘I kept hoping you’d drop the act and tell some of your own stories.’ I said ‘Yikes that just seems so risky…’ But even as I said it I could feel in my gut that that kind of risk could lead to the best stuff.”
The very next week Kevin was on stage telling his own stories. “Suddenly I was looking right into the eyes of audience members. We were reacting to each other like friends. After the show people didn’t just say ‘That was funny’ they said ‘Thank you. That really got to me.’ I was finding the meaning in my own experiences and the people listening felt like they’d lived through these things with me. The more I worried I was taking a risk with a story – because it was too emotional too provocative or just too nuts – the more the audience lit up.”
In August of 2009 host Kevin and producer Michelle Walson started the live show RISK! “where people tell true stories they never thought they’d dare to share in public” at Arlene’s Grocery on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It was an instant hit. Stories ran the gamut from the sacred to the profane the hilarious to the horrific – and for the audience it was a chance to re-connect with the things that make us human. It’s still just about the most cathartic laugh-out-loud anything-goes kind of smorgasbord you’re likely to see anywhere. The monthly event winner of the 2009 ECNY Award for Best Variety Show now lives at The Peoples Improv Theater off of Park Avenue on East 24th Street.

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