Steven Wright

Comedian Steven Wright’s self-penned biography on his website is as follows: “I was born. When I was 23 I started telling jokes. Then I started going on television and doing films. That’s still what I am doing. The end.” That deadpan terseness is de rigueur for Wright, who burst onto the mainstream from the Boston comedy scene in the ’80s when a booker for The Tonight Show happened to be in the audience while taking his college-age kids for a look at the universities in town. That same unexpected serendipity carries over into Wright’s material, which pairs laconic one-liners with surreal concepts.

Updated 05/07/2009