Netflix made its streaming bones in part on the back of stand-up comedy specials. Now the company is looking for a new wave of comedians.
The streamer and Kevin Hart are teaming up for a competition series that will aim to find the next big names in stand-up. The show will feature Hart and a to-be-announced group of fellow comics guiding and judging contestants on, as Netflix describes it, the “rigorous tests that mirror the real-life journey of a comedian — from brutal open mics to bombed sets, rewrites and the pressure of big-stage performances. The competition will give viewers an unvarnished look behind the curtain of comedy’s darkest corners and brightest spotlights with the challenges inspired by comics’ actual career trajectories.”
If that sounds a little (or a lot) like the NBC show Last Comic Standing, well, there are probably only so many ways to structure a competition for stand-up comedians. But the two shows share some producing DNA: Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz, who are executive producers of the Netflix show, were also EPs on some of Last Comic Standing’s early seasons.
Hart will executive produce the Netflix series, which has an eight-episode order, via his Hartbeat banner. Netflix and Hart already have a working relationship via a film and first-look production deal he signed with the streamer in 2021. Lipsitz, Cutforth, Nan Strait and Dan Volpe of Alfred Street Industries also executive produce, as do Hartbeat’s Luke Kelly-Clyne and Meghan Hoffman.