Alex Edelman went from rising comic to summertime Broadway staple

The journey to Broadway for a stand-up comedian usually involves years of fame and success - it's not exactly where you make your escape. Yet that's exactly the path Alex Edelman found himself on, as his show "Just for Us" moved from Broadway in 2021 to the Hudson Theater for a limited eight-week run this summer.

The 34-year-old Boston native has quickly become one of the hottest emerging artists comedy staples, with its show drawing celebrity audiences from Ben Stiller and Jerry Seinfeld to Steve Martin and Billy Crystal.

The show centers around what happened when Edelman, who is Jewish, decided to attending a meeting of white nationalists in Queens, New York after reading about it on Twitter. In telling the story, he relies heavily on his upbringing in a modern Orthodox Jewish family in Massachusetts and relates various family stories. His family, understandably, were on hand for the opening night of the Broadway show - 'the craziest night of my life' - and although they had heard the material before, performing in front of them as they sat in the midst of celebrities has taken on new meaning.

"They were sitting within sight, so it was the first time I've seen them during that I was making jokes about them," Edelman said on Zoom from the back of an Uber en route to the theater one recent evening. "It was really surreal: imagine making jokes about your family in front of your family — who was laughing, thank God - and also, like, Oscar Isaac. Imagine how weird that is. It's literally like a weird dream you'd be having. Like looking down and checking that you weren't in underwear."

Alex Edelman in "Just for Us".

Edelman conceived the show in 2018 and it has seen several expansions around downtown theaters in New York from 2021 before he learned of the Broadway opportunity, for which he was initially hesitant.

"I don't know, maybe I had a narrower conception of what is Broadway than what it actually is. Broadway feels like it's for 'Funny Girl,'" he says. hipness of Broadway audiences. For example, Broadway audiences are much more interested and interesting than I thought they were going to be. I always thought, 'Oh, this is a downtown show.'

He also had to accept that Broadway was within reach at this point in his career.

"Who am I to go to Broadway?" Edelman said. "I think to myself, how many times does a comedian get to go to Broadway? It's extremely rare. It's so sweet. I love it so much. It's so much fun."

Despite the impostor syndrome, Edelman makes sure to make it fun for himself. Each night...