Netflix Comedy Chief Tracey Pakosta On Netflix Is A Joke Festival, Multicamera Conundrum & Laughter Pipeline
deadline.comIt’s been a tough few weeks for Netflix. The streamer lost subscribers for the first time in over a decade and its market value took a battering, losing over $50 billion in one day after its disappointing first quarter earnings.Laughter, they say, is the best medicine and the streamer will have plenty of those over the next ten days as it gets ready to launch its Netflix Is A Joke festival, a major statement of intent to the comedy community that will see over 330 comedians take to the stage at 288 live shows across Los Angeles with 250,000 tickets sold.The company has put together a wild collection of jokers – two years on from when it was originally scheduled and subsequently pulled because of the pandemic.There are those that you’d expect to be at such an event, from Adam Sandler, Aziz Ansari and Kevin Hart.
There are those that are coming in pretty hot such as recent Oscars host Amy Schumer and The Closer’s Dave Chappelle and the possibility of a show from Chris Rock.There’s the likes of Gabriel Iglesias, who has become the first standup comedian to play Dodger stadium and will host the largest Netflix comedy special taping ever, and Taylor Tomlinson, who has broken through with her latest special Look At You.
Then there’s those that presumably Netflix would love to work with in other capacities such as Larry David and Conan O’Brien.Netflix’s head of comedy Tracey Pakosta, in a wide-ranging interview with Deadline, says that the festival gives the streamer a chance to flex its comic chops. “The festival is truly a celebration of comedy.
Only Netflix could do something like that and elevate these voices in that big of a way,” she says. “I get to see how all of these muscles are flexed and also how excited the talent
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