Comedian hosts comedy show in metro Atlanta funeral home

By Amanda Rose

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    ATLANTA, Georgia (WANF) — Death and laughter are things you normally wouldn’t think of together.

However, for Brooklyn comedian Ben Wasserman, it’s the subject of his latest nationwide tour coming to metro Atlanta on Thursday night.

“When I started doing comedy about losing people, I realized my audiences really gravitated towards that and connected with it. That they were not only laughing, but they felt something a little bit more emotional,” said Wasserman.

The unusual idea was inspired by Wasserman’s own brush with death. He lost seven people he loved in the span of three years.

“And it just naturally bled into what I was doing on stage,” he said.

And what better place to host a comedy show about death than in cemeteries and funeral homes?

Wasserman’s next stop is at Fischer Funeral Care in Chamblee, where laughter is more common than you’d think.

“Many times, families will start sharing their personal stories with us and those personal stories bring out laughter and that laughter brings healing,” said Robbie Rosier, manager at Fischer Funeral Care.

Wasserman said his show also provides time for the audience to share their own experiences with loss, something he calls “a group therapy session.”

“We have frank and honest conversations about these intimate, vulnerable moments of our lives,” said Wasserman.

Of course, Wasserman’s goal is to make his audience laugh.

And perhaps through laughter comes acceptance of our own mortality and with it, peace.

“I think even if it’s at a comedy show if people were aware and more comfortable talking about their own death and the death that they’ve experienced, we’d probably be in a better place while we’re still living,” Wasserman said.

Doors open at 7 p.m. on Thursday.

This is the comedian’s second stop on his tour at funeral homes and cemeteries across the country.

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