BIO
Dave Maher is a decade-plus veteran of Chicago’s comedy and theater scenes. His candid and mischievous one-man shows blend standup, improvisation, theater, storytelling, and performance art. He has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe and Steppenwolf Theatre as well as in theaters, bars, and DIY venues around the world.
Dave’s shows include Dave Maher Coma Show—a narrative standup show about waking up from a monthlong coma to read the eulogies friends wrote about him on Facebook—and Feed Wolf Ice Cream, a comedy show set in the afterlife. He told the story of his coma on “This American Life” and wrote about the experience in a series of articles called “The Month I Died.”
Gapers Block called Dave a “smartly unhinged, wildly funny comedian with a big heart and warm smile,” and Newcity named him one of its “Fifty People Who Really Perform for Chicago.” He also snagged features in The Guardian, Chicago Tribune, and Chicago Reader, who wrote, “I’d watch Maher do just about anything.”
Dave works as an actor (FX's The Bear), voice artist, audio description writer, and teacher of storytelling and creative practice at the Annoyance Theatre.
WHAT I MAKE
I produce a podcast called This Is Your Afterlife that has been my main creative outlet for the past 2+ years. I love it. I also write a newsletter called Definitive Answers. Live shows are my main project, but they've been dormant. And maybe podcasting is the direction I head going forward? But I can't give up performance yet.
INSPIRED BY
-Horror movies: Flux Gourmet, John Carpenter's Apocalypse trilogy, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, The Purges, Ravenous (1999)
-"Environments" albums, a series of augmented field recordings that sparked the popular interest in "nature sounds"
-"Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072"
-"The Listening Book" by W.A. Mathieu
-Abolitionist, anarchist, and disability justice literature
-Ambient/experimental/jazz music
EXPLORING:
CD shopping, reading, watching movies and TV, Survivor, podcasting