Jeff Ross takes the audience on a sentimental journey that is ‘funny as hell.’ (Photo: Emilio Madrid)
Jeff Ross has a superpower. The Roastmaster extraordinaire, famous for ripping into everyone from Bea Arthur to Tom Brady, is demonstrating his X-factor in his new Broadway show, Take a Banana for the Ride.
“I do a trick without realizing it, which is always considering, ‘What is the most inappropriate thing I can say at any given time to make someone smile?’” he explained before a recent performance about how he constructed his music-infused memoir/standup.
The New Jersey-born Ross took the title of his play from travel advice given to him by his grandfather, who would see a younger Ross off on the bus when he would venture to gigs in the New York comedy scene.
The advice becomes especially poignant by the end of the 90-minute performance, as Ross explores everything from losing both of his parents by the time he had turned 19; contracting alopecia and treatment for colon cancer (the experience left him with a “semicolon,” he jibes).
He also noes the passing of friends Gilbert Gottfried, Norm Macdonald, and Bob Saget and the joy and heartbreak of sharing life with rescue dogs.
Jeff Ross draws from life for his show ‘Take a Banana for the Ride.’ (Photo: Robyn Von Swank)
Ross spoke with The New York Independent about the creation of the show, becoming a bona fide Broadway star, and what no one would guess he sings in the shower.
The New York Independent: How do you walk the line on which you make people laugh while crying?
Jeff Ross: It’s how I talk, so it’s not that hard for me. When I’m sad I try to think of punchlines. It’s almost like a mental mind trick to get through a situation to break the tension or ease people’s pain. It’s not something I’m conscious of; instead, it’s actually something I’ve noticed because people tell me I do it. I say the things that we are all thinking without saying.
NYI: One person shows can be tricky to pull off. What advice were you given about being on Broadway, specifically?
Ross: One piece of advice that the great Billy Crystal gave me was that I’d be surprised how much I liked doing the show. His show, 700 Sundays, is similarly emotional. I’m an actor up there playing a role, but it’s me. I don’t get to leave it in the dressing room the way any other Broadway actor does. I take the character home with me, out to dinner, into the shower. It’s a 24-hour role, and it’s intense.
I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to sustain it. I tried a version of this show thirty years ago, but I couldn’t sustain it emotionally. It’s only now with more life experience and perhaps thicker skin that I’m able to do it eight times a week. It actually invigorates me. Billy warned me that would happen. I was surprised and relieved to see that he was right.
NYI: You have said you first put pen to paper for Take a Banana for the Ride prior to being the Roastmaster General. Why did you take the leap and begin telling your story?
Ross: Thirty years ago, I wasn’t really making it as a standup. I was trying to find my voice. I started telling stories from my life on my off nights at these storytelling shows. I was encouraged to start to sew them together. I put them up in a half hour show and then a whole hour about my parents and grandfather together. I saw the potential in it right away. I didn’t have the strength to keep it going, so it just kind of simmered in the back of my mind all these years. Now I have more stories to tell, songs to sing, a dog to talk about. It came together somehow!
NYI: This is so different from standup because Banana has a beautiful, poignant story.
Ross: It was difficult. I was always able to separate comedy from my own story, but I hadn’t done them much together. Sewing it all together was challenging, but making it feel like a night out on Broadway, a “real play,” if you will, was also a challenge. Sometimes you go to a serious play and it’s over in 70 minutes, and you’re like, “The engine’s still hot in my car.” I wanted Banana to feel like a full meal and a night out. As the son of a caterer, it was important to have the customers leave satisfied.
NYI: People might be surprised to hear about your progression from Roastmaster to Broadway star. How does one career lend itself to the other?
Ross: The challenge was marrying the two and using what people know about me to present something new. I’ve been doing this for a while. If you don’t change it up and surprise people, you fade. You become predictable and boring. I keep people on their toes because they never know when the next joke is going to detonate. At a certain point you trust me that it’s coming!
Jeff Ross howls with the best of them in his Broadway show ‘Take a Banana for the Ride.’ (Photo: Emilo Madrid)
NYI: You include what are arguably the most important ingredients for success in a Broadway show: music and Jewish humor. Why did you decide to include the music?
The Jews have to come to the show, and musical people have to come out too! I always want to give a nod to the great comics who came before me and they would always have a little song to break it up. I was like, “If I’m ever going to do it, this is the time!” After all, I’m on Broadway! I love working with music on stage anyway, even if it’s just underscored. It’s almost like living in Broadway fantasy camp every time I sing on the Nederlander stage, even though I don’t hit any of the right notes. I told Idina Menzel that I was going to be singing in the show. Her head turned and she said, “On key?” I said, “No.” You can criticize my singing. I won’t be hurt.
NYI: You have said that you love comedians, but you also love musicians. Are you a closeted Broadway musical nerd?
Ross: The secret’s out because I’ve been dreaming about this kind of show since I was a little kid. We lived in New Jersey, but when my mom was sick, she was in the hospital in New York. My dad would take me to see her there. To make the long trips to visit her a bit more pleasant he would take us to Broadway shows after the hospital visits. I remember seeing The King and I, Fiddler, Annie, and Oliver. I still love going to shows. I remember my parents having an 8-track to Man of La Mancha; I listen to that music every time I’m about to go on stage as my warm-up. It’s so good!
NYI: What would we find you singing in the shower?
Ross: “I am I, Don Quixote, The Lord of LaMancha…” I know every word of it.
NYI: Which moments in Banana bring you the most joy?
Ross: I do a song towards the end about my dog, Nana, on her deathbed in the vet’s office. People think it’s a sad song when I describe it, but when I sing it, I feel a lot of joy that I’m still keeping her spirit alive and celebrating the gift she gave me keeping me company through the pandemic. It’s very cathartic to me.
NYI: Are any parts of the show difficult emotionally?
Ross: No, I had to promise myself that I wouldn’t put anything in there that was too heavy that I couldn’t get through it. It flies by for me. Some of it is emotional, like reading my parents’ love letters and reading the letter that my dad wrote to me when I graduated from high school. I feel an obligation to do it because there’s a lot of father-son pairs coming to the show and they get a lot out of it. I think it melts the ice for a lot of people as they relate it to their own lives. It gives people something to talk about on the ride home while they’re eating their bananas.
NYI: What have you learned about yourself through writing the show and performing it?
Ross: I learned that I’m tougher than I used to be, and that audiences will go with me on a journey, even if they don’t know exactly where it’s going. They trust me as a storyteller and as a performer. I feel like I’m still learning every time I do the show. It’s always evolving and getting funnier every night.
NYI: Your dog Nipsy joins you on stage each night. How has she taken to becoming Broadway’s next big starlet?
Ross: She’s very into going to work. If I tell her we’re going to work, she starts doing somersaults. She really likes going to the theatre, having her own dressing room, and having her moment in front of the crowd.
NYI: What do you most want people to take away from the show, aside from the bananas they are gifted as they leave?
Ross: I want them to feel like they have a little more courage afterwards with whatever happens to them. I want them to feel fortified and prepared for whatever’s next in their lives.
For tickets to Jeff Ross: Take a Banana for the Ride, visit jeffrossbroadway.com. The show is now playing at the Nederlander Theatre, 208 W. 41st Street, New York, through September 28.