WGA STRIKE UPDATE: Daily Show Writers Performing Live Benefit

Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Staff Follows in Footsteps of 30 Rock, Saturday Night Live, The Colbert Report

By Alex Weprin -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/14/2008 3:03:00 PM

With the writers’ strike still looming large and their employer back to work on new shows without them, writers for Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart are planning a live benefit, with the proceeds going to the Writers Guild Industry Support Fund.

The performance, being held at Ars Nova in New York, will be a mix of standup, sketches and film shorts and will feature Daily Show co-executive producer Rory Albanese; writers Hallie Haglund, J.R. Havlan, Elliott Kalan, Rob Kutner, Adam Lowitt and Sam Means; and Daily Show correspondent John Oliver.

Daily Show writer Rachel Axler, who is producing the benefit, told Huffington Post’s Rachel Sklar that the show will feature both striking and nonstriking members of the staff and stressed that the funds will be going to non-WGA staffers affected by the strike.

The live performance follows in the footsteps of 30 Rock, Saturday Night Live and The Colbert Report, which all held live versions of their shows with the “On Strike!” moniker at the end at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York.

The benefit, dubbed There Will Be Comedy, is being held at Ars Nova Jan. 22, with tickets going for $20 each. As of press time, there were still tickets available for the performance.

For full coverage of the strike, click here.