He Stoops to Conquer
Brooklyn sidewalk sage Colin Quinn brings his comic riffs to Broadway
by Denis Hamil

Here comes Colin Quinn, on a visit from his Manhattan exile and national
infamy as "Weekend Update" anchor on "Saturday Night Live," walking along
Prospect Park West. Dressed in jeans and sweater in August, he looks
bewildered, lost, like a local Brooklyn con just home from the joint,
clocking all the changes in his old stamping ground.
"When did they turn Bartell Pritchard Square into a homeless shelter?" asks
Quinn, 39, referring to the winos who warm the benches at the gates of
Windsor Terrace. "And where the hell did the Connecticut Muffin come from?
Bums and yuppies in Windsor Terrace? I was walking up 14th St. looking
around in shock and a Con Ed guy asked if I was lost. Jesus, the Park Slope
we knew got swallowed whole 20 years ago. So, where'd Brooklyn go?"
The answer is, to Broadway.
For the next four weeks, the Brooklyn of the late 1970s that Quinn remembers
will be on stage at the Helen Hayes Theater in his one-man show, "An Irish
Wake."
Colin Quinn takes his act to the Great White Way.

Filled with brilliant observations, shots of Irish cynicism and street
scenes so realistic you'll think you're watching from a top-floor window,
Quinn's show does more than give us a night of nostalgic laughs. He has
preserved for us a vital time in the city's history.
"It's about the old Irish neighborhood, the block, the stoop and mostly the
characters," he says. "About the last days of those neighborhoods where we
were born, raised, played stoopball, lost our virginity, got stoned and hung
out. And eventually left."
To show just what the block means to his world, Quinn introduces a
neighborhood guy who has moved to "The Island" because that's supposed to be
the essence of success.
"Then he comes back to the block to visit and boast and to ask everyone when
they're coming out to visit," Quinn says. "And he looks around and realizes
he misses the block so bad it's killing him, but he just can't admit it. I
tried to capture the humor and the wildness of the Irish-Americans in
Brooklyn back then, and based the show around the seven Catholic sacraments
and the wake of a neighborhood legend named Jackie Ryan."
Ryan's death symbolizes the death of the neighborhood, and, Quinn says, the
show is a tribute to the sense of community he enjoyed growing up, when all
the guys always had a snide little comment to make about everything and
everyone.
"And yet you still looked out for people you didn't even like because they
were from your block," he says. "During the blackout in 1977, everyone went
out on the stoop, and without saying a word it was understood that I got
your back and you got mine, and let's all enjoy this piece of history
together. That time, that era, when the block was everything . . . is gone.
I miss it. I miss the safety and the comfort of it, so I wanted to preserve
it. Because the thing I miss most is how much it made me laugh."
It also made him a standup comic, a TV star and now a Broadway showman.
This morning, we stroll through Park Slope toward 502 First St., where Quinn
once lived.
Sitting on his stoop — his very first stage — Quinn grew up making his
friends laugh with stream-of-consciousness riffs on the passing parade of
life in Brooklyn.
"On the stoop it didn't hurt that everyone in the audience was drinking," he
says. "That never hurt my act. But Broadway? Most times I didn't have enough
money for a token to get there on the subway."
Highs and Lows
But he remembers one of the first times he did standup comedy "onstage" in
Manhattan. He went to The Improv, took a number for open-mike night, then
went to Smith's bar near Times Square to slug a few beers to get the nerve
to perform.
"Then I went around the corner into a vestibule to buy weed off a guy," he
says. "And three ham-faced Irish cops broke through the door and I wound up
in the Times Square substation. I told the cops I was a comedian and due on
stage. The sergeant didn't believe me and told me to do my act.
"I got up and did a 5-minute routine. I bombed! The sergeant said I was a
liar, that I was no comedian. I thought I was going into the system when
another cop came out and said the weed the guy was selling me was oregano so
they were cutting us loose."
Soon after, Quinn quit drinking. For good. And also moved from the stoop to
the stage for good.
In 1994 he put on a variation of "An Irish Wake" (then called "Sanctified
Grace") at the Irish Arts Center. It was a big hit in a limited run.
Then three years ago he auditioned for "Saturday Night Live."
"I bombed again," he says. "But for some reason [producer] Lorne Michaels
took a liking to me and hired me as a writer."
It wasn't long before he was in front of the camera doing such characters as
Joe Blow, Lenny the Lion and the Thank You Guy, all drawn from his Brooklyn
roots.
Last year, in a highly publicized "SNL" shuffle, Michaels replaced Norm
Macdonald with Quinn at the anchor desk of the "Weekend Update" segment.
"Me and Norm are friends," Quinn says. "I didn't want to take his job, but I
told him upfront that if he was leaving, I wanted to be the one who got it.
He was very supportive, a real gentleman about it. We're still good
friends."
His "SNL" connections didn't hurt when it came to bringing "An Irish Wake"
to Broadway. "They all loved it," Quinn said. "Lorne said it belonged on
Broadway. I didn't argue with him when he helped me bring it there."
Does he think anything will be lost in the transition from the stoop to
Broadway?
"Actually, what I've done is I've moved the stoop to Broadway and I'm still
there, with my friends, making snide remarks at the world and having a few
laughs."
Resume
Colin Quinn, 39
Actor, Comedian
Personal
Born in Brooklyn
Single
Got his start doing standup
Credits Include
MTV's "Remote Control" (first TV job)
"Married to the Mob"
"Who's the Man?"
"Three Men and a Baby"
"Celtic Pride" (co-writer)

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