started out as a stand-up comedian[2] and studied at Trinity Rep Conservatory in Providence before moving to New York City in 1988 to self-produce and perform in his own plays.
[4] He first began to attract notice in 1998[5][6] as one of a number of Lower East Side “performance comedians” colloquially known as Art Stars, working at alternative night clubs and theatres such as Surf Reality, Collective Unconscious, and The Present Company.
began contributing features and reviews to the Village Voice,[8] Time Out New York,[9] and American Theatre (where he was an Affiliated Writing Fellow in 2001, leading the magazine's September 11 coverage).
launched the arts and culture blog Travalanche, which features thousands of biographies of vaudeville, burlesque, circus, sideshow, cinema, and radio performers and other show business professionals, as well as related news, reviews, and commentary, endorsed as a resource by Dana Stevens on Slate.com.
's first book No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, was released by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 2005[13] and praised by Bette Midler in People Magazine,[14] followed by Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, published by Bear Manor Media in 2013[15] which was later cited by Jason Zinoman in The New York Times[16], and Rose's Royal Midgets and Other Little People of Vaudeville by Vaudevisuals Press in 2020.
[17] His most recent book The Marx Brothers Miscellany: A Subjective Appreciation of the World's Greatest Comedy Team was published by Bear Manor in 2024.
has appeared in numerous productions with Untitled Theatre Company #61, including the 2006 American premiere of Vaclav Havel's Guardian Angel, Edward Einhorn's 2010 adaptation of Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and the titular role in 2018's The Resistible Rise of J.R.