Comedy in the Can

By Marcia Manna

IT WAS A TYPICAL SHOW BUSINESS FIRING—cruel and quick. Three years ago, Annabelle Gurwitch was chosen to play a part in Woody Allen’s play, Writer’s Block. The role was all wrong for her, but she wasn’t about to walk away from an opportunity to work with a famous director.

“I knew I was in trouble,” says Gurwitch, best known as the quirky cohost of the TBS TV show Dinner and a Movie. “It was clear when Woody characterized my acting by saying, ‘You look retarded when you do that.’ Then the director of the theater called and said the show was going in a different direction. That means the same as ‘Please pack your things in this box.’ I hung up and started a three-day crying jag.”

Misery loves company, and company, Gurwitch soon discovered, enjoys a good laugh. A chance meeting with actress Felicity Huffman (Desperate Housewives) gave Gurwitch an idea. Huffman shared that she, too, was once fired, and Gurwitch began to realize that getting rejected was a universal experience marked by sadness, insight and humor. Initially, she considered showing up on the Woody Allen set pretending that nothing had happened. As she exchanged anecdotes with colleagues, the actress soon realized she wasn’t the only one entertaining ridiculous revenge fantasies. What’s more, getting fired had all the elements of a good story.

Already a published writer who had written essays for Los Angeles and Glamour magazines, Gurwitch turned her collection of canned tales into a narrated live performance titled Fired: Tales of Jobs Gone Bad. The shows quickly sold out at New York’s Second Stage Theatre. “People came up to me afterwards and told me their stories,” she says. “I realized I wasn’t alone, and there was a need for this. It was cathartic, and since then, it has grown exponentially.”

Gurwitch launched a Fired! Web site and solicited tales from a wide range of folks in every kind of profession. A real-estate office manager was dismissed for refusing to change the toilet paper roll (not in her job description) when the boss wanted to use the bathroom. A teenager whose job was to clean tropical aquariums accidentally tipped one over. He was discovered trying to save the fish by frantically tossing them into a tank filled with hungry oscars. The oscar fish quickly gobbled the gasping live bait; the cost of each was deducted from the teen’s final paycheck. Then there’s the fast-food worker who was caught in the act of responding to an order with a dramatic one-finger salute.

Some of the stories Gurwitch heard were used in Fired! Tales of the Canned, Canceled, Downsized and Dismissed, a critically acclaimed book published by Simon & Schuster last March. The volume also includes comic contributions from entertainment personalities such as Huffman, Tim Allen, Bob Saget, Andy Dick and Seinfeld cocreator Larry Charles, among others.

A touring play with the same title stars Gurwitch and a cast of six storytellers. It makes a stop November 10 and 11 at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido. At the end of the show, Gurwitch invites audience members to share a personal experience that relates to being fired.

“Humor is a coping mechanism for loss,” she says. “By the way, I have nothing but gratitude to Woody Allen for opening up my eyes. These are really stories about how you get on with your life, and everyone celebrates.”

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