Colin Quinn

Colin Quinn is a stand-up comedian, writer, and performer whose thirty-year broadcast career has included stints on Saturday Night Live as the “Weekend Update” anchor. His specials Unconstitutional and The New York Story (directed by Jerry Seinfeld) are available on Netflix, and his one-man show Red State, Blue State premiered in New York and started streaming on Netflix in August 2019. In Overstated: A Coast-to-Coast Roast of the 50 States (St. Martin’s Press) Quinn tackles the condition of our union today. As he sees it, the United States is in a fifty-states-wide couples’ counseling session, thinking about filing for divorce. But is that really what we want? Can a nation composed of states that are so different possibly hang together? And so, Quinn calls us out state-by-state, from Connecticut to Hawaii. He identifies the hypocrisies inherent in what we claim to believe and what we actually do. Overstated skewers us all: red, blue, and purple. It’s ultimately infused with the same blend of optimism and practicality that sparked the U.S. into being. The Hollywood Reported noted that his monologues “are comedy routines, to be sure […] But they’re also history lessons, and insightful ones at that.”