Julia Weber
Staff Writer
On Wednesday evening, Chautauqua Institution announced the Mark Russell and Alison Kaplan Russell Endowment for Comedy. The announcement came amid the Week Two theme of “Comedy Now: A Week Curated with Lewis Black” which was developed in partnership with the National Comedy Center.
A native of Buffalo, Mark Russell was an influential political satirist as well as a lifelong Chautauquan. Russell was a founding board member for the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, New York, and performed at Chautauqua many times over the course of his career, with his first appearance on the Amphitheater stage taking place in 1979. He became a Chautauqua icon, lending his talents in later years to performances from the Chautauqua Play Readers and Friends of Chautauqua Theater. He passed away on March 30, 2023, at the age of 90.
Russell’s written material, donated by his wife Alison after his death, is housed at the National Comedy Center, where it is in the process of being archived.
The endowment was announced during Wednesday’s evening entertainment performance in which Russell’s close friend, Lewis Black, performed his 500th episode of his participatory comedy special “The Rant is Due.” The endowment will support comedy programming at the Institution, in perpetuity.
“I wanted to do something in Mark’s name, and the only thing that makes any sense is to do comedy,” Alison explained. “I didn’t necessarily want it to be only stand-up, I wanted comedy to be broad.”
Alison explained that by creating an endowment that could support many different forms of comedy, she hoped to foster a love of comedy in younger generations who experience it across artforms.
“I want to encourage young people, old people, people to embrace the idea that comedy exists, and a lot of people don’t realize how broad the topic is,” she said.
Mark is best-known for his political satire which married humor and education, shedding light on complex topics through his satirist skits and songs.
“Mark, first and foremost, wanted to entertain and then, secondarily, he thought that he should teach a little bit, and that’s what he did,” said Alison.
Though Mark was a political satirist, those close to him remember his comedy as always being critical of the idea and not of the individual. Those who knew him recalled his ability to be fair in his criticism and maintain friendships with individuals on both sides of the political aisle. Even amid the most serious topics, he was able to approach them with good humor and jest, bringing a welcomed fresh perspective to difficult and often convoluted topics.
“Everything he did — and I know I’m right about this — had a twinkle in his eye. Always,” said Stephen Stout, a longtime family friend of the Russell family. “It was never just ‘J’accuse.’ ”
Roxanne Roberts, another longtime family friend, explained that Mark’s talent was his ability to translate complex, confusing and high-stakes political situations into more understandable terms through humor.
“What Mark was able to do, and what good comedy does, is help people synthesize and understand what is genuinely scary and what’s just ridiculous. It’s a coping mechanism, but it’s also a way of understanding,” she said.
She said that politicians didn’t fear his comedy, but rather, viewed it as a status symbol. When Mark portrayed a politician, it was a sign of having “made it” in politics.
“You had achieved a certain level of fame and power that made you worthwhile to even think about,” said Roberts.
Matt Russell, Mark’s youngest son, recalled a childhood filled with news-watching. Though he didn’t always understand the references or their significance in his early years, he said he has come to appreciate them immensely.
“As kids growing up, my first memory is sitting with my father watching the Watergate hearings,” he said. “At that age, I had no idea what he did. He was just ‘funny guy,’ but I remember him furiously writing, filling up these notebooks,” he said. “And then, as I got older, I made those connections.”
“In between the shows, in between the performances, I just treasured those moments where we could actually put context to his lines and context to his satire,” he explained.
Just 7 years old at the time of this memory, Matt said: “What a gift.”
Alison and Matt both expressed the significant role Chautauqua played in Mark’s life. After his death, Alison said many members of the community attended his funeral or offered support. For her, the endowment is a way to give back to those around her in a way that honors Mark’s continued legacy.
“I’m always embraced whenever I come up here by this wonderful community. I needed to give back to it, and this is the way that I thought to do it,” Alison explained.
Though “Chautauqua” initially proved too difficult for Matt to pronounce correctly when he started visiting at a young age, it was clear from the first moment he arrived that this was his father’s “happy place.”
“I saw that as a child, and that was enriched with every visit here,” he said.
“For this gift to reach generations from a family that built happiness around this community, and knowing that my kids and my grandkids and my great-grandkids are actually going to be able to experience that same sense of happiness in a really authentic and purpose-filled way, that gets to me,” Matt said. “For me, that’s the gift.”
