PYGMALION - Joe Pera

For the past two decades, Krannert Center has partnered with PYGMALION to support the festival’s incredible cultural engagement across multiple genres. This year, PYGMALION and Krannert Center are delighted to bring comedian, writer, and filmmaker Joe Pera to the Great Hall stage.

You might know Joe Pera from his Adult Swim series, Joe Pera Talks With You—“TV’s quietest, most artful comedy” (Los Angeles Times), or maybe you’ve listened to his deliberately sleep-inducing podcast, Drifting Off with Joe Pera. The soft-spoken entertainer unique comedy style has charmed critics and amassed a dedicated following of fans who find comfort as well as humor in his soothing, Bob Ross-like performances. Other projects for Adult Swim include the animated special Joe Pera Talks You to Sleep, Joe Pera Helps You Find the Perfect Christmas Tree, and Relaxing Old Footage with Joe Pera. Joe has performed his standup on Comedy Central and Late Night with Seth Myers and voiced an exhausted earth-element bureaucrat named Fern Grouchwood in Pixar’s Elemental. His book A Bathroom Book for People Not Pooping Or Peeing But Using the Bathroom as an Escape was published by Forge Books, an imprint of Tor/Macmillan, in 2021 and was a USA Today best-selling title. His comedy special, Joe Pera: Slow and Steady, premiered in 2023 on the artist’s YouTube channel.