Wall Street executive by day, comic improviser by night, for years Jerry Topitzer lived two lives. During the day, he worked in the bare-knuckled, high-pressure world of Wall Street, with markets, spreadsheets, suits, and the constant pursuit of the deal. At night, he was secretly performing onstage.
Now, following its award-winning New York run, Jerry will bring his one-man show Once Upon a Wall Street to the UK, with a special London performance at the Drayton Arms Theatre on July 30 before a month-long run at the Edinburgh Festivval Fringe in August.
Blending sharp comedy, personal storytelling, and the occasional existential realization, the show explores the strange gap between the life society tells us to build and the one we secretly want to live.
From the rituals of corporate culture to the therapy of late-night comedy clubs, Topitzer takes the audience through the absurdities of both worlds as he straddles the distance between the boardroom and stage. Jerry pulls back the curtain on what it’s truly like to navigate the weird wide world of Wall Street, including the maze of wild, intense characters there who all come alive in his work.
Part confession, part comedy, and part identity crisis (the entertaining kind), the show asks a question many professionals quietly wonder at some point in their lives: What happens when you find out that corporate culture isn’t the end-all be-all? How much of our identity is in the corporate uniforms we all put on? What does it take to walk away from ‘everything’? The show doesn’t offer easy answers, but it reveals, with honesty and humor, the cost and the courage of taking the leap to pursue a dream.
