FRIENDS Like THESE
New York magazine|December 16-29, 2024
When Brian Jordan Alvarez finally made it big with his FX series, English Teacher, he brought his friends along with him, just like they'd always dreamed. Except one.
E. Alex Jung
FRIENDS Like THESE

FOR MANY, the premiere of FX's English Teacher in September marked the long-awaited arrival of Brian Jordan Alvarez, the comedy series' creator and star. For the better part of the past decade, Alvarez has been making things on the internet-first YouTube sketches, followed by a beloved web series called The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo and, most recently, a menagerie of characters on TikTok, the most famous of which, TJ Mack, has gone viral multiple times over. "I've had enough amateur practice rounds of this to know what I'm doing," he told the New York Times ahead of the premiere. On English Teacher, he plays Evan Marquez, a beleaguered high-school teacher in Austin, Texas, trying to separate the colliding streams of his personal life as a gay man and his work life in conservative environs. The show received universally good reviews for its topicality and wit: It was "a deft, brutal trench comedy," "radically playful," simply "the best new sitcom."

L.A. comedy nerds may recognize many members of Alvarez's old crew on English Teacher. Stephanie Koenig, his longtime collaborator, writes on the show and plays Gwen Sanders, Evan's fellow teacher and, in a replication of their real-life dynamic, his best friend. Her husband, Chris Riggi, plays her boyfriend, Nick. Populating the smaller roles are Ken Kirby and Michael Strassner - both of whom came up through the Groundlings, the 50-year-old L.A. improv institution. They were part of a friend group formed about nine years ago, during a time when they were struggling actors, going to one another's shows and starring in one another's sketches with the hopes of making it. Alvarez was at the center. "Everybody was attracted to Brian because when he wanted to do something, he would do it," remembers a former friend. "He was the go-getter and then hired all his friends."

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هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة December 16-29, 2024 من New York magazine.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

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