Vinnie Vitale is a standup comedian and writer from New Jersey (go figure). He performs anywhere he is permitted to speak aloud in a public setting, from dive bars to colleges to world-famous venues like Caroline’s, Broadway Comedy Club, Gotham, New York Comedy Club, and Stand Up NY. He hosts a monthly variety comedy show in Hoboken, NJ called Showboken with Amanda Gail that draws top stand-up and improv acts from around the country. Previously, he was producer for Comedy Party USA, a long-running weekly stand-up show in Greenwich Village where you could see the likes of emerging headliners such as the Lucas Brothers, Mark Normand, or Seaton Smith booked on any given Thursday night.
He was also the first guest to be featured on the now widely popular Guys We F*****d: The Anti-Slut Shaming Podcasthosted by fellow comedians Corinne Fisher and Krystyna Hutchinson, and has since been invited back annually. He has appeared on the daytime talk shows Bethenny and ABC’s The Revolution, in addition to starring on an episode of the MTV reality show Damage Control in which Kelly Clarkson personally destroyed his washing machine. All three shows were cancelled shortly after his episode aired.
He wrote a personal column on The Laugh Button called “Vinnie’s Vices” where he recounted his struggles with adapting to everyday social norms of civilized existence. That column evolved into his self-hosted blog The Crossroads Of Should and Bust, which is a more deeply rooted cynical exploration into the pitfalls of pursuing one’s dreams.
From 2011-2012, he was Director of Operations for The American Comedy Institute, where he played a fundamental role in enabling the school to become the first NAST-accredited comedy school in the world. He went on to teach a comedy writing class of his own, before developing his comedy writing and consulting business Joke King, LLC. Currently, he is ghostwriting his first book, set to be released in August 2016.
A trained stand-up comic, Vinnie honed his storytelling abilities at the Magnet Theater under the tutelage of renowned storyteller and 20-time Moth Slam champion Adam Wade. Prior to embarking on a career in comedy, he obtained an MBA in accounting and had a short stint on Wall Street, before deciding he would rather trade all the money in the world to succeed at comedy. To this day, he ponders whether this is the greatest joke he has ever told.
When he isn’t complaining onstage or at work or at home, he writes about his girlfriend's cooking through their blog My Hot GF Cooks. He lives with his hot girlfriend, Allison, and their dog that he named Mulligan, because he feels everyone deserves a second chance, or ten—or as many as necessary—at life.