Meet Peter Murphy

Today we’d like to introduce you to Peter Murphy.

Peter, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I was born in Poughkeepsie, New York and raised in Cape Coral, Florida by my mother and grandparents. I’m half Puerto Rican, which makes me DOUBLE American.

I’m an only child so I spent a lot of time in front of the TV watching Nickelodeon or WWF wrestling. I was basically raised on TV- when all of my classmates started playing soccer in 4th grade I thought I should make friends and played soccer too, but I always enjoyed watching TV alone- that’s my true love. Through High School and College, I was able to participate in the morning news, and create my own sketch videos, and write essays about ridiculous things like “How to Properly Eat a Burrito,” “The Importance of Being Ernest (The Jim Varney character),” and “Trickle-down Economics.” Once I decided I was finished with school I devoted all of my time and effort to comedy- performing, and writing, and developing a negative relationship with drugs and alcohol.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
No school would have me-

I trained at UCB when I first got to LA. They gifted me an internship which came with eight hours of work at the theater a week, four free classes, and access to their twitter account to send out info and quotes about shows. I was so encouraged and excited that I spent all my time there. I went to every show I could and since I was getting free classes, I signed up for extra classes just to show them how serious I was about performing there. I did my best, but I just didn’t fit into their system of what they believe “funny” is. After about three years of trying to wedge my way into UCB on a Harold or Maude team, I decided to take classes at Groundlings.

Groundlings was cool, it was tough, they make you audition before ever taking classes, and my first teacher said on the first day of Level 1: “This is Groundlings, this is the Juilliard of comedy.” I was like “woooooow! this is no joke.” I appreciated the seriousness, and I appreciated the competition of it all, and I sped through their entire program in just 12 months. Then in “Lab” (Their intensive, focused eight-week course) the director just didn’t “get me.” People in the class were laughing, the crowd at our showcase was laughing, but he just couldn’t figure out why I guess and he decided not to pass me on to “Advanced Lab.”

Whatever, after that I did showcases at the Comedy Central Stage until I landed representation.

Then in December 2017, I was placed on an iOWest Sketch team without ever taking a class there. Two months later the theater closed. A month after that I became a performer at The ACME Comedy Theater.

At the start of 2019, I was hosting my own Friday night show at ACME, I was on an ACME house sketch team, and I was leading the ACME comedy podcast network and ACME digital team. In May of 2019 everyone learned that a violent assault was committed by a higher-up at the theater and everyone (rightfully) decided “Time’s Up” on ACME.

We’d love to hear more about your work.
All of the bumps in the road lead me to my latest project, which I am extremely proud of-

My debut comedy album “NOTICE.” It is fully me. A 16 track album of comedy songs and sketches. I’ve been working on it ever since I came to LA in 2011, and it’s all of my heart and soul. The album is available for pre-order now and available to stream and buy on December 6th, 2019.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
It’s hard to say- I’ve learned that the harder the situation the bigger the lesson. So I wouldn’t make it any easier on myself. If I did I’d just be dumber- may be happier, but dumber.

Pricing:

• The album is free to stream on December 6th.
• Physical copies of my album are $5
• Online copies of the album are $9.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.PeterMurphyWebsite.com/
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/peter_murphy/
• Other: www.UnclePauliesDeli.com

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