Joseph Vecsey Talks Comedy, Bay Street And Aziz

It started with a microphone, an audio recorder and a little white lie.That is how Joseph Vecsey, then a young, green, low-profile stand-up comedian, landed one of the biggest comedians in the country for his college podcast—a show that literally did not exist until two years ago, when Mr. Vecsey bumped into Aziz Ansari at the Comedy Cellar in Manhattan.

“I just wanted to talk to Aziz Ansari, and I wanted an excuse. It would be kinda weird just to walk up to him and ask him to lunch to ask him questions,” Mr. Vecsey said of NBC’s “Parks and Recreation” star. “I told him I had a podcast for college … Yeah, I just kinda made that up to see if he would do it, and if he did it, I was gonna record it.”

The rest is history.

Since 2013, Mr. Vecsey has amassed a steadily growing archive of more than 85 episodes of his podcast, “The Call Back,” as well as dozens of videos on his self-titled YouTube channel. He has written, directed and starred in sketches, performed on comedy stages in New York and Los Angeles, and worked as a production assistant on films with Adam Sandler and Chris Rock—“Grown Ups 2” and “Top Five,” respectively.

But before all of that—before he’d written his first joke, or even dreamed of performing in premier comedy rooms—Mr. Vecsey was an aspiring streetballer on Shelter Island, where he lived from sixth to ninth grade before returning to his birthplace, Manhattan, where he lives today.

His ties to the East End remain strong, though: His sister, Taylor Vecsey, is digital media editor at The East Hampton Star, and his brainchild, the All Star Comedy Showcase at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor, is more popular than ever. The 26-year-old helped conceive the series in 2010, just six months into his comedic career.

“There were no up-and-coming comics, or non-headliners, at the theater, so I said, ‘Why don’t we do a rising stars kinda show?’” Mr. Vecsey said. “Then, it evolved into more established comedians, but still people that most people didn’t know—not famous, but still people who are on the cusp, or people who you may have seen, but they aren’t a household name.”

Last winter, the showcase was a regular event at the theater, and is slated to return on Saturday, April 11. Mr. Vecsey is the host, and said he aspires to emcee the series 10 months a year. Just in the last two months, comics including Marina Franklin, Yannis Pappas and Corinne Fisher have taken the stage, and he has seen its popularity grow—as well as his own.

Because he began hosting so early in his career, he admits he was “raw” and unprepared going into the first show. Up until this point, his main focus had been basketball, particularly the flashy, more stylized version of the game that is called streetball, and won himself a scholarship to play at Broward Junior College in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

During his junior year—after his father, Peter, a retired NBA columnist for the New York Post, fed him a dose of reality on his prospects of playing professional ball—Mr. Vecsey turned to writing, and penned his first screenplay. By age 21, he had retired from organized sports, transferred to Brooklyn College and tried stand-up for the first time at an open mic night at New York Comedy Club.

“I did all right,” he said. “I got some laughs for an open mic, but it was petrifying. I couldn’t believe I was going up there. It felt like an out-of-body experience.”

When he wasn’t busy writing scripts or shows, Mr. Vecsey would spend much of his free time hanging out at the Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village, a mecca for New York comedy, as many high-profile comedians have been known to drop in and test out material. It was there that he happened across Mr. Ansari, and first proposed the podcast—a behind-the-scenes look at the comedy industry.

“I was nervous because I really liked his comedy, especially when I first saw him early on,” he said. “He was one of the first comics I was really into when I started stand-up, and I really loved him in ‘Funny People.’”

Mr. Vecsey worked up the courage and not long after, he was seated across from an idol in the Bowery Hotel lobby in Manhattan.

“He did it. It was fun,” he said. “I asked a lot of good questions and I could tell he was impressed by it, because he was just like, ‘Oh, this is nice talking about comedy for a change and not like, “What was it like working with Jesse Eisenberg?”’”

Joseph Vecsey will host the next All Star Comedy Showcase on Saturday, April 11, at 8 p.m. at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor. Talent will include Mike Brown, Nore Davis and Michael Blaustein. Tickets are $20. For more information, call (631) 725-9500, or visit baystreet.org.