"The Meeting" is about to be adjourned.
Perhaps the most prolific queer quipster working today, Justin Sayre has been writing a new set's worth of comedy material nearly every month since 2011, when he first presented his topical live act, "The Meeting of the International Order of Sodomites," at Joe's Pub in New York back in 2011.
Sayre's sharp, insightful monologues on topics from "Ab Privilege" to "Gay Divorce" have become viral video sensations and been collected on a spoken word album, "The Gay Agenda."
Since 2014, the hilarious, hirsute truthteller has regularly brought his act to San Francisco, building a loyal following at Oasis. The shows feature Sayre's deftly structured but superficially free-form riffs interspersed with hand-picked musical and variety acts. While some of the best lines from his Manhattan gigs make their way into the shows, Sayre also incorporates material especially geared to locals. His wicked takedown of HBO's SF-set "Looking" memorably began with Sayre noting, "Now, it's not like I haven't done a lot of other things out of a sense of Gay Obligation, but..."
When Sayre returns to Oasis on Saturday November 5, it will be "The Meeting"'s South of Market swansong.
"This is the last season on both coasts," he said in a recent call from his home in West Hollywood, where Sayre moved from New York to work on the writing staff of "2 Broke Girls."
It's also where, in the past few years, Sayre's personal agenda has grown too full to manage, hence the demise of "The Meeting." He's written three plays ("Love's Refrain," an experimental reflection on romance and astronomy was produced at La Mama last spring), a television pilot, and the first two in a series of young adult books. The first of those, "Husky," is told from the perspective of Davis, an overweight gay tween. The book was lauded as both "genuinely funny" and "heartwrenching" by book trade journal Kirkus Reviews (adjectives that would be equally apt in describing Sayre's "Meeting" diatribes on gay dating and self-loathing). The second, "Pretty," will be released next summer.
And then there's "Sparkle and Circulate," the monthly podcast (available on Apple music) in which Sayre comes off as a hybrid of James Lipton and Terry Gross, engaging artists and performers in digressive, curlicued conversations. Singer Nellie McKay, album cover artist Robert Richards, and Jim Colucci, author of a book about The Golden Girls, have been recent guests.
"The podcast grew out of my sense that when we do "The Meeting." I have very little interaction with the guest performers. It's a true variety show in that way. So this is a chance to really sit down and talk to people I admire about their philosophies of work and art."
"I'm not an interviewer who pre-plans," says Sayre. "I like to keep it informal and as organic as possible. Its not the kind of talk show that's build around plugging projects. It's really about opening up and going down the rabbit hole together."
Now that "The Meeting" appears to be making way for Sayre's other projects, he offers a comparison of the audiences in New York and San Francisco.
"In New York, everyone wants to be on top of everything," he says. "They want to be in-the-know and never want to be left out. But things move so fast and I touch on so many topics that sometimes I know I get laughs for jokes that people don't follow. Everyone wants to be in on the joke.
"In San Francisco, everyone wants the show to be fabulous," he says. "They're so glad to be there, and they're so glad that I'm there. People come up to me saying, 'Oh, thank you so much for coming here!' I mean, really? It's a gay-themed show and this is San Francisco, not some backwater! But there's this gregarious feeling there -the audience wants to take me out for drinks after the show. "
How does Sayre think fans who know him only through "The Meeting" will react to the less strictly comedic content of some of his newer work?
"Well, there were people who came to see 'Love's Refrain' because of 'The Meeting,' " he says. "I don't know what they were expecting, but I'm sure it was very different. That said, I haven't really run into a sense of resistance. The common element of all my work is that I really try to build a sense of trust and intimacy with the audience, so that they're willing to go on a ride with me from very lighthearted places to very serious places. Five years from now, I'd like people to think of a piece - in any medium - and know that it will be something that will make them simultaneously think and feel.
"It's been so great doing 'The Meeting' in San Francisco," Sayre says. "And I'd like to find ways to perform at Oasis in the future. They've been great to me and introduced me to a whole new audience here."
And then, just before hanging up, Sayre unexpectedly invokes the Cher rule: "You know, this is the last 'Meeting.' But it might not be the last 'Meeting' ever."
Justin Sayre performs "The Meeting" at Oasis, Saturday, November 5. $20. 7pm 298 11th St. www.themeetingshow.com www.sfoasis.com