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River Butcher
American comic, actor, writer, producer, and podcast host From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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River Buddy Butcher[1] (born August 12, 1982) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, producer, and podcast host. He is best known for personal, observational comedy focused on his vegetarianism, feminism, love of baseball, and experiences as a queer person.[2]
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Early life
Butcher was raised in the Kenmore neighborhood of Akron, Ohio,[3][4] an only child whose parents divorced when Butcher was one month old.[5] He attended Our Lady of the Elms High School[6] and graduated from Archbishop Hoban High School in 2001.[7]
While attending the University of Akron, Butcher worked at a skateboard shop named Summer Squall[8] and an indoor skating facility called Joe's Skate Park,[9] and helped design a skatepark that opened in Akron in 2001.[9] He graduated from the University of Akron with a degree in printmaking in 2005.[7][5] Butcher attended graduate school at University of Notre Dame.[7]
In 2006, Butcher had an exhibit at a printmaker’s show called "Prints at an Exposition".[10] This exhibit, which was a series of prints on muslin showing the body's organs, was inspired by his own appendectomy.[10]
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Comedy career
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Early years
Butcher began his comedy career performing improv in Chicago at The Second City and has since performed stand-up at clubs including Zanies, the Jukebox, and Flappers, as well as Chicago Underground Comedy, The Hideout, The Lincoln Lodge, UCB, Cole's, and Meltdown.[11][12] He made his late-night debut on Conan in June 2016.[13][14]
2014–present
In the fall of 2014, Butcher appeared alongside Cameron Esposito in a series of videos for BuzzFeed Motion Pictures titled "Ask a Lesbian".[15][16] Butcher and Esposito also co-hosted the web series "She Said" for Amy Poehler's Smart Girls Network.[17] The two wrote and starred together again in Take My Wife, on the comedy streaming service Seeso.[18][19] Butcher also co-hosted the stand-up comedy podcast Put Your Hands Together with Cameron Esposito, which was recorded weekly in front of a live audience at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in Los Angeles until it ended in July 2019.[20][21][22]
His first comedy album Butcher was released in August 2016 by the independent record label Kill Rock Stars.[23][24] The set was performed at Mississippi Studios in Portland, Oregon.[25] It debuted at number one on iTunes.[5]
In 2016, he appeared in 8 episodes of the first season of Adam Ruins Everything. He returned in 2017 for one additional appearance.
In 2018, he started hosting a baseball-focused podcast called Three Swings.[26]
In 2021, he appeared on Comedy Central Stand Up Presenting called A Different Kind of Dude.[27]
As stated in an interview, Butcher said his strongest comedy influences are Rosie O'Donnell, Ellen DeGeneres, Brett Butler, Elayne Boosler, Maria Bamford, and Paul F. Tompkins.[28]
Voice acting
Butcher provided the voice for Asher, a fictional nonbinary character, for the animated series Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, released in 2020.
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Personal life
Butcher met fellow comedian Cameron Esposito at an open mic hosted by Esposito.[29] The two soon started collaborating and then began to date.[29] On December 12, 2015, Butcher and Esposito married onstage at The Hideout in Esposito's hometown of Chicago, Illinois.[30][31] In August 2018, Butcher and Esposito announced their separation to "live individual lives".[32] Their split was covered in a Vanity Fair article.[31] In September 2019, Esposito wrote an article for the New York Times discussing the couple's pending divorce.[33]
Butcher is a trans man and uses he and they pronouns.[1][34] In November 2021, Butcher announced that he had changed his name to River.[1]
Butcher endorsed Kenneth Mejia and Eunisses Hernandez during the 2022 Los Angeles elections and Jill Stein in the 2024 presidential election.[35][36]
Notable appearances
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References
External links
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