ABOUT US

Kevin Allison and RISK!’s Origin Story

Kevin Allison started his comedy career as an actor and writer on the legendary sketch series The State on MTV, but in 2009, everything changed. “I was doing a solo show out West, playing characters as usual,” he says. “Afterward, Michael Ian Black [also of The State] said, ‘I kept hoping you’d drop the act and tell some of your own stories.’ I said, ‘Yikes, that just seems so risky….’ But even as I said it, I could feel in my gut that that kind of risk could lead to the best stuff.”

The very next week, Kevin was on stage telling his own stories. “Suddenly, I was looking right into the eyes of audience members. We were reacting to each other, like friends. After the show, people didn’t just say, ‘That was funny,’ they said, ‘Thank you. That really got to me.’ I was finding the meaning in my own experiences and the people listening felt like they’d lived through these things with me. The more I worried I was taking a risk with a story – because it was too emotional, too provocative, or just too nuts – the more the audience lit up.”

In August of 2009, Kevin and producer Michelle Walson started the live true storytelling show, RISK! It was an instant hit. Stories ran the gamut from the sacred to the profane, the hilarious to the horrific – and for the audience, it was a chance to reconnect with the things that make us human. The monthly RISK! live show, winner of an ECNY Award for Best Variety Show, happens in New York and Los Angeles, and RISK! also tours to sold out crowds in the USA, Canada and UK.

Many remarkable people have shown a side of themselves on RISK! that you probably haven’t seen elsewhere, like Trevor Noah, Samantha Bee, Bowen Yang, Aisha Tyler, Michael Ian Black, Janeane Garofalo, Kevin Nealon, Marc Maron, Sarah Silverman and more.

The audio podcast of RISK! premiered online in October of 2009. The podcast includes not just the best stories from the live shows but also “radio-style” stories and interstitial music and comedy from artists all over the world. The podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever you get podcasts. With new episodes released each Monday and classic stories released each Thursday, the RISK! podcast is the winner of an ECNY Award for Best Podcast, and has been downloaded tens of millions of times.

Over time, the RISK! team has expanded to include audio editors, story coaches, casting directors, a business manager and more. You can learn more about our team above in The RISK! Team section.

RISK! is a labor of love that has survived independently for over a decade and helped many thousands of listeners to become more empathetic and understanding people. If you’re ready to hear the unvarnished truth from people from around the globe, then take the advice Kevin gives at the end of each episode of RISK! “Folks, today’s the day. Take a risk!”