If you missed the chance to watch some of comedy’s greatest performers in their prime — whether because of scheduling conflicts, scarce tickets or the fact that you weren’t born yet — a new attraction in upstate New York wants to give you another chance to see them, at least in hologram form.
The National Comedy Center, which is scheduled to open next year in Jamestown, N.Y., is to unveil plans for a comedy club that will feature holograms of stand-ups and comic actors from various eras.
Tom Benson, the chairman of the National Comedy Center, described the project in a telephone interview as “a comedy club where folks can go back in time and witness a classic routine in a setting – God knows where it might have been – and experience that as if they were really there.”
The virtual comedians will be created by Hologram USA, the Beverly Hills, Calif.-based company that has also made or is working on similar representations of Buddy Holly, Liberace, Julian Assange and Jimmy Kimmel.
The club is hoping to spotlight comedians like Milton Berle, Bob Hope, George Carlin and Rodney Dangerfield, although Mr. Benson said deals with these artists’ families and estates were not set and an inaugural lineup could still change.
