Quesnell has released two comedy albums on Stand Up! Records, 2014's Can We Afford This Much Despair? and 2018's Despair 2: Social Justice Warlord, as well as the 2018 single Egghead.
Early life
Quesnell was born in Thief River Falls, Minnesota, where he graduated from Lincoln High School.[4][5] His father, Curt Quesnell, was a broadcaster on Thief River Falls radio stations KKAQ-AM and KKDQ-FM, where he hosted the longtime show North Country Outdoors Radio, and a fishing guide on Lake of the Woods.[6][7]
Chicago Now called Quesnell's comedy "soul-lifting" in spite of his often dark subject matter.[8] The Minnesota Daily described it as "dark but digestible", noting that his humor often deals with social anxiety.[9]Fargo Monthly called him "goofy and dark."[10] The Fargo newspaper High Plains Reader called his comedy "razor sharp, perfectly timed, both nuanced and broad".[11]
Quesnell began performing stand-up in Fargo, North Dakota in 2009.[12] As his career progressed, Quesnell moved from Fargo to the larger city of Minneapolis and eventually to Los Angeles, where he now lives and works as a screenwriter.[11][13]
His first performance was as the opening act for Todd Barry.[14][7] He has also performed with Maria Bamford and Kyle Kinane.[8] Quesnell quickly became an organizer as well, producing shows and promoting open mics in the Fargo-Moorhead area.[15] The High Plains Reader newspaper credited him with "planting the seed for the burgeoning comedy scene in Fargo."[16] He was named Fargo's No. 2 comedian in a 2015 poll by the High Plains Reader.[17]
He has performed at the 10,000 Laughs Comedy Festival,[18]SF Sketchfest, San Francisco Comedy Festival,[19] Akumal Comedy Festival, New Orleans' Hell Yes Fest, and the Chicago Comedy Exposition.[20]
Screenwriting
His one-hour science fiction pilot The Insomniacs was produced as an audio drama in 2020 for Alison Mauldin's screenwriting podcast The Scriptcast.[21][22]
In 2006, his short play Parachutes won the Midwest regional award at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival; another play, Labyrinth, was also nominated.[2]
Albums
Quesnell has released two comedy albums on Stand Up! Records, 2014's Can We Afford This Much Despair? and 2018's Despair 2: Social Justice Warlord, as well as the 2018 single Egghead.[23][24] Quesnell's debut was recorded at Minneapolis' CONvergence sci-fi convention in 2013.[8][25] It reached No. 13 on the iTunes comedy chart.[25][8] Followup album Despair 2 was recorded at the Red Raven cafe in Fargo.[25]
An avid toy collector, Quesnell and Stand Up! producer Dan Schlissel made a collectible figure of the "Despair" monster on the cover of his first album, which Quesnell called "a sad devil version of myself".[25][26]
Richard Lanoie of The Serious Comedy Site called Can We Afford This Much Despair? "particularly smart" and said "I look forward to more of" Quesnell.[27] Writing about Despair 2, Lanoie praised Quesnell's ability to segue between "a smartly veiled comment on racism in the U.S." and a "silly bit on the difference between a baby ghost and a ghost baby." Although he felt Quesnell's Donald Trump commentary was "banal," he further praised Quesnell's ability to disguise the sharpness of his satire inside "seeming superficiality."[28] Catherine Gill of website The Dirty Vegan called Quesnell's comedy "relatable and socially aware" and found his penchant for self-deprecation "hilarious and refreshing."[20] Joe Christianson of the comedy podcast Joke Quest 200 called his albums "magnificent."[29][30] Johnny Taylor of comedy website Now Hear This called Social Justice Warlord one of his favorite comedy albums of 2018 and said, "Quesnell delivers a smart, edgy, and current hour of stand-up comedy that will appeal to a larger portion of people than his reputation as a 'nerd' comic suggests."[31]
