Local Actor Gaining National Attention

The show Corporate is a dark satirical comedy based in the corporate office of Hampton DeVille, a corporation that literally makes everything from oversized laptops to military grade weapons. This dark comedy originally aired a few months ago on Jan. 17 and will have their season finale tonight at 10 pm on Comedy Central.

The show itself is based on two junior executives in training, Matt and Jake, and follows them alongside during their trials and tribulations of climbing the corporate ladder. The two junior execs are willing to do egregious things that CEO Christion DeVille and his top two lieutenants, John and Kate, have for them to do. This includes firing other employees, controlling “casual Fridays” and making power point presentations. The show’s had rave reviews all across the nation, but one thing that you probably didn’t know about it is that one of its main characters is a Capital Region native.

Adam Lustick was born and raised in Voorheesville, NY and currently resides in Los Angeles, where he acts, performs stand-up and is working on creating his own production company. The NYU grad has been in the LA comedy scene for the past few years and has acted in various things on Comedy Central, worked for College Humor, was featured on the MTV remake of Punk’d and even appeared in four episodes of The Office.

His character on Corporate and Adam’s real life persona almost fit like a glove.

“It was a good fit for me because I’m kind of naturally energetic and cheerful and I think in a corporate context that’s kind of horrifying and sinister,” said Lustick. “If you’re sunny and cheerful in an office context, it’s like what the hell is wrong with you. It reads as demented.”

Creators of the show Pat Bishop, Matt Ingebretson, and Jake Weisman are friends with Lustick he and originally auditioned for the role of John about two years ago.

“They’ve been friends of mine and kind of acquaintances for about six or seven years, when I first moved out here to Los Angeles from New York,” said Lustick. “It (Corporate) just sort of came my way like many of these things do during pilot season two years ago. It was one of those pilots that every actor in town was going to audition for. I read it and of course I knew Jake, Matt and Pat beforehand and I remember thinking this is hysterical. It was so funny and it was so sharp. It was like my favorite onion article come to life. I just went in and auditioned for it and kind of just got the job right there.”

The show was first brought to Comedy Central as a sketch comedy show based in a corporate office, but the network had other ideas for the project.

“I think they initially conceded as a sketch show that loosely took place around a horrible oppressive evil corporate office,” said Lustick. “The Comedy Central execs, to their credit, sort of nudged them in making it more of a narrative show like more of a sitcom.”

The sitcom idea took off and the behemoth that is Comedy Central got fully behind the show and the idea.

“We shot the pilot two years ago then comedy central picked it up to series. Then we shot the first season over a year ago,” said Lustick. “Comedy Central was going to put it out this past summer in June, but I think they liked it so much that they kind of wanted to push it back to January to they could sort of you know start turning some of the promotional wheels and try to build some buzz around it. So they wanted to give it a little more time.”

If you haven’t gotten around to watching the show you can stream every episode at ComedyCentral.com where they have all 10 episodes including tonight’s season finale. They show just got picked up for a second season and is working its way to becoming a staple on the Comedy Central airwaves.

As for Lustick this is something that he’s been working towards for all of his adult life.

Lustick was in drama club at Clayton A. Bouton Jr-Sr. High School when he first got into acting and it was around the time he was about 16-years-old when he thought that he might want to make a career out of it.

“I was doing all of the school plays at Voorheesville. In between my sophomore and junior year in high school I took a summer theatre camp down at the egg in Albany. I was taught by generous, wonderful, warm and still a dear friend to this day his name is Ward Dales,” said Lustick.

Dales was an NYU grad that took pride in acting. He saw something in Lustick and pushed him into following a similar path.

“That summer he said to me ‘ya know you’re pretty good at this have you considered going to NYU?’ And I haven’t really considered anything. I was a path of least resistance kind of a guy. Kind of a lazy asshole.”

Lustick took Dales’ advice, went to NYU and started his venture in perusing a comedy/acting career and he credits Dales with propelling him into perusing an acting career.

“Sometimes its corny and a little sentimental to say, but sometimes it takes like one teacher or one mentor just to kind of subtly nudge you into a direction,” said Lustick. “That could literally make all of the difference.”