Lincoln Place

After a leap of faith comes the landing... And the place to make your stand amidst the sideshow called life. Brett O’Malley isn’t famous. He’s not successful. He’s not even functional half the time. At the dawn of the 21st Century, the twenty-something stand-up comic, clinging to the last thread of ambition, leaves behind the ruins of his personal life in San Francisco and crashes into New York City with nothing but a leather jacket, a notebook full of half-finished punchlines, and the ghosts of family trauma trailing close behind. In Brooklyn, he finds refuge — sort of — in a crumbling brownstone in Crown Heights, where the walls are thin, the rent is cheap, and the neighbors are chaos incarnate. There’s Anton, the wine-drinking devil’s advocate with a sinister grin; Eric, the frazzled assistant in the DA's office and his unemployed girlfriend Polly; Kara, a sharp-tongued mom running a daycare empire from the first floor; and Paul, a neurotic clean freak unraveling one oatmeal theft at a time. By day, Brett clocks in at Remington’s, a massive chain bookstore with an equally dysfunctional crew. There’s Victor, the philosophical bookseller with more wisdom than his job description requires; Monica, his no-nonsense coworker and almost-fling; and Archie, the smug, gatekeeping supervisor who resents Brett’s talent and unpredictability in equal measure. By night, Brett claws his way back into the unforgiving NYC comedy scene — dingy open mics, hostile audiences, passive-aggressive rivals — armed with nothing but gallows humor and grief he hasn’t named yet. The death of his cousin, Ronnie — a gifted musician and kindred spirit — lingers like smoke, pushing Brett to get back onstage, but also pushing him toward implosion. As Brett battles stage fright, financial strain, toxic coworkers, and a creeping existential dread, a darker question emerges: can you be funny without falling apart? Or does falling apart make you funny? Set in the shadow of a city soon to be reeling from tragedy, Lincoln Place is a darkly comic character study about failure, survival, and the savage therapy of making people laugh. Part black comedy, part slice-of-life drama, it captures a New York rarely seen — not the gleaming skyline, but the basement clubs, retail backrooms, and late-night stoops where broken people still somehow connect. With a blend of acerbic wit, emotional honesty, and observational grit, Lincoln Place explores what it means to reinvent yourself when all your best material comes from your worst pain. Brett’s journey is messy, often hilarious, occasionally devastating — and entirely human. LINCOLN PLACE From the backrooms of Brooklyn to the basements of broken dreams, one comic tries to get the last laugh before life steps on his punchline.