Phil Rosenthal
Field: arts
Comedy writer and Hofstra alumnus Phil Rosenthal delivers a humorous commencement address recounting his own struggles after graduating with a theater degree in 1981, including odd jobs, being fired, poverty, and living with his eccentric grandmother. He advises graduates to pursue what they genuinely want, drawing on the mantra 'do the show you want to do,' and encourages them to live independently and embrace hard times as material for growth. He credits Hofstra with helping him find both his career and his wife.
Key moments
- 01 Advises graduates to 'do the show you want to do' since everyone gets cancelled eventually
- 02 Recounts early struggles: phone sales, being fired from the Met, and a closed deli
- 03 Describes turning his failures, like sleeping on a 300-year-old bed, into successful comedy writing
- 04 Urges graduates to live independently, pursue happiness, and hold onto college friends
Save the visual map
Download or open the generated poster as a standalone PNG.
Phil Rosenthal at Hofstra, 2011
A warm comic commencement address about doing the show you want to do, accepting cancellation, and building a life before the credits roll.
Speech arc
- 01Community transcript
Opening move
- 02Hofstra University
Speech beat
- 03Celebrate then live
Speech beat
- 04Theater beginnings
Speech beat
- 05Ed Weinberger advice
Speech beat
- 06Cancellation
Speech beat
- 07Make your show
Speech beat
- 08Love and generosity
Final charge
Start: Celebrate, then really live
Rosenthal opens with jokes about partying, then pivots toward a serious instruction to stop numbing out and participate in life.
Comedy
The first laugh lowers the room's guard before the practical advice lands.
Shift
Celebration is allowed, but it cannot become a substitute for being awake.
Measure
The speech measures success by whether a life is actually lived, not merely endured.
Rosenthal opens with jokes about partying, then pivots toward a serious instruction to stop numbing out and participate in life.
Origin: Hofstra becomes the stage
His Hofstra memories connect dorms, theater, performance, and early desire into the start of a creative vocation.
Campus
The speech makes the institution concrete through towers, theater work, and formative confusion.
Craft
Wanting to perform turns into a larger education in writing, making, and persistence.
Uncertainty
He admits that creative work is not tidy, predictable, or protected from failure.
His Hofstra memories connect dorms, theater, performance, and early desire into the start of a creative vocation.
Advice: Do the show you want to do
The central maxim turns cancellation from catastrophe into a reason to create honestly while there is still time.
Mentor
Ed Weinberger's advice becomes Rosenthal's philosophy of both television and life.
Failure
Because endings are guaranteed, approval is too fragile to be the main goal.
Agency
Graduates are pushed to make the thing they care about instead of optimizing for permission.
The central maxim turns cancellation from catastrophe into a reason to create honestly while there is still time.
• Key takeaways •
Live before the credits roll
Connects to creativity.
Make what you believe in
Connects to humor.
Cancellation is normal
Connects to risk.
Humor builds courage
Connects to purpose.
Generosity completes success
Connects to love.
Closing charge
The close widens the show-business metaphor into family, love, generosity, humor, and work that keeps people connected.
Before the credits roll, build what matters
Humor
Laughter becomes courage and connection, not just performance.
People
Success without love and generosity is treated as too small.
Charge
Make your show, accept the cancellations, keep creating, and really live.
The close widens the show-business metaphor into family, love, generosity, humor, and work that keeps people connected.
Visual speech maps
Browse more visual maps from Hofstra University or continue with related mapped speeches below.
Transcript
The previously catalogued transcript link is no longer live and is queued for re-sourcing. A video of the address is available above.
Machine transcript available for archive analysis; it is unverified and may contain transcription errors. Machine transcript source ->
Provenance
BROKEN transcript link (checked 2026-06-26): gradspeeches.com is a parked/redirecting domain serving no real content. Provenance: Imported from NPR commencement archive; cross-referenced with Open Commencement DB
NPR archive last updated in 2015; destination availability has not been exhaustively rechecked | Open Commencement DB transcript; not independently verified against the original recording | Transcript URL dead (gradspeeches.com is a parked/redirecting domain serving no real content); video fallback present
Explore this speech
Find the next thread through the archive
Themes in this address
Speeches like this one
Search all speeches ->