Satirical news host—and now presidential candidate—Stephen Colbert strolled onto the stage last night in front of a packed house at the 92nd Street Y’s Kaufmann Concert Hall like a recently crowned prom queen. You wouldn’t be faulted if you expected the Comedy Central star to stay “in character” for the duration of his interview with New York Times columnist Frank Rich, but those in attendance were rewarded with a rare treat, the “real” Stephen Colbert. He talked about his early career, the break he got on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show and what makes producing his own show so demanding, exhausting and satisfying. Jeff Bercovici of Portfolio offers interesting thoughts on the evening:

1) He does a great Bill O’Reilly impression—and I’m not talking about the O’Reilly-inspired character he does on The Colbert Report.

2) He also does a pretty funny Henry Kissinger. “Somewhere in our tape library, there exists five solid minutes of me trying to convince Dr. Henry Kissinger to say, ‘Where are my pancakes? I was promised pancakes.’...We got him to say it, but very quietly.”

3) Even though he’s mounting an annoyingly-ubiquitous run for president, he’d be happy to see someone else win: “I would love to see a President Huckabee because if our president were named ‘Huckabee,” how bad could anything really seem?… It’d be as if the entire country was animated by Hanna Barbera. Can you imagine the Huckabee Monument?”

4) He is a huge theater geek. After singing parts of two different songs from Jesus Christ Superstar, Colbert mused, “Wouldn’t it be great if my character played Jesus? ‘Wait, wait, wait. What’s this crucifix part? I thought he was king.”

More blog breakdown of the talk can be found at Daily Kos, Innisfree, and in the comments of this No Fact Zone post.

Don’t miss these upcoming events: Can We Survive 2008? The State of World Politics with Ralph Buultjens; Countdown to ‘08: Only 363 Days Left with Alec Baldwin, Arianna Huffington, Mo Rocca and Andy Borowitz; Free Speech Then and Now with Alan Dershowitz and Jeffrey Toobin; and Bridging the Divide: Progressive Voices Engaging with Israel with Douglas Rushkoff, Peter Edelman, Naomi Klein, Alisa Solomon and Richard Cohen.