Inside 20 years of NYCs edgiest comedy festival…
Shortly before the heated midterm elections on Tuesday, Comedian and “Daily Show” host Jordan Klepper told The Post he hoped no one would riot — and not just because he needs to preserve the American Experiment.
“The New York Comedy Festival has so many shows and I want to go see them and I want to be able to sit back and laugh,” the 47-year-old told The Post. “So come on, America. Let’s all be together so New York can enjoy this week.”
Klepper has his own project, the current occasions sendup “Sh&t Show,” at Town Hall on Nov. 14. It’s half of the twentieth Anniversary season of the New York Comedy Festival (NYCF), which has turn into a local establishment for Gotham execs, hopeful amateurs and stand-up followers alike.
Jordan Klepper will seem at the New York Comedy Festival.
This yr, the NYCF runs from Nov. 6 — three days after Election Day — through the fifteenth. There will probably be more than 200 comedians in over a hundred exhibits, with venues ranging from tiny golf equipment in Brooklyn to large units in Madison Square Garden, where Dave Chappelle will open the festival.
Other headliners embody Marc Maron, Jordan Jensen and Daniel Sloss at the Beacon on the Upper West Side and Saturday Night Live’s Sarah Sherman with Patti Harrison at Town Hall in Times Square.
“Comedy has just exploded and is bigger than ever,” said Caroline Hirsch, the Manhattan comedy doyenne who based the festival. (Its unique home base was her membership, Carolines on Broadway, which closed in 2022.)
Louis Faranda, who curates the festival reserving, added, “If anybody told me 20 years ago that the comedy would be as big as it is today, I would say ‘You’re out of your mind.’ Every time I think I’m on top of which comedians are breaking out, 50 more appear. It’s unbelievable. I have never seen such an influx.”
Hirsch and Faranda say the NYCF is a foil to the newer, flashier Netflix Is a Joke festival in Los Angeles, which boasts more high-profile headliners.
Comedian Mojo Brookzz is another performer this week. WireImage
“That’s about them making content while our festival is about the nitty-gritty of comedy, of discovering new people and new ways to present comedy,” Hirsch said. “It makes planning a festival harder but it’s also more exciting.”
She famous that her festival was one of the first to current live podcasts. Now NYCF boasts sketch comedy, improv, clowns, musical acts, sport exhibits and even a efficiency with video video games.
“Younger kids these days laugh at all different kinds of funny—it’s not just punch lines or jokes,” Faranda said, including, “I get up at four in the morning to look on the internet for new acts.”
Ultimately, however, Hirsch stays partial to stand-up. “It’s the best art form, and getting an hour of great material is the hardest thing to do in the world.”
The battle to rope in the most important names has gotten more durable, Faranda said, as he competes with not just Netflix but Live Nation and other touring corporations.
Marc Maron at the New York Comedy Festival in 2025. Elizabeth Viggiano
But comedy, Faranda says, is a loyal business, and as a top booker, he’s in a position to draw on a lifetime of friendships with comics— for occasion, he met Chappelle over 30 years in the past, when he first let him take the stage as an unknown teen.
This yr, the festival will show off comics like Jay Jurden (“The Problem With Jon Stewart”), Olivia Carter ((*20*)) and Matthew Broussard (“The League”).
Giving younger stand-ups their big break is “the most exciting part of the festival,” Hirsch said.
The event also delivers on the promise that laughter is, certainly, the best drugs, thanks to its Stand Up for Heroes partnership.
Saturday Night Live’s Sarah Sherman will co-headline with Patti Harrison on Nov. 8.
It started 20 years in the past, after ABC reporter Bob Woodruff was critically injured while embedded with U.S. army troops in Iraq.
As he recovered from a traumatic mind injury, Woodruff and his spouse, Lee, began the Bob Woodruff Foundation, which helps veterans with bodily, mental and emotional assist after returning home.
In 2007, the Woodruffs teamed up with Hirsch and her accomplice, Andrew Fox, to create the Stand Up for Heroes benefit, a comedy fundraiser that has introduced in practically $120 million for American troops and their households.
Jess Hilarious hits the NYCF stage on Nov. 13 and 14.
Over the years, Stand Up for Heroes has featured the late Robin Williams, Jerry Seinfeld, John Oliver and Conan O’Brien.
Jon Stewart incessantly hosts, and Bruce Springsteen often makes an look, telling mildly soiled dad jokes and singing acoustic variations of hits like “Dancing in the Dark” and “Born in the USA.” Stand Up for Heroes is bought out, but other exhibits — including locations to uncover the next Chappelle — are at present out there for the comedy-curious.
Faranda recommends two trusted showcases for top up-and-coming expertise: New York’s Funniest and Variety’s Comics to Watch, which often draw the new era of New York standups, and helped launch the careers of Michael Che, Ricky Velez and Nate Bargatze.
Faranda said each show will characteristic a lot of influential casting administrators wanting for contemporary faces — and that each lineup has been ruthlessly vetted by his crew for most future star energy.But even if you end up at a random, tiny show in a Williamsburg basement, you never know who you may uncover.
“The festival is such a great celebration of comedy and New York,” said Klepper.
And even if there’s rioting and political unrest, he needs you to be there for it.
“Just leave early,” he joked, “and have a clear travel plan.”
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