Comedy

Landless Theatre artists drop weird ‘Latchkey Kid’s Christmas Album’

From the folks who created sock-puppet ‘Urinetown’ comes a comedy band called The Bingle Jells.

What’s so funny about John Oliver

The Emmy-winning political comic has a standup gig at Kennedy Center that’s nearly sold out.

Improvised Shakespeare Company at KenCen is absolutely stunning

Their combination of improvisational comedy, poetry, sketch comedy, and theater is bafflingly impressive.

That goofy guy Patton Oswalt kicks off Kennedy Center comedy season

He slayed the audience for over an hour and got a standing O.

The Daily Show Writers Stand-Up Tour is coming and I can’t wait

A fan and pracitioner of satire riffs on post-COVID late-night comedy and why hosts have turned into YouTubers.

Faction of Fools embraces collaboration with new season of ‘Foolish Fridays’

In the summer of 2020, Faction of Fools Theatre Company bravely forged into the world of virtual Commedia dell’Arte with the first season of Foolish Fridays, a series of dynamic, short, fun videos...

Comedy game show ‘The Internet: LIVE!!1’ to play two nights at a sports bar

The Arcanists in co-production with Science Art Fusion (ScienceAF) announce the launch of The Internet: LIVE!!1, an inventive new live comedy game show. In it, player-performers bring web content to...

Review: Hannah Gadsby’s ‘Douglas’ at the Kennedy Center

You know that Hannah Gadsby’s new show, Douglas is different from anything you’ve seen before, even before you enter the theatre, when the ushers inform you that your cell phone must be placed inside...

Review: Mark Christopher Lawrence at the DC Comedy Loft

Mark Christopher Lawrence is a comedian of myriad talents. Appearing at the Bier Baron Tavern’s Comedy Loft, Mr. Lawrence commanded the stage with an act that was multi-dimensional – and with many...

Review: ‘She The People’ at the Second City at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company

It’s common knowledge that the female cast members of Saturday Night Live like Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones practically run the high-profile comedy sketch show. The myth that women cannot be funny...

Review: ‘RIOT!: A Celebration of Women in Comedy’ at the Kennedy Center District of Comedy Festival

Riot!: A Celebration of Women in Comedy was part of the District of Comedy Festival at the Kennedy Center, featuring a weekend of comedy including stand-up, improv, sketch, variety, podcasts, and even...

Review: The Second City’s ‘Generation Gap…Or, How Many Millennials Does It Take to Teach a Baby Boomer to Text Generation X?’

The Second City’s Generation Gap is everything you’ve ever mocked your parents, grandparents, recent grad intern and tween niece for, but wittier and with better lighting. Generation Gap has you...

Review: ‘Carol Burnett: An Evening of Laughter and Reflection’ at the Kennedy Center

In 2018, our list of living legends is dwindling. So to be in the same room with one of the greatest comediennes of all time– Emmy, Golden Globe, People’s Choice, Horatio Alger, Ace Award, Peabody,...

Review: Tracy Morgan at The Kennedy Center

Following up his nationwide tour, Picking Up the Pieces, and Netflix special, Staying Alive, actor, writer, producer and comedian Tracy Morgan, celebrated for in his roles in Saturday Night Live and...

In the Moment: ‘The Way of the World’ at Folger Theatre (Women’s Voices Theatre Festival)

There’s lots to like about Theresa Rebeck’s The Way of the World just as my DC Theater Arts colleague Sophia Howes points out in her review. The show is the Folger Theater’s Women’s Voices Theater...

Review: Comedy at The Kennedy Center Millennium Stage with Gary Vider and Sara Armour

Now in its 21st year, the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage is the Center’s gift to everyone in the Washington area, offering live entertainment at no cost every single day. It’s also a great way to...

In the Moment: ‘Christmas at the Old Bull and Bush’ at MetroStage

Brimming with heart, musical numbers to elicit smiles, a unique wit, some audience sing-alongs, and moments that disrupt theatrical norms, MetroStage’s Christmas at the Old Bull and Bush is a charmer....

Review: ‘The SantaLand Diaries’ at Drafthouse Comedy Theater in DC

If you are barely in the mood to do something Christmassy, if Tiny Tim gives you hives, and learning lessons is anathema, The SantaLand Diaries is the bracing Christmas cocktail for you. The one-man...

Review: ‘Citizens’ Watch’ at Washington Improv Theater

One of the best things about improv is that no two shows are alike. And Citizens’ Watch, the improvisational mystery now unfolding at Washington Improv Theater, is no exception.

Review: ‘This Is the Week That Is’ at 1812 Productions

If you’re looking for an evening of escapist entertainment at the theater this holiday season, 1812 Productions’ twelfth installment of its perennial hit This Is The Week That Is provides the...

Review: ‘A Short Series of Disagreements Presented Here in Chronological Order’ at Studio Theatre

Daniel Kitson is an acquired taste. In the premiere of his newest one-actor creation, A Short Series of Disagreements Presented Here in Chronological Order at Studio’s Metheny Theatre, Kitson’s stage...

Review: ‘An Act of God’ at Signature Theatre

I was healed. Aches and pains of the day disappeared. Headaches from paying too close attention to Presidential tweets vanished. I might have been saved too. Not sure of that just yet. Will have to...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘Labor of Love’ by The WaitStaff at L’Étage Cabaret

Philadelphia sketch-comedy icon, and longest-running annual act in the history of the Fringe, The WaitStaff marks its seventeenth year of participation with an all-new Labor of Love. Directed by the...

Review: The Kinsey Sicks in ‘Things You Shouldn’t Say’ at Theater J

There’s virtually nothing a drag queen won’t say, or do, in public or private, say the Kinsey Sicks. The San Francisco-based beauty shop quartet that puts the show into show business, the bawdy into...

Review: The Second City’s ‘Divided We Stand’ at The Kennedy Center

They’re back! Second City–the group that made Chicago the capital of comedy and that all but invented improv–has returned to DC, where it is part of The Kennedy Center’s month-long second annual...

Review: Source Festival 2017: ‘Perfect Arrangement’

Perfect Arrangement by Topher Payne was a smash hit at Source Festival when it debuted there four years ago, and the comedy’s return to Source on the occasion of the festival’s tenth anniversary is...

Magic Time!: ‘Smart People’ at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater

Racism, presumed in polite circles to be no laughing matter, gets a hilariously smart deconstruction in Lydia R. Diamond’s Smart People. Arena Stage has given this 2016 play its DC premiere in a nifty...

Magic Time!: ‘Or,’ at Round House Theatre

As play titles go, Or, is one of the most ungoogleable. It is a search engine dead end. And as an original mashup of past and present, prose and poetry, and performative purposes, Liz Duffy Adams’s...

Review: ‘My Son the Waiter, A Jewish Tragedy’ at Bucks County Playhouse

Nearly everyone in the arts has taken another job such as waiter, receptionist, or office temp just to pay the rent. Brad Zimmerman has an unfortunately typical problem: He’s Jewish and his parents...

Interview: A Q & A with Arts Collective@HCC’s ‘IMPROVAGANZA’ Participants: Part One

Howard Community College’s Arts Collective’s What Improv Group?! is presenting Improvaganza, HCC’s (and Howard County’s, too) FIRST Improv Festival with Master Classes, on March 30, 31 and April 1,...

IMPROVAGANZA: Improv Festival and Improv Master Classes at Arts Collective @HCC

Howard Community College’s Arts Collective’s What Improv Group?! presents… IMPROVAGANZA! A Three-Night Improv Festival Mar 30, 31 & Apr 1, 2017, at 8pm in HCC’s Studio Theatre at the Horowitz Center....

Review: Jay Leno at The Kennedy Center

Iconic television host, celebrated comedian and 2014 Mark Twain recipient Jay Leno returned to the Kennedy Center’s Concert Hall Friday night amped to get the trifecta of St. Patrick’s Day, March...

Repairing and Healing the World Through Theater: An Interview With the Actors of IRC, Philadelphia’s Surreal Theater Company

Near the end of each year, Philadelphia’s only surreal theater, The Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium (IRC) —with their deeply philosophical mission statement, “We Bring Good Nothingness to...

Review: ‘Bo Dacious and Liz Russo’ at AMP Powered by Strathmore

There’s this hot little night club right across from some swanky automobile dealerships in a neighborhood calling itself Pike & Rose. The venue hosts a wide variety of arts and entertainment and makes...

Kathleen Madigan: ‘Bothering Jesus Tour’ Comes to the Weinberg Center for the Arts This Saturday, January 14, 2017 at 8 pm

Kathleen Madigan: Bothering Jesus Tour at the Weinberg Center for the Arts With a refreshing take on life’s absurdities and a brand-new Netflix special (“Bothering Jesus”), prolific comedian and...

Review: Second City’s ‘Twist Your Dickens’ at The Kennedy Center

If you’re looking for something to laugh at in this wintry political season, then you’d better move fast. That’s because tickets for Twist Your Dickens, Second City’s parody of A Christmas Carol—now...

Spine: The Second City’s ‘Black Side of the Moon’ at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company

“We are not a monolith! We are not a monolith! We are not a monolith!” chanted the six-member cast at the start of Woolly Mammoth’s Second City’s Black Side of the Moon. And, indeed, that large...

Review: The Second City’s ‘Black Side of the Moon’ at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company

The Second City’s Black Side of the Moon— the Chicago-based comedy troupe’s first foray into post-Obama politics—launched the holiday season this week with an African-American cast and a show that is...

Review: The Second City’s ‘Unelectable You’ at The Kennedy Center

Billed as “The Second City’s Completely Unbiased Political Revue,” Unelectable You—now in the middle of a four month pre-election national tour—paused in Washington, DC last weekend for a stop at The...

Review: ‘POTUS Among Us’ at Washington Improv Theater

A quick but firm handshake, a genuine embrace, a passing glance to own the room and most of all a nudge, wink and leaning in to make me feel welcome; I have met my first candidate and I haven’t even...

Review: Kathleen Madigan: The Mermaid Lady Tour at the Lyric Opera House

Prolific comedian and TV personality Kathleen Madigan brought her new The Mermaid Lady standup tour to Baltimore Saturday night at the Lyric Opera House, featuring a fresh medley of her favorite...

Review: NSO Pops: The Second City Guide to the Symphony Starring Colin Mochrie

What happens when you put together famous improv comedian Colin Mochrie, Canadian comedy troupe The Second City, and the National Symphony Orchestra? A night of music and sketch comedy at the John F....

Spine: ‘We Know How You Die’ and an Oracular Upright Citizens Brigade

We Know How You Die, the Upright Citizens Brigade’s improvised, audience participation exploration of the Oracle, its predictive methodology, and its impact on the American political—STOP! You will...

Review: ‘Miss Cuarenta’ Starring Paula Arcila at GALA Hispanic Theatre

GALA Hispanic Theatre—home of the National Center for Latino Performing Arts—kicked off its 41st season this weekend with the DC premiere of Miss Cuarenta. The dazzling solo performance—written and...

Review: ‘Moxie: A Happenstance Vaudeville’ at Round House Theatre

Moxie: A Happenstance Vaudeville channels pre-radio\TV entertainment America’s Got Talent, The X Factor, Benny Hill, The Gong Show, and The Ed Sullivan Show are nothing new. The variety show has been...

Review: Dick Gregory: An Evening of Comedy & Jazz at The Kennedy Center

Internationally known comedian and civil rights activist, Dick Gregory, closed out the last of a series of five District of Comedy Festival performances along with a young all white jazz trio who...

Review: The District of Comedy Roast of James Carville at The Kennedy Center

How do you make fun of someone who always makes fun of himself? Well, last night, Roastmaster Bob Saget and The Kennedy Center’s District of Comedy Festival managed to do just that, roasting Chester...

Review: “Celebrating Joan: A Tribute to Joan Rivers” at The Kennedy Center

Celebrating Joan: A Tribute to Joan Rivers, which left the audience of admirers howling last night at The Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater, was an evening for “mature audiences” and fans of the...

Review: Brian Regan at The Warner Theatre

With the nonstop laughter tonight coming from the Warner Theatre in DC, it was easy to tell that Brian Regan had brought his comedy tour to town! Playing through Saturday, May 21, 2016, Brian Regan’s...

Review: ‘William Shakespeare’s Long Lost First Play (abridged)’ at Folger Theatre

Whatever you’re doing, stop now. Run – do not walk; run – to Folger Theatre for the glorious ray of sunshine that is William Shakespeare’s Long Lost First Play (abridged). Created by the Reduced...