Stand-up comedy is a comedic performance to a live audience in which the performer addresses the audience directly from the stage. The performer is known as a comedian, comic, or stand-up. It is usually a rhetorical performance but many comics employ crowd interaction as part of their set or routine.
An open mic or open mike is a live show at a venue such as a coffeehouse, nightclub, comedy club, strip club, or pub, usually taking place at night, in which audience members may perform on stage whether they are amateurs or professionals, often for the first time or to promote an upcoming performance. As the name suggests, performers are usually provided with a microphone plugged into a PA system so that they can be heard by the audience.
Angelo Tsarouchas is a Canadian comedian, actor, and writer living in Los Angeles. He is known for incorporating Greek culture into his stand-up comedy routines, and has been called the "King of Greek Ethnic Comedy." He organized World Dafni Day, a celebration of Greek diaspora from Dafni, his father's birthplace.
Paul Provenza is a television presenter, actor, radio panelist, stand-up comedian, filmmaker, and skeptic based in Los Angeles. He has appeared on several podcasts and in recent years has interviewed other stand-up comedians. In 2005 he became a director, in 2010 an author and in 2011 he started producing for comedy festivals and television.
Adam Cayton-Holland is an American stand-up comedian from Denver, Colorado best known for his work with the comedy trio The Grawlix and their sitcom television series Those Who Can't. Cayton-Holland is also a writer who has been published in numerous regional and national publications; his first book, Tragedy Plus Time: A Tragi-Comic Memoir, received the 2019 Colorado Book Award for Creative Non-Fiction. He is the founder and executive director of High Plains Comedy Festival. As a comic, he is a regular headliner at clubs and colleges throughout the United States and abroad.
Israeli–Palestinian Comedy Tour was founded in November 2006 by Palestinian comedian and columnist Ray Hanania and Israeli comedian and online Podcaster Charley Warady. Arab-American Palestinian comedian and award-winning journalist Ray Hanania and his companions from the Israeli–Palestinian Comedy Tour operate under the slogan: "If we can laugh together, we can live together".
Dan Cummins is an American stand-up comedian and podcast host. His first comedy album, Revenge is Near, distributed by Warner Bros. Records, was ranked as one of the top 10 comedy CDs of 2009 by Punchline Magazine. His first hour-long special for Comedy Central, titled Crazy With A Capital F, premiered May 29, 2010. He was a co-host for The Playboy Morning Show and hosts multiple podcasts: Timesuck, since 2016; Scared to Death, with his wife Lynze, since 2019; and Is We Dumb with Joseph Paisley, which ran from 2020 to 2022.
Andrew "Andy" Wood is an American comedian and a founder/producer of Portland's Bridgetown Comedy Festival. He is a native of Ann Arbor, Michigan currently residing in Los Angeles, California.
Mikelle Louise Budge, professionally known as Mary Mack, is an American comedian, musician, and writer. Mack currently stars as Jessica Wearsprada "Jesse" Opposites in the animated sitcom Solar Opposites, which debuted May 8, 2020 on Hulu/Disney+. She has released five albums of her stand-up.
Chad Daniels is an American comedian from Fergus Falls, Minnesota. His albums have reached the top 10 on the Billboard comedy charts three times: No. 2 for 2017's Footprints On The Moon, No. 6 for 2019's Dad Chaniels, and No. 7 for 2014's Natural Selection. As of 2019, his albums have been streamed more than 700 million times. Footprints on the Moon also reached No. 1 on the iTunes comedy chart.
Shane Mauss is an American comedian from Onalaska, Wisconsin. Between 2010 and 2015, he released three comedy albums, one of which has been released as a television special; he also stars in the documentary film Psychonautics: A Comic's Exploration Of Psychedelics (2018). He hosts the Here We Are podcast (2014–present), in which he interviews scientists and academics from across the country, and co-hostsMind Under Matter, a comedy/science podcast.
Jason Love is a standup comedian from Thousand Oaks, California.
Nishant Tanwar, also known as 'Joke Singh' and more recently as 'Rider OP' is an Indian comedian and actor. He started off his professional career working at NDTV, and began doing stand-up in 2009 when he found his passion for the same at an open mic event.
Helen Hong is an American stand-up comedian, actress, director, and producer. She has appeared in such works as Jane the Virgin, Parks and Recreation, and the Coen Brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis. She has a regular spot on NPR's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! and hosts a trivia podcast called Go Fact Yourself. She formerly hosted the podcast Little Ethnic Girls. She has a recurring role on Nickelodeon's The Thundermans and had a recurring role as Mrs. Song in Starz's Blunt Talk. Hong is known for her comedic NowThis videos.
Dhaya Lakshminarayanan is an American comedian, performance artist, TV host, and storyteller. She has performed at venues such as San Francisco's Asian Art Museum, the San Jose Museum of Art, the Siren Theater, San Francisco's Punchline Comedy Club and Cobb's Comedy Club, the Brava Theatre, Throckmorton Theatre, and others. She has also performed at comedy festivals such as SF Sketchfest 2015 and SF Sketchfest 2020; the Desi Comedy Fest, America's only South Asian comedy festival; and the Out of Bounds Comedy Festival. In 2019, Lakshminarayanan, Will Durst, and W. Kamau Bell appeared as guests on KQED in regard to the controversial proposed closure of the historic San Francisco Punchline Comedy Club. The same year, she regularly opened for Greg Proops at the Punchline.
Karinda Dobbins is an American comedian. She co-produces the monthly comedy show The Resistance! alongside Dhaya Lakshminarayanan, has regularly opened for W. Kamau Bell, and additionally opened for Trevor Noah, Gina Yashere, Michelle Wolf, and Dave Chappelle. She has performed at festivals such as the Desi Comedy Fest, the Portland Queer Comedy Festival, Bridgetown Comedy Festival, and Comedy Central's Colossal Clusterfest. In 2019, SFist named her one of their 13 San Francisco Standup Comedians to Go See Now.
Amber Preston is a stand-up comedian originally from North Dakota and Minnesota and now living in Los Angeles.
The roots of modern stand-up comedy began in 1840s minstrel shows that perpetuated racist stereotypes in the United States. American vaudeville emerged around the same time and along with the later developed Chitlin' Circuit, produced the founders of this form of entertainment. Early stand-up comedians spoke directly to the audience as themselves without props or costumes, which distinguished these acts from vaudeville performances. These comics stood in front of the curtain during their shows, like early 20th century "front cloth" stand-up comics in Britain and Ireland whose numbers allowed the stage behind them to be re-set for another act.
Lisa Alvarado is an American stand-up comedian, born to Peruvian immigrant parents and raised in Chicago, Illinois.
