Comedian Kellye Howard Doesn’t Mess Around With MS
Howard's nonprofit helps people with multiple sclerosis find a way to laugh through the pain and live for today.
Howard's nonprofit helps people with multiple sclerosis find a way to laugh through the pain and live for today.
Comedy-lovers will revel in this four-day festival founded by Ariel Julie, featuring more than twenty shows across nine of the city’s most iconic comedy venues.
The Chicago comedy legend on winning an Emmy and growing up in the city's stand-up scene.
Elshieky discusses the trajectory of his comedy career, from his early days podcasting in Libya to making his break on "Conan."
The quick-witted host of the podcast "Never Not Funny," Pardo brings his improvised stand-up to Zanies Rosemont for a special matinee show.
The 312 Comedy Festival is here in its third annual edition, bringing together a highly eclectic mix of top stars and rising talents in twenty-four big shows.
The comedian reaches new creative heights with his one-man show "Grandiloquent," coming to the Athenaeum Center.
"Giggle Hour" showcase at The Lincoln Lodge features poets whose goal is to entertain as well as enlighten their audience, while serving up musical artists and highly unique variety performe…
Tim Meadows is bringing his magic to the stage of The Den Theatre on May 30-31 for three shows that put him in front of his favorite audiences of all: Chicagoans. Serving up funny stories on…
By choosing an audience member to come on stage and pick a comic to have a date with, "First Date Comedy Gameshow" at the Laugh Factory takes the idea of the first date to a whole other leve…
W. Kamau Bell started out as a popular presence on the Chicago comedy scene in the mid-nineties, and his biggest love has always been for performing as a stand-up.
Stand-up comedians dread the prospect of a tough crowd in nightclubs, but Jeanie Doogan and Tom Filline face tough crowds five days a week as schoolteachers. Each turned to stand-up as a sou…
Jeff Ross has been touring the nation telling the story of how roasting has helped him deal with the loss of his grandfather, his most beloved comedian friends and his dog in the one-man sho…
Jake Johannsen has been making people laugh in clubs nationwide and countless TV appearances for the past forty years, bringing his highly offbeat and surreal take on life to subjects as far…
Cameron Esposito has spent more than a decade making a unique splash in Hollywood, not only as one of the outest and proudest LGBTQ+ comics around, but also as a successful actress on major …
For the past three years, the troupe has been making waves on the current comedy scene with its monthly variety shows that combine stand-up, improv, sketches, music, audience-interactive gam…
For the past thirty-five years, comedian Maria Bamford has been the guiding light to making hilarity out of hellishness, putting her own battles with OCD front and center in her acting and s…
Canadian comic Steph Tolev will bring her high-energy, anything-goes, raunchy and raucous performance to Zanies Comedy Night Club.
Holmes is back on the road for "The Feelin' It" tour, his first since pre-pandemic times, and is performing an entirely new hour at the Den Theatre.
The show mixes dramatic depth with plenty of laughs as Akana recounts dealing with her sister's suicide when she was seventeen and her own mental health struggles. She promises Chicago audie…
"I wanted a place to do comedy for people my own age and with the same lived experiences of being a mom, being married, trying to work and just be a human being," explains Telisman.
Masood Boomgaard had to deal with a friend who was constantly trying to motivate him with self-help books throughout the early months of the pandemic. Boomgaard found great annoyance in thei…
Edelman is bringing the full ninety-minute show back to Chicago, making the leap from a comedy club to a ten-night run of shows from February 15-25 at the internationally renowned Steppenwol…
Deanna Ortiz is one highly ambitious and in-demand comic.
For the past seven years, Chicago's funniest women have been revealing their most outrageous moments in the popular "Ladylike" showcase, which currently runs monthly at the Lincoln Lodge.
Laura Hall's returned to Chicago to assemble a troupe of actors called Phony Award Winning, who have an ambitious challenge: to learn classic Broadway musicals inside and out, and then impro…
Mike Toomey grew up loving television, and his favorite shows each year were the special Christmas episodes of sitcoms and the wide array of Christmas specials starring celebrities. But the …
"If you're not talking about something real and something substantive, the vast majority of comics are really not saying anything, because they don't have anything to say."
Zanies comedy club now offers the "Ultimate Bucket List Experience," which gives funny dreamers the chance to create a killer act while being mentored by a top comic, and perform it in a rea…
Chicago's reputation for comedy has primarily been rooted in having the best improv scene on the planet. But the city has also spawned a rich stand-up history, and the first-ever 312 Comedy …
Thanks to a new book about the wildly creative alternative-comedy scene that gave birth to an explosion of stars and influential talent between 1996 and 2009, the Chicago scene is finally ge…
Growing up queer in a religious household in Missouri, Zach Noe Towers learned how to navigate living in two distinctly different worlds at once.
Pharoah will be bringing his potent mix of impersonations and vividly funny tales of his personal life to the stage of Chicago's Den Theatre August 26 as he tapes a new hourlong special.
As a fan-favorite monthly panelist on the long-running comedic game show "Wait.. Wait…Don't Tell Me!," comedian Alonzo Bodden has been bringing some of the sharpest political jokes on the …
Chicago's longest-running long-form improv show features one of the city's most beloved improv stars when T.J. Jagodowski takes the stage as the guest monologist for "The Armando Diaz Experi…
Devon Walker's ridden a wave of success all the way to "Saturday Night Live." Walker will be bringing his comedy stylings to the stage at Zanies July 13-15.
Maddy Smith has circled the world opening for superstar comic Bert Kreischer, but she takes center stage headlining at Zanies
Chicago comedy favorite Jimmy Carrane presents a show that's been fifty-nine years in the making
Comic Hari Kondabolu brings his unique point of view to life to his beloved Chicago audiences at the Den Theatre
Edwards owes his impressive comedy career to working at a drive-thru.
The Lincoln Lodge's "Latest and Greatest" show serves up a perfect mix of rising talents and veteran favorites
Pat McGann may have started his stand-up career later than most, but he's on top now with two April 22 shows at the Chicago Theatre
Cipha Sounds brings his New York energy to Zanies Chicago
Yo was one of the earliest survivors of COVID, and the experience made him stronger than ever.
Flannery will be one of six comics taking the stage for the "Shamrock Shenanigans" show at the Den Theatre, as part of a lineup of Irish comics detailing their unique life experiences as par…
For most people, calling off a wedding is a tragic occasion. But for Hansen, it turned out to be the start of an entirely new phase of her comedy career.
Hashem has put her sharp joke writing skills to work currently on HBO's "The Sex Lives of College Girls."
The upcoming shows will feature his brand-new hour of material, which has a strong focus on life during the pandemic and all the changes it's brought to society.
In addition to headlining as a stand-up, Gardenswartz has found success as a consulting producer and story editor on the Emmy-winning Amazon series "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel."
"A big part of my act is trying to convince people to get along, love life and be very positive."