Tammy Pescatelli lost her agent and manager back in 2016 after she spoke out about joke stealing and parallel thinking, but that’s not the first time in her career that Pescatelli did something her reps disapproved of — years earlier, Pescatelli contin…
Continue ReadingJustine Marino is a comedian who joined The Groundlings shortly after moving from Denver to Los Angeles, and found herself working as a tour guide at Universal Studios while also performing stand-up at night. Her first big break came in the Jenny McCar…
Continue ReadingBorn in Taiwan to Taiwanese and Japanese parents, Atsuko Okatsuka is a stand-up comedian, actress and writer. Since putting out her first hour comedy special in 2018 as part of Hulu’s Comedy InvAsian series, she has made the shortlists of comedians to …
Continue ReadingIn 2020, Tom Papa released his fourth stand-up comedy special, and first for Netflix, called You’re Doing Great! And Tom Papa is doing great. He’s a regular performer on NPR, starring in his own segment on the weekly syndicated show, Live From Here, as…
Continue ReadingLizz Winstead is a Minnesotan through and through, even though she has spent the better part of the past three decades in New York City. Winstead first moved to New York to pursue her stand-up comedy career, became a segment producer for The Jon Stewar…
Continue ReadingDerek Gaines grew up outside of Philadelphia, and moved to New York City with his “6 Foot Nothing” crew after cementing his status as one of Philly’s Phunniest. After performing as a New Face in Montreal at Just For Laughs, Gaines began scoring TV cred…
Continue ReadingDavid Wain has been on the cutting edge of digital comedy since the turn of the century, making short films for his live comedy shows with Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black, debuting a webseries (Wainy Days) on the streaming platform My Damn Chan…
Continue ReadingJoe Pera is a Buffalo native who studied film and began his stand-up comedy career at Ithaca College. After college, Pera moved to New York City, where he started a regular showcase with his childhood friend Dan Licata and Charles Gould called the Dan,…
Continue ReadingIn an email to me on Jan. 3, 2020, Chloé Hilliard proclaimed “This is the YEAR of CHLOE!” and she may well be right. Hilliard already kicked off 2020 by releasing her first stand-up comedy album, “Big Dick Energy,” and has followed that up with the pub…
Continue ReadingAs we put a bow on 2019, it’s time once again for me to sit down with New York Times comedy critic Jason Zinoman to look back on the year’s best and brightest moments in comedy, and which comedians brought out the best. We couldn’t help but discuss can…
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