Three only-in-Chicago comedy festivals this week: Laughingstock: The Chicago Comedy Music Festival Corn Comedy Palooza. Chicago Open-Mic Festival. Interview with producer David Gavri here. It’s a good week if you love comedy and books. This week, Chicago is a book-tour stop for Issa Rae, Rainn Wilson and Greg Schwem. Later this week, The Kates visit […]

  This week begins and ends with stand up, sketch, improv and film programs you can only see here. Visitors this week include Ray Chao, John Cleese, Patton Oswalt, Jake Johannsen, Tony Rock, Frank Caliendo, Paul Hooper, Alingon Mitra, Fortune Feimster, Kevin Williams and New Yorker cartoon guru Bob Mankoff. Paula Poundstone and Bill Maher […]

The best national entertainment news is all about Chicago comedians. Last week, NBC announced the creation of seeso.com, a web-based comedy subscription service for “comedy super fans” to debut in January. The original content will include a stand-up series, Take My Wife, created and produced by Cameron Esposito and Rhea Butcher. The partners in both […]

Especially noted: Evanston comedian Peter-john Byrnes records his album Ghost Story at ComedySportz tonight. He has his own memorable brand of smart, relatable, very, very funny comedy. Highly recommend. In more album news, Mikey Manker invites you to celebrate his album release with a party later this week. Congratulations to The Defiant Thomas Brothers! Their […]

EPIC Fest kicks off this week! It’s the Edison Park Infectious Comedy Fest which runs from Tuesday, October 13 to Sunday, October 18. If features some monster Chicago comedy greats, so be sure to check it out. Three of the Fest’s headliners kindly took time for an interview here. Later this week, Chicago favorites Dan […]

For every event below, there are fifty more that caught my eye. When something catches yours, please check out the venue’s complete calendar. You’ll be glad you did. Chicago comedy news: Beth Stelling’s Comedy Central half-hour airs on Saturday, October 10th at 11:30 p.m. CST and Dan Telfer’s third album Ocean of Panic debuted last week to […]