Best New York Comedy

For full details, please visit HyReviews.com.

For Hy’s take on Last Comic Standing, please click here.

For Hy’s pre-festival coverage of FringeNYC 2010, please click here.

Star stand-up Tom Papa headlines tonight and Saturday at Carolines

Tonight’s recommendations for the best in New York City comedy (in chronological order, with top picks noted and shows over $10 marked with $) include:

[TOP PICK] 7:00 pm ($5): In this fun show, 16 musical performers turn an audience member’s suggestion into two musical fairy tales that tell what happened from the viewpoint of first the hero and then the villain, with “all the music and magic of a Disney flick…plus the darkness of the Brothers Grimm:” Once Upon a Time

[TOP PICK] [$] [DISCOUNTED] 7:30 pm & 10:00 pm ($19.33 online if you use code VIPAUG, plus 2-item minimum): Past and current contestants of NBC’s Last Comic Standing—including the stand-up who may well win next week, Myq Kaplan—perform tonight and Saturday at the elegant Comix Comedy Club: Still Standing Up: A Last Comic Standing Showcase

[TOP PICK] [FREE] 7:30 pm: Hannibal Buress (Variety’s 2010 Top 10 Comics to Watch; staff writer for Saturday Night Live; Comedy Central, Jimmy Fallon, Craig Ferguson, George Lopez; 2010 ECNY Award for Best Male Stand-Up), Sara Schaefer (brilliant, inventive, luminous comic; Emmy-nominated staff writer for Jimmy Fallon; VH1’s Best Week Ever), Chris “Shockwave” Sullivan (The Daily Show, The Electric Company, Freestyle Love Supreme, The BEATdown), Aparna Nancherla, Jodie Wasserman, Charlie Kasov, and Joe List performing at Brooklyn’s Happy Ending for wonderful stand-up/comedic rapper host Carolyn Castiglia’s Splurge!

[TOP PICK] [$] 8:00 pm & 10:30 pm ($31.25 & 2-drink min.): The host of the Jerry Seinfeld-produced NBC comedy The Marriage Ref who’s appeared numerous times on David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, and Jay Leno, and has performed two Comedy Central specials (with a third in the works) headlining tonight and tomorrow at Carolines: Tom Papa

[TOP PICK] 8:00 pm ($10): A groundbreaking and surreal improv/sketch troupe performing with new guests each Friday and making a valid complaint: Centralia: We Were Supposed To Have Flying Cars By Now

[FREE] 8:00 pm: NYC stand-ups David Angelo (writer for Jimmy Fallon), Dave Rosinsky (Whitest Kids ‘U Know), Calise Hawkins (Last Comic Standing, Comedy Central), Craig Baldo (Conan O’Brien, Comedy Central), and Nate Bargatze (Conan O’Brien, Comedy Central) performing at Brooklyn’s Coco 66 for hosts Nick Turner’s & Neal Stasny’s Too Cool for School

[FREE] 8:00: NYC stand-ups Mike Lawrence, Jesse Popp, Dan Soder, Joe Machi, and Andy Haynes performing at O’Hanlon’s (14th Street off 1st Avenue), hosted by Mark Normand: Hot Soup

[TOP PICK] 9:00 pm ($10): Some of the finest improv in NYC from the comedy genius members of The Stepfathers

10:00 pm ($7): Singing improvisors who use an interview with an audience member to craft The Made-Up Musical

[TOP PICK] 10:30 pm ($10): Thomas Middleditch, Jonathan Gabrus, Sue Galloway, and other superb improvisors make up scenes about an audience member’s legal dispute at The Law Firm: Law & Disorder

[TOP PICK] Midnight ($5): A comedic freestyle rap contest featuring some of the funniest & sharpest comics in NYC—John Frusciante, Mike Still, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Myka Fox, and Sara Jo Allocco—plus a volunteer from the audience!, hosted by genius comedic musical performers Chris “Shockwave” Sullivan (Freestyle Love Supreme) and Eliza Skinner (I Eat Pandas), all at The BEATdown

[$] 12:30 am ($31.25 & 2-drink min.) A provocative comedy star who’s written for Richard Pryor, Red Foxx, and Saturday Night Live, and performed on Chappelle’s Show and David Letterman, headlining through Sunday at Carolines: Paul Mooney

For full details, please visit HyReviews.com.

For Hy’s take on Last Comic Standing, please click here.

For Hy’s pre-festival coverage of FringeNYC 2010, please click here.