Best New York Comedy

For full details, please visit HyReviews.com.

For Hy’s coverage of the spectacular FringeNYC 2010 Festival, please click here.

Christopher Titus headlines tonight at Carolines; and Jon Gabrus performs his one-man UCBT show Blackout Drunk

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] [FREE] 7:00 pm: Star storyteller Tom Shillue (Conan O’Brien, The Daily Show, Comedy Central Presents), stand-ups Leighann Lord (Fox News, Huffington Post) and Jane Galvin-Lewis, illusionist Lee Alan Barrett, and musical guests Sarah Herklots and The Summer Replacements performing at Otto’s Shrunken Head (538 East 14th Street, between Avenues A and B) hosted by Eric Vetter: No Name and A Bag O’ Chips

7:00 pm ($8): “Where there is a stage and a piano, she will be there. Where there are strangers with embarrassing stories, she will be there. Where there is a group of people willing to sit and watch someone make up songs, she will be there. A one-woman musical improv journey through the lives of the audience. You tell the story, Rebecca Vigil sings the soundtrack:” The Vigilante

[MEGA-TOP PICK] 7:30 pm ($10): A spectacular and unforgettable demonstration of the artful power of mime when combined with a wickedly sharp modern sensibility, executed with great wit and style. Street performers have given mime a bad rep; but if you think about it, what mime does is boil a situation down to its essential elements, and then express those elements in a manner that’s instantly and universally understood. That’s really what art is all about; and that’s also what Billy the Mime does, often brilliantly. (For my review of his FringeNYC show in 2006, please click here.): Billy the Mime; plus a sketch show from UCBT troupe Thunder Gulch: Pop Culture Apocalypse

[TOP PICK] [FREE] 7:30 pm: Celebrating co-host Pat Stango’s birthday are genius stand-up Anthony Jeselnik (writer for Jimmy Fallon; Conan O’Brien, HBO, Comedy Central Presents), star storyteller Tom Shillue (Conan O’Brien, The Daily Show, Comedy Central Presents), razor-sharp stand-up Jared Logan (Comedy Central), and more—including sketch comedy, musical group Fortress of Attitude, and “a drunken makeout-filled afterparty” with hosts Pat Stango & Blaine Perry, all at Karma Lounge for this endearingly oddball monthly comedy show: Don’t Touch Me There

[TOP PICK] [$] [DISCOUNTED] 7:30 pm ($19.33 online if you use code VIPAUG, plus 2-item minimum): A quartet of friends who like to harmonize a cappella—on national TV series such asScrubs—sing and dance for one night only at the elegant Comix Comedy Club: The Blanks

[$] 8:00 pm & 10:30 pm ($31.25 & 2-drink min.): A TV star who’s made a career out of confessional comedy headlining through Sunday at Carolines: Christopher Titus

[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

[TOP PICK] [$] [DISCOUNTED] 8:00 pm Tuesday-Saturday ($39.50 online or at the box office using discount code PPBBOX): This is a show for which I have enormous affection; although my joy came from watching not only what occurred on stage, but the faces of the women in the audience turning stonier and stonier as they visibly projected the thought, “Dick tricks? This entire show really consists of dick tricks? All my suspicions about men have just been confirmed…” If you cherish bravery in performers, go forth to the 45 Bleecker Theatre (right next to the #6 subway’s Bleecker Street stop) and experience Puppetry of The Penis

[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

[$] [DISCOUNTED] 8:00 pm ($19.33 online if you use code VIPAUG, plus 2-item minimum): A popular stand-up and friends performing at the elegant Comix Comedy Club: Colin Kane Unzipped

[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] 11:30 pm ($5): Dru Johnston, Noah Forman, and Alex Demers springboard off an audience suggestion to improvise an entire silly and energy-charged play in 40 minutes; especially keep an eye on Demers, who has a wild Sean Penn quality that makes you think he might explode into violence or insanity at any moment, adding to the edgy quality of The New Deal

[TOP PICK] Midnight ($5): “Jon Gabrus is a rugby player from Long Island who loves to drink, which is the perfect trifecta for getting into ridiculous and dangerous situations. Come drink along with Gabrus as he shares some of his beer-soaked tales, like the time he ate a dead snake, or cooked a fork on a barbecue and branded himself…twice. There will plenty of drinking games, lots of audience participation, and an appalling lack of shame. His special guest bartenders Max Silvestri and Noah Garfinkel, and his lack of self-control, will join forces to create a night Jon probably won’t remember:” Blackout Drunk

[$] 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 coverage of the spectacular FringeNYC 2010 Festival, please click here.