Best New York Comedy

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A beast who dined on over 400 people, set to song and dance: Maneater: The True Story of the Champawat Tigress…

…and Broadway stars are among tonight’s guests at My High School Boyfriend Was Gay

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:

 [FREE] 6:00 pm: Weekly hour-long open-mic storytelling show, with audience members chosen from a bucket of names getting to tell tales for 8 minutes each at The PIT downstairs lounge along with host Jake Hart: The Dump

6:00 pm ($5 cover & $5 drink min.): The perfect show for short attention spans—open-mic stand-up with 4 1/2 minutes per set and 20 comics crammed into 2 hours—at the Greenwich Village Comedy Club (99 MacDougal Street) for John Morrison’s Village Motel

[FREE] 6:00 pm: An open-mic stand-up show running about 90 minutes at The Creek upstairs theatre in Queens’ Long Island City with host Chris Gaynor: Open Mic Mondays

[FREE] 7:30 pm: Four improvisers form teams with comics they’ve never performed with before at The Creek upstairs theatre in Queens’ Long Island City: The Kaleidoscope

7:30 pm ($10; sign-up starts at 7:00 pm): Open mic for stand-ups, storytellers, singers, poets, actors, and more, with 5 minutes per performer and 25 slots available, at One and One Bar’s Downstairs Nexus Lounge (76 1st Street, corner of First Avenue) hosted by Nathan P., followed by a raucous afterparty with dancing & drink specials from 10:00 to midnight: Inspired Word’s Open Mic Joint

[TOP PICK] 8:00 pm ($5): Inspired by the popular blog My High School Boyfriend Was Gay, this superb show at UCB East “celebrates our most tragic, hilarious, and heinous teenage memories, full of chaste hugs, Grease sing-alongs, and trips to the stage door to accost the cast of Rent,” with true stories tonight from Annaleigh Ashford (Broadway’s Wicked, Kinky Boots), Natalie Joy Johnson (Broadway’s Legally Blonde), Nicole Byer (30 Rock, Doppelganger), John Flynn (The Nights of Our Lives, host of Oh Hey Guys), and Chris Doucette (The Advocate stand-up fave), with hosts Damian Bellino, and the super-delightful Camille Harris whose piano playing and singing will make you grin and dance in your seat: My High School Boyfriend Was Gay

[TOP PICK] 8:00 pm ($5): UCBT stars Neil Casey (Death by Roo Roo) and Will Hines (The Stepfathers) in a two-man sketch show at UCB Chelsea directed by Michael Delaney: Small Men

8:00 pm ($8): Gal improvisors—including Doppleganger’s Keisha Zollar—get together to make stuff up at The PIT upstairs theatre: Badass Girl Team Mash-Up

[FREE] 8:30 pm: NYC stand-ups performing at this weekly show at Brooklyn’s Matchless (557 Manhattan Avenue) hosted by Mike Denny, Michael Che, and/or Nimesh Patel: Broken Comedy

[TOP PICK] 9:30 pm ($5): Mamrie Hart is a rising star who somehow manages to be razor-sharp and immensely warm & accessible at the same time—and is always worth catching. Mamrie and her superb comedy partner Stephen Soroka are at UCB Chelsea tonight performing puns, wild facial expressions, dance, rock trivia, audience pranks, murder reenactments, and more as sketch duo BoF: Friends Without Benefits…

…plus in the other half of this double-bill, “This two-person sketch comedy show will transport you to India in the early 1900s to witness the true story of a tigress that killed 436 people before being gunned down by a legendary hunter of man-eating beasts. Through song, dance, and stage magic, Matt Dennie & Josh Sharp will show you that no one is safe from the tiger’s claws. The events in this show are 100% true, even the insane ones:” Maneater: The True Story of the Champawat Tigress

[FREE] 9:30 pm: Following a club format, hosts Nore Davis & Andrew Short perform stand-up throughout for a total of 25 minutes, two comics each perform a 15-minute set, and then a seasoned headliner closes out the show with a 20-minute set, all at The Creek upstairs theatre in Queens’ Long Island City: On the Road

[FREE] 9:30 pm: Liz Miele (Conan O’Brien, Comedy Central), Becky Yamamoto (rave reviews from The New York Times and The New Yorker; former beard-wearing member of band Stickerbook), Richard James, Brendan Fitzgibbons, Kyle Bostic, Jason Kantner, and Alexander Fossena performing stand-up at Pat O’Shea’s free biweekly Brooklyn showcase at Freddy’s Backroom (627 5th Avenue): Ed Sullivan on Acid

9:30 pm ($5): The debut of the only open-stage show for entire groups of improvisors and sketch comics, running weekly at UCB East hosted by Austin Rodrigues: Bring Your Own Team: Improv/Sketch Team Jam

10:00 pm ($8): In this unique show, the audience texts the improvisers on stage their lines—i.e., it’s “the only show that won’t tell you to put away your cell phones—at The PIT upstairs theatre: Text Me My Line

[FREE] 10:30 pm: Improv students are welcomed onto the stage at The PIT downstairs lounge for this weekly open access show hosted by Gary DeNoia & Keith Huang: Base Jam

[TOP PICK] [FREE] 11:00 pm: Some of the finest comics in the world—who are no longer being announced in advance, but it’s virtually always a great lineup—at UCB Chelsea hosted by someone wonderful (while usual wonderful host Leo Allen is in LA): Whiplash

[FREE] 11:00 pm: If you’re an audience member who loves stand-up, Monday at 11 should be Whiplash! night (see listing above). If you’re a comic who couldn’t get booked on UCBT’s all-star show, though, you can opt to instead practice your skills at this exceptionally supportive stand-up open-mic at The PIT upstairs theatre hosted by Jared Reed: Fresh

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