Best New York Comedy

For full details, please visit HyReviews.com.

If you have a thyroid, or know someone with a thyroid, please consider buying my latest book The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Thyroid Disease.

Visiting Denver-based comic Adam Cayton-Holland performs tonight at Hot Tub Variety and Whiplash

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: Kevin Allison (legendary MTV sketch series The State, HBO, Comedy Central, VH1, host of award-winning storytelling show Risk!) hosts this free open-mic show for storytellers, in which you can put your name in a hat for the chance to tell a five-minute true story…and if it’s a good one, possibly be included in Kevin’s popular podcasts on the Web: Risk! Storyslam

6:30 pm & 9:00 pm (no cover, 1-item min.): The perfect show for short attention spans—open-mic stand-up with 4½ minutes per set and 25 comics crammed into 2½ hours—with an early show hosted by Sean Donnelly & Blaine Perry at 6:30 pm, and an entirely different group of stand-ups hosted by Dan Cartwright & Dave Greek at 9:00 pm—at the Luca Lounge (222 Avenue B off 14th Street) for John Morrison’s Motel Luca

7:00 pm ($5): Jenny Dunne and Rick Andrews improvise a single moment in two characters’ lives again and again, exploring three parallel realities, and the difference that a look or tone can make; and duo improv by Dustin Drury and Andrew Yurman-Glaser, in the double-bill The Cascade and Upstate New York

[FREE] 7:30 pm: Dan St. Germain (Comedy Central, MTV, They Hated Each Other), Erin Judge (Comedy Central; for hilarious stand-up bit about being bisexual, please click here), Jessimae Peluso (Last Comic Standing, The Tyra Banks Show), J-L Cauvin (Craig Ferguson), and Greg Collett performing at a free weekly show in the Manchester Pub hosted by Phoebe Robinson: Case of the Mondays Comedy

[TOP PICK] 8:00 pm ($5): The unsinkable Mamrie Hart and her comedy partner Stephen Soroka areBest of Friends, and their new sketch show educates you about how to effectively promote it when you tell all your friends to see it: BoF: It’s Pronounced ‘Boaf’!; and in the other half of this double-bill, Lennon Parham demonstrates her comedy genius by utterly stealing this show with just a few minutes of performance time—via Skype video from LA!—while other talented performers on stage struggle with a sadly underdeveloped script…though Marcy Jarreau somehow manages to rise above the material, and is the other standout to look for (in the scene with the mirror…): Oh My God, I Heard You’re Dying!

[TOP PICK] 8:00 pm ($6.50 online or $8 at the door): Corn Mo (superb comedic musician), Free Love Supreme (wonderful rap improv troupe), Brent Sullivan (Comedy Central), and Adam Cayton-Holland (award-winning stand-up comic who writes weekly humor column for Denver alt newspaper Westword; also writes online pieces—for example, a 9/3/08 entry chided a young political celeb’s blog for calling the First Lady poised and elegant, commenting “Laura Bush ‘poised’? Pshaw! The woman has the wild-eyed look of a feral, cornered rabbit, like she’s either going to dart the f*ck away or go straight for your jugular, Bunnicula-style…And she looks about as elegant as a Texas whore who one day dreams of singing alongside the piany;” for a video sample, please click here) performing at Brooklyn’s Littlefield (622 Degraw Street) with sketches and more from NYC comedy royalty Kristen Schaal and Kurt Braunohler: Hot Tub Variety

8:00 pm ($5): Improv based on headlines from the amazing New York Post: Headless Body in Topless Bar

9:30 pm ($5): Two of UCBT’s fine house sketch comedy troupes, Dweeb and Thunder Gulch, trying out new bits at Maude Night

9:30 pm ($5): A one-man show from Julie Ann Dulude about being raised by strict Catholic parents: Bless This Mess

[TOP PICK] [FREE] 11:00 pm: Some of the finest comics in the world—who tonight include Brooke Van Poppelen (brilliant stand-up, writer, and storyteller; blogger for trutV; TLC; Maxim and Cosmo Radio; for stand-up videos about overindulging at 30 and impersonating Morrisey, please clickhere and here), Jay Pharoah (cast member of Saturday Night Live), Roger Hailes (Comedy Central, VH1), and Adam Cayton-Holland (award-winning stand-up comic who writes weekly humor column for Denver alt newspaper Westword; also writes online pieces—for example, a 9/3/08 entry chided a young political celeb’s blog for calling the First Lady poised and elegant, commenting “Laura Bush ‘poised’? Pshaw! The woman has the wild-eyed look of a feral, cornered rabbit, like she’s either going to dart the f*ck away or go straight for your jugular, Bunnicula-style…And she looks about as elegant as a Texas whore who one day dreams of singing alongside the piany;” for a video sample, please click here)—at Whiplash

[FREE] 11:00 pm: If you’re an audience member who loves stand-up, Monday at 11 should beWhiplash! 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 stand-up open-mic hosted by Michelle Wolf and the hilarious Erin Lennox (for a sample of Erin’s dynamite Seriously Sports show, please click here): Fresh

For full details, please visit HyReviews.com.

If you have a thyroid, or know someone with a thyroid, please consider buying my latest book The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Thyroid Disease.