- Larry Hirshowitz
- Marc Maron headlines the First Annual 26th Annual Comedy Festival’s final night
Once you get over being amused at the tongue-in-cheek, that’s-so-Onion name, the First Annual 26th Annual Comedy Festival is pretty straightforward. It’s four shows of comedy in three days (June 12-14) at the Athenaeum Theatre—the one that looks like a “theater” from the outside and a “theatre” from the inside—and presented by, yep, the Onion and its sister publication, the A.V. Club. The acts are mostly familiar names made popular by the overlapping universes of stand-up comedy and and stand-up comedians doing podcasts. (The Reader has actually written a thing or two on most of the performers, which you can discover via links below.)
Thursday features Comedy Bang! Bang! Live! with Scott Aukerman. While on tour the podcast-turned-television-show also includes a stand-up showcase and TBA guests that don’t really matter at this point because tickets, once $27 a pop, are sold out. If you happen to track a couple down, though, the show begins at 7:30 PM.
Friday’s straight stand-up with Tig Notaro, Kyle Kinane, and Mike Lebovitz. A mash-up of Notaro’s delightfully awkward presentation, Kinane’s exaggerated gruffness, and Lebovitz’s goofy absurdity is sure to be fun. There’s a 7 PM and a 10 PM show and tickets are $32.
WTF overlord Marc Maron headlines the final night, with Adam Burke opening. And if the cynical and brutal Maron does his self-deprecating show-and-tell bit, it will have been well worth the wait. Saturday’s tickets are also $32, and the show starts at 7:30 PM.