Storming New York City from Nov. 5-9, the festival presents Frank Caliendo at Carnegie Hall; “An Evening with Craig
Ferguson” at Town Hall; “Carlos Mencia: At Close Range” at
Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall; “Tracy Morgan: Coming
Back Home” at Apollo Theater; “Louis CK: They’re with Me”
at Town Hall; Katt Williams at Carnegie Hall; and Brian Regan
at Avery Fisher Hall. “Sarah Silverman and Friends” will be at
Hammerstein Ballroom; The Office’s B. J. Novak will host “B.J.
Novak and Friends” at Town Hall; and The Soup’s Joel McHale
will round out a talent roster that promises to be one of the
festival’s best yet.
Created in 2004 by Caroline Hirsch, founder and owner of
New York’s famed comedy club, Caroline’s on Broadway, and
Jarrod Moses, CEO of United
Entertainment Group, the festival was inspired by Caroline’s
on Broadway’s 20th anniversary celebration, which reunited
club alums Lewis Black and
Denis Leary and other top
comedians for a night of stand-up at Carnegie Hall.
“All the comedians who’d
grown up at the club came
back and performed, and it
was such a wonderful event
that I wanted to do more,”
Hirsch says. “People kind
of graduate from Caroline’s
and go on to bigger venues,
but I thought, why should I
lose them if once a year we
can get people to come back
and have this fun five days in
New York City?”
Hirsch’s fun five days has
become a huge success. The
festival recently announced
a multiyear partnership with
Comedy Central to produce
yearly TV specials showcasing event highlights. Over
40,000 people attended last
year’s performances. Shows
regularly sell out and often do
so in record time.
Frank Caliendo, whose
Carnegie Hall performance is
likely to be one of this year’s
sellouts, looks forward to becoming part of that tradition and
to hanging out with old friends.
“You see a lot of comics you don’t get to see,” he says. “People
in the same line of work aren’t usually around together because
we’re doing our own shows.”
Besides offering his crowd-pleasing impressions of John
Madden, Al Pacino and others, Caliendo plans to take advantage of his show’s fortuitous scheduling on the night after
the big presidential election. Famous for his spot-on George
Bush send-ups, he’s working on Barack Obama and John
Sarah Silverman, Tracy Morgan
and B.J. Novak are among
the comics performing at this
year’s festival.
