A comedy club is a venue—typically a
nightclub,
bar
Bar or BAR may refer to:
Food and drink
* Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages
* Candy bar
* Chocolate bar
Science and technology
* Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment
* Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud
* Bar (u ...
,
hotel,
casino, or
restaurant
A restaurant is a business that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services. Restaurants vary greatly in appearan ...
—where people watch or listen to performances, including
stand-up comedian
Stand-up comedy is a comedy, comedic performance to a live audience in which the performer addresses the audience directly from the stage. The performer is known as a comedian, a comic or a stand-up.
Stand-up comedy consists of One-line joke ...
s, improvisational
comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing
Amusement is the state of experiencing humorous and entertaining events or situations while the person or a ...
s,
impersonator
An impersonator is someone who imitates or copies the behavior or actions of another. There are many reasons for impersonating someone:
*Entertainment: An entertainer impersonates a celebrity, generally for entertainment, and makes fun of ...
s,
impressionist
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...
s,
magicians,
ventriloquists, and other comedy acts.
The term "comedy club" usually refers to venues that feature stand-up comedy, as distinguished from
improvisational theatres, which host improv or sketch comedy, and variety clubs (which may also host musical acts).
Types
Comedy clubs are usually broken down by comedians into "A rooms", "B rooms", and "C rooms":
*A rooms usually cater to people with movie deals, people with television shows, and generally well known acts.
*B rooms are where the best aspects of both A rooms and C rooms meet. Young comics need B rooms as a stepping stone. These are rooms where someone doing a 10- to 15-minute set (hosting/MCing) can be asked, after they've been going up long enough, to do a 20-minute set (featuring) and so on. These clubs also typically allow dirtier material, since they can become established names for "dirty" comedy or shows that usually cover adult themes.
*C rooms act as "neighborhood" comedy clubs, for the most part. The headliners are not usually very well known or popular, and the audiences are random walk-ins.
List of notable clubs
*
Bananas Comedy Club
Bananas Comedy Club are two venues for stand-up comedy: the original founded in 1986 in Poughkeepsie, New York and the other opening its doors in 1988 in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey. Top comedians in the business have stopped by throughout the ye ...
*
Carolines on Broadway
*
Catch a Rising Star chain
*
Cobb's Comedy Club
*
Coconuts Comedy Club
*
Comedy Cellar
*
Comedy Club Russia
''Comedy Club'' is a Russian stand-up comedy TV show broadcast by the Russian TNT channel since April 23, 2005.
Long-time residents of the club are Garik Martirosyan, Timur Batrutdinov, Garik Kharlamov, Pavel Volya, Alexandr Revva, Marina Kravets ...
*
The Comedy Store
The Comedy Store is an American comedy club opened in April 1972. It is located in West Hollywood, California, at 8433 Sunset Boulevard on the Sunset Strip. An associated club is located in La Jolla, San Diego, California.
History
The Comedy ...
*
The Comedy Store (London)
*
The Comic Strip Live
The Comic Strip Live is the oldest stand-up comedy showcase club in New York City, located at 1568 Second Avenue (between 81st and 82nd Streets).
History
The Comic Strip was opened in 1976. Richard Tienken and Robert Wachs were two of the club ...
*
Comedy Works in
Denver,
Colorado, U.S.
*
Dangerfields
*
The Empire in
Belfast
*
The Funny Bone
The Funny Bone is a comedy club chain in the United States. The original Funny Bone Comedy Club opened in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania by co-founders Mitch Kutash and Gerald Kubach in 1982. The Funny Bone has now expanded into markets nationwide includ ...
*
The Glee Club chain
*
Gotham Comedy Club
*
Governors Comedy Club
*
The Improv
*
Jongleurs chain
*
The Laff Stop
*
The Laugh Factory
*
Off the Wall Comedy Empire
Off the Wall Comedy Empire (also known as Off the Wall Comedy Basement) is a comedy club started by American-born comedian David Klmnick and Jeremy Man Saltan in Jerusalem, in November 2004.
The club is located in the basement at 34 Ben Yehuda ...
, Jerusalem, Israel
*
The Punchline
The Punchline is a comedy club first opened in 1982 in Sandy Springs, Georgia.
The venue seats 270 people and presents shows five or more nights per week. The club has hosted comedians as diverse as Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy, Dane Cook
...
*
The Stand Comedy Club
The Stand Comedy Club is a chain of three stand-up comedy venues in the cities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Newcastle upon Tyne.
History
The Stand hosted its first regular club night on Thursday, 21 September 1995, in the small basement of W.J. C ...
in
Glasgow,
Edinburgh and
Newcastle upon Tyne
*
The Stress Factory
The Stress Factory is a stand-up comedy club chain owned by comedian Vinnie Brand. The clubs are in New Brunswick, New Jersey and Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Incidents
Greg Giraldo's final performance
On September 24, 2010, Greg Giraldo perfor ...
*
The TakeOut Comedy Club Hong Kong
The TakeOut Comedy Club Hong Kong is a venue for stand-up comedy and improvisational comedy located at 34 Elgin Street, basement, Central, Hong Kong. Founded in February 2007 by Jami Gong, a leading Chinese American stand-up comedian, TakeOut Co ...
*
Yuk Yuk's
Improv
*
ComedySportz
*
iO Theater
iO, or iO Chicago, (formerly known as "ImprovOlympic") is an improv theater and training center in central Chicago, with a former branch in Los Angeles, called iO West and in Raleigh, North Carolina called iO South. The theater taught and hosted p ...
*
The Groundlings
*
The Second City
*
Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre
*
Dad's Garage Theatre Company Dad's Garage Theatre Company, located at 569 Ezzard St. in the Old Fourth Ward in Atlanta, Georgia, was founded in 1995 by Chris Blair, Marc Cram, Sean Daniels, George Faughnan, John Gregorio, David Keeton, Joseph Limbaugh, Matt Stanton, and Matt Yo ...
References
External links
Stand-up comedy
{{Comedy-stub