2026 Moontower Comedy Festival Picks by Tracey Schulz, Sam Peirce, and Valerie Lopez

Moon­tow­er Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val has always known how to build a big tent — and the 2026 head­lin­er slate is one of its most eclec­tic yet, mix­ing gen­uine leg­ends with comics at the absolute top of their cur­rent game.

Marc Maron is the head­lin­er every­one in the room was most curi­ous about. After step­ping back from his long-run­ning pod­cast WTF, Maron is now all-in on stand-up, and the results will be on full dis­play on the Para­mount The­ater stage.

Albert Brooks per­form­ing live is, by any mea­sure, a buck­et-list moment. With a leg­endary career span­ning 5 decades, breath­ing the same air as Albert Brooks is an oppor­tu­ni­ty not to miss.

Kathy Grif­fin is anoth­er head­lin­er gen­er­at­ing real antic­i­pa­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly for those who’ve been watch­ing her road back to per­form­ing. Tracey has seen her speak about her jour­ney in doc­u­men­tary form, but get­ting to see this any­thing-but-D-List celebri­ty in per­son is a rare opportunity.

Brad Williams has been a Moon­tow­er fix­ture since the ear­ly years, and there is some­thing gen­uine­ly sat­is­fy­ing about watch­ing his tra­jec­to­ry — from club shows to head­lin­ing the Para­mount and oth­er big the­ater venues across the world. And he’s a per­son­al favorite of Com­e­dy Wham’s since he sat down with us back in 2021. It’s still one of the best con­ver­sa­tions you’ll hear from some­one who at the time was on the verge of his now clear­ly super­star status. 

Sarah Sher­man (aka Sarah Squirm) — co-head­lin­ing a show with Meg Stal­ter — is the head­lin­er that Sam has cir­cled, under­lined, and starred on his cal­en­dar. Valerie, the ever Sat­ur­day Night Live fan, loves Sarah and speaks high­ly of ​“Sarah Squirm: Live + In The Flesh” (HBO Max) which is a mind-melt­ing, visu­al­ly eclec­tic, comedic mas­ter­piece. Sher­man breaks the rules and leaves you cheer­ing for her comedic law­less­ness. Tracey put it sim­ply: ​“There’s no one doing what Sarah is doing.”

Round­ing out the head­lin­ers worth track­ing: Zachari­ah Porter (absur­dist stand-up at the State The­ater) and Vir Das. Tracey flagged Vir as a return­ing fes­ti­val high­light — when he came through before, his show was a total dis­cov­ery moment and his star has shined brighter and brighter. He’s back in Austin, and worth seek­ing out.

Club week­end runs April 15 – 18, and this is where Moon­tow­er’s iden­ti­ty real­ly lives — over 100 comics with­in walk­ing dis­tance, inti­mate venues, late nights, and the kind of show you’ll be telling peo­ple about for years.

Fall­out The­ater is back host­ing Moon­tow­er shows for the first time in many years, and Sam and Valerie have strong feel­ings about this. Fall­out is home to the pod­cast stu­dio where Com­e­dy Wham makes its home and is home to Valerie’s ImproV­in­tage show. Sam per­forms, techs, and runs the pod­cast stu­dio. We think Fall­out is an incred­i­ble, inti­mate black box the­ater primed to let some of this year’s per­for­mances make history.

Top of Sam’s Fall­out list: Mar­tin Urbano​’s Who Wants to $2.69? — a riff on Who Wants to Be a Mil­lion­aire that was born dur­ing the pan­dem­ic and has only got­ten sharp­er since. If you attend­ed Mar­t­in’s debut spe­cial tap­ing record­ed at State The­ater in 2024 (where he played a can­celed come­di­an on his come­back tour), you already know what this man is capa­ble of on an Austin stage. You can also catch Mar­tin as part of the Stamp­town shows. Valerie has been a long-time fan of Mar­tin since the days of Sure Thing at Austin Java, with mul­ti­ple Com­e­dy Wham Presents episodes chron­i­cling his remark­able com­e­dy career.

Also at Fall­out: Ava Bunn​’s Late Bloomers (Wednes­day, April 15) — a char­ac­ter show for­mat that Sam flagged as some­thing gen­uine­ly new to the Moon­tow­er line­up. Bunn, a 2025 Just for Laughs New Face, is also about to become more wide­ly known as a cast mem­ber in the upcom­ing Scrubs revival. And Joey Dar­d­ano is bring­ing his solo show Anoth­er Direc­tion (Thurs­day, April 16) to Fall­out as well — more on him in the Stamp­town section.

Sam is also mak­ing time for the Cana­di­ans of Com­e­dy show­case (Fri­day, April 17), a reli­able dis­cov­ery engine that nev­er disappoints.

Oth­er club show high­lights: Andy Hug­gins (Sat­ur­day, April 18) at Hig­bies is on both Sam’s and Valerie’s lists. The Hous­ton com­e­dy leg­end, who came up along­side Sam Kin­i­son and Bill Hicks as part of the Texas Out­laws crew in the ​’80s, is 75 years old and still one of the sharpest acts on any stage. You can also learn more about Andy from his 2022 Com­e­dy Wham interview. 

Debra DiGio­van­ni (Thurs­day, April 16) and Jay Jur­den (Sat­ur­day, April 18) have solo shows that are both on Sam’s radar as well — he caught Jay Jur­den for the first time at a 2024 Moon­tow­er show­case and has been track­ing him since.

Sur­round­ed — Mike Fal­zone​’s leg­endary inti­mate crowd-work show at the Velvee­ta Lounge — con­tin­ues to be essen­tial Moon­tow­er view­ing for Valerie. If you haven’t expe­ri­enced being arms-length from the per­former in a room where any­thing can hap­pen, this is the year to fix that. The mod­el is sim­ple — comics ditch their mate­r­i­al and inter­act with the audi­ence for inspi­ra­tion. Avail­able every night of the Club Show week­end (times vary, check the sched­ule), you can some­times catch Para­mount Head­lin­ers doing the most incred­i­ble crowd work you’ll ever see. Mike Falzone’s 2022 Com­e­dy Wham inter­view gives you great insight into Mike’s incred­i­ble career as a com­ic who cul­ti­vat­ed Sur­round­ed into a show per­formed around the country. 

Standup on the Spot (SOTS) is anoth­er crowd­work show, curat­ed by peren­ni­al Com­e­dy Wham favorite, Jere­mi­ah Watkins. You’ll be able to catch SOTS twice (Wednes­day, April 15, and Sat­ur­day, April 18) with heavy-hit­ters like Beth Stelling, The Sklar Broth­ers, Yakov Smirnoff, and more. 

The God­damn Com­e­dy Jam is back, as is cus­tom­ary, run­ning Wednes­day to Fri­day. Josh Adam Mey­ers’ late-night musi­cal com­e­dy insti­tu­tion at Antone’s has been the per­fect fes­ti­val cap­per for years — part com­e­dy show, part par­ty, part ​“I can’t believe I just saw that.” Catch it while you can.

Emil Wakim — the first Lebanese-Amer­i­can cast mem­ber in *SNL* his­to­ry — is head­lin­ing his own show (Thurs­day, April 16) and appear­ing across mul­ti­ple show­cas­es. Tracey flagged this as a don’t-miss.

The Sklar Broth­ers’ Tag It is also worth build­ing your evening around. The show decon­structs com­e­dy in real time — the Sklars riff with their friends imme­di­ate­ly after their sets, offer­ing new tags. It’s meta in the best pos­si­ble way. And, with­out a ping pong pad­dle in sight (a ref­er­ence to one of the ear­ly Sklar Broth­ers roles as the annu­al Moon­tow­er ping pong com­pe­ti­tion com­men­ta­tors), this is one of the best ways to catch these fire­brand twins in action.

At this point, Stamp­town deserves its own cat­e­go­ry — and this year we’re giv­ing it one.

Stamp­town runs all four nights of club week­end (Wednes­day, April 15 through Sat­ur­day April 18, 9:30pm each night), and if you’ve nev­er been, pre­pare to have your expec­ta­tions com­plete­ly dis­man­tled. The show — anchored by Zach Zuck­er and fea­tur­ing an ensem­ble that includes Busi­ness Casu­al, BONAVE­GA, Joey Dar­d­ano, Natal­ie Palamides, Vig­go Venn, Mar­tin Urbano, and Erin Far­ring­ton — defies easy descrip­tion. Clown, improv, stand-up, vari­ety, spec­ta­cle, chaos. It takes over the State The­ater, and the pro­duc­tion val­ue alone will make your jaw drop. In 2025, Stamp­town uni­verse pulled in leg­en… dary act­ing icon Neil Patrick Har­ris into its uni­verse (Zuck­er and Har­ris are long-time friends) and it was that type of sur­prise that Stamp­town deliv­ers nightly.

This is Sam’s first year final­ly mak­ing Stamp­town hap­pen, and the FOMO has been build­ing. Valerie can hard­ly believe Sam has wait­ed this long. She’s been going to see Stamp­town since the ear­ly Moon­tow­er days when it was at Hide­out The­ater, a stage bare­ly able to con­tain the over­brim­ming insanity. 

Joey Dar­d­ano deserves a spe­cial call­out with­in the Stamp­town uni­verse. Valerie first noticed him as the stand­out phys­i­cal per­former at Stamp­town last year — all danc­ing, goof­ball ener­gy, and fear­less com­mit­ment. He’s now head­lin­ing his own show, Joey Dar­d­ano: Anoth­er Direc­tion (Thurs­day, April 16, 7pm), sep­a­rate from his Stamp­town appear­ances, and Sam has been watch­ing his Insta­gram clips in preparation.

In a hilar­i­ous twist of fate, Zach Zuck­er’s Jack Tuck­er: Com­e­dy Standup Hour Spe­cial is pre­mier­ing the same time as Joey Dar­d­ano’s show. We can’t pos­si­bly tell you which show to choose from, but either way, you’ll want to be swept into this vortex.

One of the things that has always set Moon­tow­er apart is the gen­uine pres­ence of Austin and Texas comics — not just as open­ers, but woven into show­cas­es through­out the fes­ti­val. This year’s local con­tin­gent is espe­cial­ly strong.

Dylan Car­li­no is bring­ing his If I Was a Girl show to Hig­bies (Thurs­day, April 16) — a con­cept that went viral on Tik­Tok and show­cas­es exact­ly what makes Dylan so elec­tric: high ener­gy, sharp writ­ing, and the kind of phys­i­cal com­mit­ment that makes small rooms feel like are­nas. If you know Dylan from the stage, you already know. If you don’t, this is a great entry point. He’s the 2023 Fun­ni­est Per­son in Austin cham­pi­on and has been prov­ing wor­thy of the acco­lade since. You can lis­ten to his 2023 Com­e­dy Wham (and 300^th episode) inter­view to learn more about his incred­i­ble jour­ney in comedy. 

The 2025 FPIA win­ner, JJ Cur­ry, is mak­ing his Moon­tow­er debut this year on The Tex­ans line­up (Thurs­day, April 16, 7:15pm) along­side a stacked local bill that includes Shane Tor­res, Caleb Elliott, Fast Ronald, Roxy Castil­lo, Rafael Cruz, Katie Fel­ton, and Mimi Meier. Sev­er­al of these names — Rafael Cruz, Fast Ronald (episode com­ing out next week), and Caleb Elliott— are mak­ing their Moon­tow­er debuts this year, and Valerie has had the plea­sure of talk­ing to a few of them on the pod­cast. The Tex­ans runs every night of the club week­end with a rotat­ing line­up of local comics.

Angeli­na Mar­tin is on The Tex­ans as she has been for many years. She also pro­duces and per­forms in her show Slide in the DMs — one of the most reli­ably fun show for­mats in Austin com­e­dy, built around the deranged real­i­ty of DMs and spiced up with improv — which is get­ting its Moon­tow­er debut this year. Sam is par­tic­u­lar­ly excit­ed for this one to get expo­sure to an out-of-town audi­ence. Valerie thinks that Angeli­na is one of the most under­rat­ed all-around per­form­ers (standup, act­ing, improv, pro­duc­er) and while she’s been a long-time Moon­tow­er sta­ple, get­ting one of her shows on the Moon­tow­er cal­en­dar is well-deserved.

Tracey added to the local praise for Angeli­na, ​“She’s been doing the Slide in the DMs shows for a while now. She’s very pol­ished. She knows what she’s doing. I’m curi­ous to see this show with this crowd — for the out-of-town­ers to see what we’ve been see­ing for a while.”

Mimi Meier also gets an extra shoutout — she’s on the April 18 The Tex­ans line­up, and Sam flagged her as one of the most con­sis­tent­ly present and active per­form­ers in the Fall­out community.

Every Moon­tow­er has a hand­ful of shows and per­form­ers that don’t fit neat­ly into one cat­e­go­ry — they’re just things you should know about.

Yakov Smirnoff is this year’s sur­prise book­ing. Yes, real­ly. The Sovi­et-era com­e­dy leg­end has been per­form­ing since 1977, and Tracey — who has seen just about every­thing Moon­tow­er has ever put on — declared him the sin­gle must-see of the entire festival.

He’s every­where this year: head­lin­ing at Cap City Com­e­dy Club (Fri­day, April 17, 7:30pm), on Stars in Bars (Wednes­day, April 15, Thurs­day, April 16, and Fri­day, April 17), in Tag It (Sat­ur­day, April 18) with the Sklar Broth­ers, The Inter­na­tion­als (Thurs­day, April 16, and Sat­ur­day, April 18), Standup on the Spot (Sat­ur­day, April 18) with Jere­mi­ah Watkins, and Jum­bo Sets (Fri­day, April 17). Nine shows in total. It will be near­ly impos­si­ble NOT to see him. Don’t let this moment in Moon­tow­er and com­e­dy his­to­ry pass you by. 

Even Sam, despite being decid­ed­ly younger than Tracey and Valerie, admit­ted his inter­est is piqued based on Smirnof­f’s appear­ance in King of the Hill. Whichev­er way you got to this moment, it’s clear that Yakov Smirnoff tran­scends gen­er­a­tional differences. 

Car­o­line Rhea — best known to many as Aunt Hil­da from Sab­ri­na the Teenage Witch, and a long­time work­ing stand-up — is back for what Tracey believes is her sec­ond or third Moon­tow­er. She appears on mul­ti­ple shows includ­ing Stars in Bars and the Yakov Smirnoff showcase.

Uly Morazan​’s show I Love Uly at Fall­out The­ater (Fri­day, April 17, 9pm) — billed as fea­tur­ing ​“sexy dance num­bers, fun­ny sto­ry times, audi­ence par­tic­i­pa­tion, edu­ca­tion­al gay lec­tures, and live demon­stra­tions” — is exact­ly the kind of sin­gu­lar, hard-to-cat­e­go­rize thing that Moon­tow­er does bet­ter than any oth­er fes­ti­val. This is one Valerie is excit­ed to check out.

And final­ly: Cathy Lad­man, a leg­end in her own right. She’s appeared on ​“The Tonight Show” ten times, with Jim­my, Jay, and John­ny. She’s writ­ten on ​“Roseanne” and ​“Car­o­line in the City”. A pro­lif­ic actor, teacher, and writer, this is one of those under the radar per­form­ers you should­n’t miss. 

Between the leg­ends (Albert Brooks, Yakov Smirnoff), the cur­rent-moment greats (Marc Maron, Sarah Sher­man, Kathy Grif­fin), the club week­end deep cuts, Fall­out’s return to the fes­ti­val fold, and the strongest local con­tin­gent in recent mem­o­ry — Moon­tow­er 2026 is shap­ing up to be some­thing spe­cial. Now stop read­ing and go get your badge!!!

2026 Moon­tow­er Com­e­dy Festival

Next Dates

• Head­lin­er Shows: April 7^th to 18^th
• Club Week­end: April 15^th to 18^th

Web: moon​tow​er​com​e​dy​.com

• Indi­vid­ual Show Tick­ets and Badges available

Insta­gram: @MoontowerComedy

Fol­low Sam Peirce

• Web­site — samqpeirce​.com
• Link​tr​.ee — link​tr​.ee/​s​a​m​q​p​eirce
• Insta­gram — @samqpeirce
  • Dog­house — @doghousecomedyatx
• Youtube — youtube​.com/​@​s​a​m​q​p​eirce

Sam can be seen and heard:

• Dog­house — 2^nd Sun­days at Fall­out Theater
• Com­e­dy Wham writer

Fol­low Tracey Schulz

• Web­site — traceyschulz​.com
• Insta­gram — @tracey.schulz
• Face­book — face​book​.com/​T​r​a​c​e​y​.​S​c​h​u​l​z​.​F​aceBk

Tracey can be seen and heard:

• KOOP Radio — What’s New every Wednesday