Moontower Comedy Festival 2025 - Val's Picks

You heard about The Tex­ans, The Inter­na­tion­als, New York’s Finest, Stand-up On The Spot, and peren­ni­al favorite, The God­damn Com­e­dy Jam, from Sam last week. I plan on hit­ting at least a few of those shows myself (sleep sched­ule be damned!). Gian­mar­co Sore­si was already on my radar after his absolute glow up over the last cou­ple of years. He may have one of the busiest sched­ules of the fest — seri­ous­ly, does this man sleep? He’s appear­ing in:

• New York’s Finest
• Rough Cut
• Moon­tow­er All-Stars
• Trans-It Girls
• His own pod­cast, The Downside

I love the premise of The Down­side (talk­ing to guests about the down­side of their fame) because it chan­nels my inner ​“glass is half-emp­ty and prob­a­bly poi­soned” view of the world. 

Sam men­tioned Sophie Bud­dle, who I com­plete­ly adore. Her first Moon­tow­er was a mere three years ago, and WHAT. A. RIDE. she’s been on:

• Writ­ing and per­form­ing on After Midnight
• Open­ing for her bestie Tay­lor Tomlinson
• Tour­ing the coun­try like a com­e­dy nomad
• Releas­ing her Com­e­dy Cen­tral com­e­dy special

You can’t miss Sophie this year — she’s on Crush­ers, Killers, The Inter­na­tion­als, Trans-It Girls, Hit List, and open­ing for Ian Bagg. Our sweet Cana­di­an friend should­n’t be missed (I’ll per­son­al­ly find you and judge you if you do). Speak­ing of friends, I’m beyond excit­ed that past pod­cast guests Jes­si­mae Pelu­so and Nathan Mac­in­tosh are both back to Moon­tow­er. They’ve accom­plished a lot since their first Moon­tow­er appear­ances (both pre-COVID, aka the Before Times), and it’ll be a treat to see them on Austin stages again.

Moon­tow­er Goes International

There’s a LOT of inter­na­tion­al pres­ence at this year’s festival:

• Zarna Garg (India)
• Fern Brady (Scot­land)
• Mohanad Elshieky (Libya)
• Aaron Chen (Aus­tralia)

These are just some of the diverse voic­es that Moon­tow­er is bring­ing to Austin. Britain’s Chris Turn­er is bring­ing his mind-blow­ing freestyle rap com­e­dy to Moon­tow­er after releas­ing his 2024 spe­cial ​“Chris Turn­er: Two Nights in Texas.” The spe­cial was record­ed dur­ing his var­i­ous appear­ances through­out Austin at The Creek and the Cave, Com­e­dy Moth­er­ship, and Cap City Com­e­dy Club. 

Which reminds me, there’s a whole con­tin­gency of musi­cal com­e­dy per­form­ers includ­ing Mor­gan Jay, Wolves of Glen­dale, and of course, Moon­tow­er favorite, Josh Adam Mey­ers’ The God­damn Com­e­dy Jam. 

The Jere­mi­ah Watkins Chron­i­cles Continue

In our ongo­ing chron­i­cling of the evolv­ing career of Jere­mi­ah Watkins (my favorite com­e­dy chameleon), we are THRILLED that he’s back with sev­er­al of his projects:

• His long-time show Stand-Up On The Spot (SOTS to those in the know) has two offerings
• His pod­cast with Chel­cie Lynn and Lib­bie Hig­gins, ​“Trail­er Tales,” takes over The State Theater
• A lit­tle project with long-time friend Adam Ray is tak­ing over Bass Con­cert Hall for Dr. Phil Live

You might have seen Dr. Phil Live on Net­flix this past year (or were you liv­ing under a rock)? Yeah, Jere­mi­ah is a key play­er in the show which has been tour­ing the coun­try. Jere­mi­ah recent­ly launched a pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny with anoth­er long-time friend, Avery Pear­son, and we’re excit­ed to sit down and record for the 8^th time with Jere­mi­ah to talk about Thou­sand Per­cent and every­thing that’s been hap­pen­ing over the last year of his career. Yes, we’ve been not-so-secret­ly stalk­ing his career tra­jec­to­ry since 2017. No, we’re not apol­o­giz­ing for it.

SNL Takeover

As a long-time Sat­ur­day Night Live afi­ciona­do (read: obses­sive), I’m always intrigued by the SNL offer­ings at the fest. This year, fea­ture play­er Emil Wakim is tak­ing the fes­ti­val by storm. In addi­tion to per­form­ing on a vari­ety of show­case shows like New York’s Finest, Stars in Bars, and Killers, he’ll be head­lin­ing his own show at Speakeasy. James Austin John­son, known for his impres­sion of the pres­i­dent (but a great standup in his own right), will be on Stars in Bars and head­lin­ing The State The­ater. Ceara O’Sullivan isn’t a cast mem­ber (yet), but is a dom­i­nant writer on SNL. A hand­ful of SNL alums will also grace the festival:

• Chloe Troast
• Brooks Whee­lan
• Alex Mof­fat
• Janeane Garo­fa­lo (yup, she was on the cast)

Beyond Tra­di­tion­al Standup

Ready for the non-tra­di­tion­al com­e­dy expe­ri­ence part of the Fes­ti­val? Moon­tow­er has ful­ly embraced that com­e­dy is NOT just standup (thank god, or my atten­tion span would be toast). Stamp­town has been a favorite of mine since Zach Zuck­er brought this project to Austin at Hide­out The­ater a few years back. Now the clown, vari­ety, improv, standup, and frankly, hard to pin down spec­ta­cle is tak­ing over the State The­ater. I hope there are enough brooms and mops for the cleanup. You’ve got 4 chances to watch Stamp­town and if the past is a pre­dic­tor of the future, every sin­gle per­for­mance will be dif­fer­ent (and glo­ri­ous­ly chaot­ic). Moon­tow­er is bring­ing Genius + Poi­son Mag­ic Week fea­tur­ing Rob Zabrecky, Derek Hugh­es, and Nick Dif­fat­te’s on-stage mag­ic. Pre­fer your com­e­dy deliv­ered by masked joke­sters? You can catch:

• Right Now with John Goblikon
• Hang­ing with Dr. Z

Dr. Z (Dana Gould) is an eccen­tric 1970s-style talk show host, while John Gob­likon boasts the #1 gob­lin com­e­dy pod­cast in the uni­verse as he asks hard-hit­ting ques­tions of his guests. The front man for met­al band Nekro­gob­likon who also penned the book ​“Guide to Liv­ing Your Best Life,” will have plen­ty of gob­lin thoughts to share at Moon­tow­er (and I am HERE for every bizarre minute of it).

Pod­cast Paradise

Live pod­casts con­tin­ue to fea­ture promi­nent­ly at Moon­tow­er 2025:

• Some of This is Bad (host­ed by locals Colton Dowl­ing and 2023 FPIA win­ner Dylan Car­li­no)
• Trail­er Tales
• The Jack­ie and Lau­rie Show

I’m excit­ed to see all of these. With the careers that Jack­ie Kashi­an and Lau­rie Kil­martin have had, their long-stand­ing friend­ship is what I’m most keen to see in action. The long-time friends talk about the busi­ness of com­e­dy on their long-run­ning pod­cast (near­ly 500 episodes strong) and we can all ben­e­fit from their insights and experiences.

Local Heroes

Speak­ing of locals, let’s cel­e­brate the moment that Avery Moore is hav­ing. Moore’s ​“Avery’s Spe­cial Movie” is get­ting a Moon­tow­er fes­ti­val screen­ing, and if you’ve seen her trans­for­ma­tion over the last few years (new­ly sober, but as sharp on stage as ever), it’s a good time for every­one to sup­port all of her recent vic­to­ries. Oth­er locals get­ting their moment are Scott Whar­ton and Con­nor Nutt who are bring­ing ​“Dressed to Kill” (com­bin­ing humor with haute cou­ture — final­ly, my two pas­sions com­bined). And 2024 Cap City Com­e­dy Club’s Fun­ni­est Per­son in Austin win­ner, Liz Splatt will be live and uncen­sored at mul­ti­ple shows through­out the festival.

Pod­cast Scoops!

I’ve got some excit­ing pod­cast tap­ings planned with Moon­tow­er comics, espe­cial­ly the 8^th install­ment with Jere­mi­ah Watkins. I was a guest on Jack­ie Kashi­an’s Dork For­est a few years ago (Law & Order, the orig­i­nal — yes, I’m THAT kind of nerd) and I’m excit­ed to announce that I’m get­ting to trade places and ask about her career (and her lat­est spe­cial, ​“Look­ing Back”). You’ll have to keep an eye on our web­site for the oth­er guests we’ve been able to land! (Spoil­er alert: they’re fantastic.)

My Final Must-See Recommendations

I’ve cov­ered a lot of ground here, so what are my final recommendations?

• Sur­round­ed (hands down the most inti­mate crowd-work show that exists) by Mike Fal­zone con­tin­ues to rule evenings at Velv Com­e­dy Lounge as it has for the last few years. I’m excit­ed to see local mom-to-be and Com­e­dy Moth­er­ship reg­u­lar Sam Lopez on the show! She’ll be on Fri­day night with Alfred Rob­les, Zach Noe Tow­ers, and Willie Macc, which promis­es to be a stel­lar lineup.

• Atsuko Okat­su­ka had one of the finest debut spe­cials in HBO’s ​“The Intrud­er” and was mem­o­rable to me near­ly 10 years ago as a per­former at Out of Bounds Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val. I can’t wait to see her in per­son again and maybe, just maybe, wit­ness her leg­endary ​“drop it low” dance in real life.
• Joey Diaz is a leg­end and he’s per­form­ing at Moon­tow­er Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val for the first time. Twice. That’s two shows not to miss, cock­suc­ka! (Sor­ry, had to chan­nel my inner Joey there.)
• It’s been a while since I’ve been able to catch Casey Rock­et live. The ​“crab­man” has been tour­ing the coun­try (and just fin­ished tour­ing in Aus­tralia), he’s on the ​“Kill Tony” Net­flix spe­cial, and has a sin­gle head­lin­ing show slat­ed for State Theater.
• My final rec­om­men­da­tion is Janelle James. The actress who fre­quent­ly steals the scenes among the all-star cast of ​“Abbott Ele­men­tary” has been a standup force for a while, so get­ting to see her out­side of the halls of Abbott Ele­men­tary is some­thing I’m tru­ly look­ing for­ward to. Her dead­pan deliv­ery makes me feel seen.

Moon­tow­er has pulled off anoth­er stel­lar feat with the 2025 edi­tion of the fes­ti­val. More comics, more venues, and more vari­ety. It’s hard to imag­ine how much bet­ter this fes­ti­val can get. But by the time the doors close Sat­ur­day night (at Antone’s at the final God­damn Com­e­dy Jam, pre­sum­ably), I’m sure the uni­ver­sal con­sen­sus will be ​“they did it again” fol­lowed by ​“can’t wait til next year!” and ​“I need to sleep for three days straight!”