Moontower Comedy Festival 2025 - The Ultimate Recap

Sam’s Moon­tow­er Recap

Standup may well be the rai­son d’etre of Austin’s bustling com­e­dy scene, but every April comics share the spot­light with live pod­casts, clown shows, and exper­i­men­ta­tion that defies clas­si­fi­ca­tion. A vast line­up of local and vis­it­ing tal­ent, new­com­ers and head­lin­ers alike makes for a fest that is sure to sat­is­fy any comedic sen­si­bil­i­ty. No mat­ter your sense of humor, there’s some­thing for every­one at Moon­tow­er Com­e­dy Festival.

Dr. Z, that is Dr. Zaius, that is Dana Gould brought his Space Ghost-esque talk show form to a live audi­ence. Zach Zuck­er brought his cir­cus. Mor­gan Jay brought an auto­tune micro­phone to any­one in his path. Josh Adam Mey­ers brought his micro­phone to the front-row and employed cap­tive atten­dees to sing with­out the aid of autotune.

My itin­er­ary con­sist­ed of standup exclu­sive­ly, but the unex­pect­ed was present in all of the club shows I went to. At New York’s Finest I saw stand­out sets from Gian­mar­co Sore­si, Isabel Hagen, and Austin-NYC trans­plant Sam Castil­lo, just to name a few.

A fin­ish­ing set from the afore­men­tioned Mey­ers was most­ly musi­cal. Being crowd work shy I made haste to the bar, but watch­ing Mey­ers from afar as he led the audi­ence in a chant was a sight to behold. I can’t men­tion what was said here (not PG), but if he has the charis­ma to make all of Antone’s Night­club repeat it, there’s no ques­tion­ing why Mey­ers is the host of The God­damn Com­e­dy Jam.

The Inter­na­tion­als was my chance to see some of my favorite comics on the Moon­tow­er line­up; Sophie Bud­dle, Mohanad Elshieky, and Aaron Chen did not dis­ap­point. I’d seen come­di­ans sing on stage before but I’d nev­er seen one freestyle rap, so when Chris Turn­er effort­less­ly rhymed at length based on a hand­ful of audi­ence sug­ges­tions, I was as impressed as I was surprised. 

Equal­ly excit­ing was Stand-Up On The Spot. Host Jere­mi­ah Watkins and a line­up includ­ing Lau­ra Peek, Matthew Brous­sard, Ian Bagg, and the Sklar Broth­ers col­lec­tive­ly riffed on every sug­ges­tion thrown at them with vary­ing degrees of going off top­ic. Riff-mas­ter Gen­er­al Casey Rock­et crab walked onto the stage and, when I say things got tan­gen­tial, I’m real­ly talk­ing about him. You nev­er know where a riff will take you, but if everyone’s laugh­ing any­way, it’s all about the journey.

Nei­ther singing nor rap­ping occurred dur­ing the Tex­ans, but it was a stel­lar show nonethe­less. Walk­ing sym­bol-of-Texas Dean Stan­field was the most appro­pri­ate host for a show­case that also fea­tured 2024’s Fun­ni­est Per­son In Austin cham­pi­on Liz Splatt. Also among the line­up were some of my local favorites Justin Hicks, Andrew Wag­n­er, and Avery Moore. 

Moore made her State The­atre debut with Avery’s Spe­cial Movie. Filmed dur­ing last year’s Moon­tow­er, Moore’s first spe­cial is bound­less, a lit­tle bit chaot­ic, and full of a wild ener­gy that is unique­ly her own. Through ​‘movie mag­ic’ Moore’s jokes/​stories/​confessions are visu­al­ized in ​‘drama­ti­za­tions’ strung along through­out the spe­cial. A Moon­tow­er show appar­ent­ly wouldn’t be com­plete with­out music, so it’s only fit­ting that the cli­max of this spe­cial is Moore per­form­ing her own song par­o­dy à la Weird Al Yankovic. Watch­ing some­thing that was filmed in front of a live audi­ence, while also sit­ting amongst a live audi­ence, was a meta expe­ri­ence. I couldn’t always tell where the laugh­ter I heard was com­ing from, but I knew I was laughing. 

Spon­tane­ity is a through­line at Moon­tow­er. Out­side of craft­ed jokes, crowd work can go in any direc­tion, and the odds that it leads to rap­ping are nev­er zero. Out­side of shows, the odds of run­ning into your favorite comics on the street are much high­er. In a Stamp­town show it seems evi­dent that any­thing can hap­pen (who can even guess what the chances are that Neil Patrick Har­ris will show up again). The unex­pect­ed is half of the fun. Go to Moon­tow­er for the com­e­dy, but stay to see who’s at the afterparty.

Valerie’s Moon­tow­er Recap

It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Moon­tow­er can actu­al­ly be both, but like a diehard (8 years run­ning — I checked my col­lec­tion of past Moon­tow­er badges), the fes­ti­val is my cham­pi­onship. How many of the hun­dreds of shows can I fit in dur­ing the club week­end? This year I squeezed in 15 club shows, includ­ing a per­son­al best of attend­ing 4 of the 4 Stamp­town nights, 4 live pod­casts, 3 head­lin­er shows, and a legend.….ary two night sight­ing of Neil Patrick Har­ris.

Some­times you can watch a show from start to fin­ish, some­times, you can only catch 30 min­utes. That’s tor­ture to those of us who suf­fer from extreme FOMO (“am I real­ly leav­ing this amaz­ing show ear­ly???”). You quick­ly for­get once you are wrapped in the laugh­ter of the next show.

Celebri­ty sight­ing stand­outs for me were watch­ing Neil Patrick Har­ris drop in to two Stamp­town shows and crowd surf at The God­damn Com­e­dy Jam. But also, the sur­prise of watch­ing Janeane Garo­fa­lo, twice! First was as the first guest ever on the Jack­ie and Lau­rie Show. The live pod­cast event occurred at the inti­mate space of Hig­bie’s. To share the air with a leg­end was a pinch-me moment. The sur­prise sec­ond sight­ing was as part of a stand­ing room only Tag It! show host­ed by the Sklar Broth­ers. I could only watch two comics per­form — Garo­fa­lo was one, Pete Holmes was the oth­er. How lucky was I to get to wit­ness these com­e­dy super­pow­ers get tags added to their already strong sets?

Despite being a long-time fan of Jere­mi­ah Watkins, I have yet to lis­ten to the Trail­er Tales pod­cast, so it was a fas­ci­nat­ing expe­ri­ence to attend Trail­er Tales, a pod­cast project between Watkins, Chel­cie Lynn, and Lib­bie Hig­gins. The live event com­bined music, a dat­ing show com­po­nent, and a lot of sweet­ness. A pop­corn buck­et was shared among the full audi­ence at State The­ater, and oth­er than teas­ing Watkins’ char­ac­ter, the love toward and from the audi­ence gave me a warm and fuzzy feel­ing in a world that is decid­ed­ly less so.

Brad Williams’ career has explod­ed over the last few years. Proof is in him sell­ing out Para­mount The­ater for his head­lin­ing night. I vivid­ly remem­ber chat­ting up Brad at a cof­fee shop a few years back lead­ing up to record­ing our pod­cast with him a few years lat­er. He is gen­uine and kind, and undoubt­ed­ly one of the fun­ni­est peo­ple in the world right now. So, it was with great inten­tion that I knew the place to be was The Velvee­ta Room for the first of four nights of Sur­round­ed (Mike Fal­zone’s inti­mate crowd­work show) where Williams was on the line­up. Watch­ing Williams whether in a small club set­ting, on the TV screen (his spe­cial, Starfish, is a must-watch), or on a big stage, you walk away feel­ing good and I felt great watch­ing him on Fal­zone’s show. We did­n’t get a pho­to of Brad at Sur­round­ed, but snapped one of FPIA win­ner Dylan Car­li­no and Fal­zone which cap­tures the pure joy of this show.

My strat­e­gy this year was to watch Casey Rock­et at his 11:30pm Fri­day night head­lin­er show at State The­ater and again at Standup on The Spot (Watkins’ pride and joy crowd­work show), but I was reward­ed with see­ing him even more, includ­ing as part of Stamp­town. There’s no deny­ing Rock­et’s strength on stage is absur­dism with per­pet­u­al motion, but is that sus­tain­able for an entire hour? I’ve seen plen­ty of Rock­et’s 15 minute sets, and this was my first time to watch a full hour of the crab­man. The answer is yes, Rock­et is more than capa­ble of hold­ing an audi­ence’s atten­tion for an hour. He tru­ly is a one-of-a-kind and after a recent run of sold out shows in Aus­tralia, it’ll be hard­er and hard­er to find him in Austin. 

Speak­ing of Austin-based comics, big shoutout to the debut of Avery’s Spe­cial Movie. What a treat to see Avery Moore on stage and on the screen for the view­ing of her spe­cial which was record­ed dur­ing last year’s Moon­tow­er Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val. The vignettes that sea­soned the spe­cial were per­fect — not too much, not too lit­tle to dis­tract from the standup.

I can’t wait to share the pod­casts we record­ed! Check those out over the next month!

After a marathon, you need rest, but you can’t rest too long, right? Good thing I live in one of the best com­e­dy cities in the world. There are plen­ty of ways for me to keep train­ing, includ­ing the year-round offer­ings that Moon­tow­er has (Ramy Youssef and Pat­ton Oswalt are around the cor­ner). All this train­ing will help me pre­pare for Moon­tow­er 2026.