Moontower Comedy Festival 2026 - The Ultimate Recap

Sam’s Moon­tow­er Recap

This year’s Moon­tow­er Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val was full of firsts. It was the first time in a few years that the Fall­out The­ater was a venue of the fest. As a tech, this meant get­ting to work with tal­ent behind the scenes. Sec­ond, this was my first time final­ly see­ing Stamp­town. Third, this was the first Moon­tow­er as far as I know that includ­ed a char­ac­ter show; more on what that was lat­er. And last­ly, this was the first ever Moon­tow­er to fea­ture Yakov Smirnoff. I know that for certain.

At Fall­out I had the plea­sure of work­ing one of my favorite shows host­ed by one of my favorite comics, Who Wants $2.69 With Mar­tin Urbano. This fan­tas­ti­cal­ly absurd triv­ia show is made all the more hilar­i­ous by way of Urbano’s urbane deliv­ery. He’s a game show host read­ing off-col­or ques­tions. Also, each cor­rect answer is worth two dol­lars and six­ty-nine cents; there is cer­tain­ly no oth­er fun­ny rea­son why the show is named what it is. Blair Soc­ci and Natal­ie Palamides were the guest con­tes­tants. Palamides left with five dol­lars and change. Soc­ci made a whop­ping dou­ble dig­its in win­nings. Mon­ey talks!

I hint­ed vague­ly at a char­ac­ter show. Ava Bunn’s Late Bloomers pre­sent­ed not standup com­e­dy, but bits and mono­logues à la UCB’s Char­ac­ters Wel­come. At least in my very short his­to­ry with Moon­tow­er, this for­mat was hith­er­to non-exis­tent in the fes­ti­val. It was cer­tain­ly clown-adja­cent. What­ev­er you want to call it, Late Bloomers was a stand­out show for me not just as a spec­ta­tor and tech, but as a some­times-per­former myself influ­enced by the kinds of char­ac­ter work I saw on the Fall­out stage that night. Ava Bunn was elec­tric as both per­former and cura­tor of a col­lec­tion that also includ­ed John Gob­likon, Erin Far­ring­ton, and Austin’s own Lucas McCutchen and Bec­ca Sefer­ian. McCutchen played a talk­ing lap­top, Sefer­ian a hokey Mid­west­ern mom, and Gob­likon his gob­lin self as usu­al. This time, how­ev­er, he rat­tled off his famil­iar talk­ing points in the form of an infor­ma­tive slideshow (if you didn’t already know, there are major dif­fer­ences between trolls and gob­lins). The night cul­mi­nat­ed in high-school­er Sadie Hawkins (Bunn) prom-pos­ing to an audi­ence mem­ber and invit­ing them onstage to dance.

Round­ing out my Fall­out itin­er­ary was a solo show from Joey Dar­d­ano. Dar­d­ano, a con­sum­mate per­former in his own right, is also a reg­u­lar on Stamp­town, but we’ll get to that lat­er. Hav­ing been aware of his Insta­gram pres­ence and now hav­ing seen him in the flesh I can say one thing with cer­tain­ty: Joey Dar­d­ano is always like that. Dardano’s high ener­gy on and off the phone screen is what makes him such a love­able per­sona, but in per­son that ener­gy is con­ta­gious. Dar­d­ano riffed with the audi­ence in between his own slideshow telling of an event­ful arc of his life, one involv­ing his con­tention with and lat­er cap­i­tal­iza­tion on an indie film using his exact name for its tit­u­lar char­ac­ter. It was a roller­coast­er from start to fin­ish replete with text mes­sage receipts and digres­sions into oth­er top­ics. When Dar­d­ano makes his big break as a dra­mat­ic actor, I’ll remem­ber when I saw his audi­tion at the Fall­out The­ater. Dar­d­ano even capped things off with not one, but two orig­i­nal songs. Each was, in effect, advi­so­ry songs against mak­ing love on a full stom­ach of Ital­ian food. You don’t want to upset your tum­my, folks.

And then there’s Stamp­town. I final­ly saw the show every­one has been beg­ging me to see for years. Despite the hype from my trust­ed friends and its over­whelm­ing­ly pos­i­tive rep­u­ta­tion and its trend of planned and sur­prise guests alike and the pedi­gree of Zach Zuck­er, I was still unsure what I would think of this show. Well, it turns out, Stamp­town is exhil­a­rat­ing [Valerie’s edi­to­r­i­al: told you so, Sam!]. Zucker’s quick wit­ted­ness onstage was end­less­ly sur­pris­ing and cease­less­ly hilar­i­ous. He nev­er once stopped for a breather between an onslaught of quips and quick reac­tions to a con­stant bar­rage of sound effects pro­duced on the fly. Zucker’s wit was lent to one-lin­ers and slap­stick as well; he prob­a­bly shot him­self in the crotch with a con­fet­ti gun fifty times, and it was amus­ing every time. Zuck­er pre­emp­tive­ly pulling a hand­gun every time some­thing ​“objec­tion­able” hap­pened was just the kind of recur­ring bit that I love. That’s not to men­tion the antics car­ried out by Stamptown’s ​“stage crew”. It wouldn’t be Stamp­town with­out the spe­cial guests, either. Mar­tin Urbano was the jour­nal­ist live review­ing the show as it hap­pened. Every time he read his writ­ing from where we left off, and every time we got to hear a riotous, skew­er­ing roast full of crafty insults. Natal­ie Palamides appeared as a ter­ri­fy­ing 300-year-old nun and gave birth to a bunch of meat on stage. Chad Dami­ani played a jan­i­tor whose latent tal­ent is con­tin­u­al­ly sup­pressed; when final­ly giv­en the chance to prove him­self, he abused his stage time quite flagrantly..and per­vert­ed­ly. Aside from all of this were three gen­uine cir­cus acts, those being a jug­gler, a roller­skat­ing dancer, and a very impres­sive hula hoop­ist. These were tru­ly a sight to behold and a nice break from all the pure com­e­dy I’d been inun­dat­ed with that week. This was clas­sic show­biz through and through.

We’re used to Moontower’s eclec­tic line­ups and this year’s fest was no excep­tion. Vul­can Gas Company’s Stars In Bars show­case fea­tured, on one night, the afore­men­tioned Yakov Smirnoff, along­side fel­low com­e­dy leg­end Andy Hug­gins, Car­o­line Rhea, the Sklar Broth­ers, and once more the green gob­lin him­self, John Gob­likon. Equal­ly var­ied was The Tex­ans at the Velvee­ta Room, as it clear­ly wasn’t lim­it­ed to Texas-born or even Texas-based acts. I don’t know how they slipped through the cracks, but out­siders Jere­mi­ah Watkins and Jon Rud­nit­sky shared the bill with locals like Mimi Meier, Andrew Mur­phy, and Fast Ronald. This line­up, yan­kees and all, made for an excit­ing night regard­less of my con­fu­sion about the name­sake of the show. This town is big enough for all of us.

I saved my most antic­i­pat­ed show for the final day of the fes­ti­val. Sarah Sher­man and Pat­ti Har­ri­son brought their chaot­ic pres­ence to the Para­mount The­atre for one night only. What unfold­ed was two full hours of anar­chic showrun­ning. They even took their chaos off­stage and into the aisles to inter­act with the audi­ence at point blank range. Only when I was mere­ly five feet from Sarah Squirm her­self did I tru­ly appre­ci­ate my assigned seat. I’ve heard Sher­man talk at length about bod­i­ly func­tions (this wasn’t my first rodeo) but learn­ing that Torchy’s Tacos was respon­si­ble for her vio­lent indi­ges­tion gave me new insight. Har­ri­son, mean­while, patrolled the aisles doing obscure impres­sions and lat­er read from her Har­ry Pot­ter-inspired fan­f­ic. Cre­ative lib­er­ties were tak­en and orig­i­nal char­ac­ters had names I will have to cen­sor here for obscen­i­ty. A select two atten­dees were brought up to table-read a (reject­ed) SNL script of Sherman’s for the finale. This peek into the writ­ers room was, as Har­ri­son would say with dis­gust, a chance to see how the sausage is made. It was the per­fect way to end a show that had no fourth wall to begin with.

Valerie’s Moon­tow­er Recap

I say it every year: it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Moon­tow­er can actu­al­ly be both, but like a diehard (9 years run­ning accord­ing to 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 10 club shows, 2 live pod­casts, 3 head­lin­er shows, and 1 movie screen­ing.

A less intense intake of shows than last year’s fes­ti­val, but the sched­ule was eas­i­er to nav­i­gate and I found myself able to choose a great vari­ety of shows with­out feel­ing like I was sac­ri­fic­ing my first­born because of what I might be missing.

Let’s start with the leg­ends that Moon­tow­er Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val brought to Austin.

Yakov Smirnoff, the famed Russ­ian com­ic, actor, and Bran­son, Mis­souri the­ater owner/​performer, land­ed in Austin and had a packed sched­ule. Between show­cas­es, includ­ing The Inter­na­tion­als, his head­lin­ing set at Cap City Com­e­dy Club, and even squeez­ing in a Com­e­dy Wham Presents record­ing (stay tuned!), Yakov showed no signs of slow­ing down.

With less house­hold name recog­ni­tion, but no less of a leg­endary his­to­ry (and all the impor­tant peo­ple in com­e­dy know exact­ly who she is), Cathy Lad­man came for her debut appear­ance at Moon­tow­er. She opened for Beth Stelling (more on that below) and appeared in sev­er­al show­cas­es through­out club week­end. The come­di­an, actress, and writer got her start in com­e­dy in New York and LA along with oth­er leg­ends like George Wal­lace and Jer­ry Sein­feld. She’s made 10 appear­ances in late night shows span­ning John­ny Car­son to Jim­my Fal­lon; she’s writ­ten for Roseanne, Car­o­line in the City, and count­less oth­er shows. 

I lim­it­ed my Stamp­town watch­ing to 1 full show and the last 10 min­utes of anoth­er. I’d say that’s quite a lot of restraint on my part, espe­cial­ly with the return of the incom­pa­ra­ble Natal­ie Palamides. As she’s done in the past, the post-show com­par­i­son notes sug­gest that Palamides did some­thing dif­fer­ent for each of her Stamp­town appear­ances. For the show I watched, she was birthed live on stage and start­ed her standup career imme­di­ate­ly. It was decid­ed­ly less dark than the char­ac­ter she did for the night Sam watched her.

A spe­cial treat for me was get­ting to watch her as her­self on Who Wants $2.69 with Mar­tin Urbano, espe­cial­ly since I’ve only ever seen her as an out­landish char­ac­ter. While we’re on the sub­ject of the Stamp­town uni­verse, at the last minute, Moon­tow­er added a screen­ing of Zach Zuck­er’s Jack Tuck­er: Com­e­dy Standup Hour. Every­thing I’ve been watch­ing Zach Zuck­er do at Moon­tow­er as part of Stamp­town is now memo­ri­al­ized in its own standup spe­cial. Some of the reg­u­lars you see at the fes­ti­val were part of the spe­cial as well, though the focus was very much on Zach Zuck­er. The spe­cial is avail­able now on YouTube.

Improv made a more defin­i­tive appear­ance at this year’s Moon­tow­er. Lau­ren Lap­kus and Mary Hol­land brought their Lau­ren and Mary Show to the State The­ater in a ful­ly impro­vised duo show. The duo have been impro­vis­ing for years and their cohe­sion was incred­i­ble to watch. In the improv world we call that ​“group mind”, and wow, did they have it!

The oth­er improv show that made its debut is by one of our home­town heroes and one of the hard­est work­ing come­di­ans in Austin. Angeli­na Mar­tin pro­duces many shows from open mic, to standup show­case to improv, and one of her improv shows, Slide in the DMs, nabbed a spot on the Moon­tow­er line­up. The show fea­tures standup and improv based on the weird things peo­ple say when they slide in your DMs. It was excit­ing to see local improv get its flow­ers. You can catch Slide in the DMs month­ly at Fall­out The­ater, so be sure you’re fol­low­ing Angeli­na to keep up with future show announce­ments. She just announced that Slide in the DMs is head­ed to Los Ange­les’ famed Lyric Hype­r­i­on The­atre, so be sure to tell Angeli­na con­grat­u­la­tions when you see her!

Let’s talk about some of my oth­er favorite recur­ring shows, start­ing with Mike Fal­zone​’s Sur­round­ed, Josh Adam Mey­ers’ God­damn Com­e­dy Jam, and Jere­mi­ah Watkins’ Standup on the Spot. I only got to catch one of each of these this year, but boy were they epic!

Let’s start with Jere­mi­ah Watkins’ Standup on the Spot, a show 100% built on audi­ence sug­ges­tions. The show I caught includ­ed Brad Williams, Beth Stelling, Joe Dom­browsky, and Tim­my No Brakes. Quite a stel­lar line­up and all mas­ters of riff­ing in one way or anoth­er. It’s hard to say who had the high­est ener­gy among the gen­tle­men, but Beth – despite her low-key demeanor – is just as much of a crush­er. Standup on the Spot was sched­uled twice dur­ing this year’s fes­ti­val, but I’m call­ing it now, this show deserves a 4‑night run next year.

The next vari­ant of a crowd-work show is Sur­round­ed, Mike Fal­zone​’s inti­mate mas­ter­piece where the audi­ence in the round sur­rounds the come­di­an and becomes the source mate­r­i­al for a comic’s riff. In a first for me, there was a tag-team appear­ance by Kather­ine Blan­ford and Gab­by Ryan. The tru­ly dynam­ic duo had me pon­der­ing whether they are secret­ly twins. Their abil­i­ty to riff in per­fect syn­chronic­i­ty is only topped by the Sklar Broth­ers. It was espe­cial­ly fun to watch them mas­ter­ful­ly put a heck­ler in their place. The show also fea­tured Jesus Sepul­ve­da, Beth Stelling, Mike Feeney, and the always elec­tri­fy­ing Ian Fid­ance. Sur­round­ed hits dif­fer­ent­ly than Standup on the Spot, but they are both excit­ing to watch, not only for the start to fin­ish sur­prise ele­ments, but for the great hosts.

If you go to the Moon­tow­er Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val After Par­ty, you can’t help but be pulled in by the sound of music in the capa­ble hands of band leader Josh Adam Mey­ers’ God­damn Com­e­dy Jam. The front­man brings his friends along for a musi­cal ride. The high­light of the show I saw was Marc Maron on gui­tar per­form­ing the Rolling Stones song ​“Sym­pa­thy for the Dev­il”. It was such a mem­o­rable moment to see, but it does­n’t take away from the oth­er comics on the line­up that night — The Sklar Broth­ers, Beth Stelling, and Tim­my No Brakes.

So far, you’ve read that I saw Beth Stelling at Standup on the Spot and Sur­round­ed, but I had to see her one more time. For her head­lin­ing show at The Creek and The Cave, this was my chance to see Cathy Lad­man. Cathy’s set was sol­id, clean, and land­ed like a fine­ly aged wine. An extra per­son­al bonus was that Cathy men­tioned some­thing that hap­pened the day before while wait­ing to meet with me for her Com­e­dy Wham Presents tap­ing (stay tuned!) and men­tioned me and the pod­cast by name! How very sweet and also how impres­sive that she turned a casu­al obser­va­tion into a ful­ly formed riff by the next night.

Let’s talk about two oth­er fan­tas­tic head­lin­er shows I saw — Dylan Car­li­no and Andy Hug­gins. Both very dif­fer­ent vibes and ener­gies, both at Hig­bie’s. Dylan is the Cap City Com­e­dy Club’s 2023 FPIA win­ner and has been work­ing very hard since. He’s final­ly embark­ing on a nation­al tour to show­case just how fun­ny he is. It won’t be long before a space like Hig­bie’s can’t con­tain both his audi­ence and his ener­gy. A few nights lat­er, I saw Andy Hug­gins who may have been slow reach­ing and leav­ing the stage, but was light­ning fast with his set­up punch one-lin­ers. It’s been a few years since I’ve seen Andy’s standup and it was great to watch him deliv­er not only his clas­sics but a lot of new material.

I got to watch two hilar­i­ous live pod­casts. The first was Coastal Idiots with co-hosts Kather­ine Blan­ford and Shane Tor­res which fea­tured guests Good Cop/​Rad Cop, Debra DiGio­van­ni, and Jay Jur­den and dished about pop cul­ture but most­ly about the busi­ness of comedy. 

The sec­ond, was Mess with cohosts Syd­nee Wash­ing­ton and Marie Faustin which is all about cur­rent events and grad­ing on a scale of Mess to Just Livin’. The live show fea­tured guest Jon Rud­nit­sky and was a total blast to watch in a packed Velvee­ta Room. 

Add both of these pod­casts to your rota­tion and you’ll be a lot hap­pi­er dur­ing the months between now and next Moontower.

Stay tuned — the pod­casts we record­ed will be drop­ping over the next month, and they’re worth the wait.

Every marathon run­ner needs recov­ery time, but liv­ing in one of the best com­e­dy cities in the world makes it hard to sit still. With Moon­tow­er’s year-round offer­ings keep­ing me sharp, I’ll be ready to do it all again in 2027.