Upcoming Events

It's that time again, friends! 11 Weeks, 40 Comedians, 39 Frowny Emoticons, ONE Champion. With almost all sold out shows, the best audiences of the year, and the ability to decide the winner, The Bloomington Comedy Festival returns for its 14th year. Join us Wednesdays AND Thursdays ALL SUMMER LONG as we crown The Funniest Person in Bloomington!

First Round

June 8th & 9th

June 15th & 16th

June 22nd & 23rd

June 29th & 30th

Second Round

July 6th & 7th

July 13th & 14th

July 20th & 21st

Quarterfinals

August 3rd & 4th

August 10th & 11th

Semifinals

August 17th & 18th

THE FINALS

August 24th & 25th

Josh Gondelman is a writer and comedian who incubated in Boston before moving to New York City, where he currently lives and works as the head writer and an executive producer for Desus & Mero on Showtime. Previously, he spent five years at Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, first as a web producer and then as a staff writer where he earned four Emmy Awards, two Peabody Awards, and three WGA Awards. In 2016, Josh made his late night standup debut on Conan (TBS), and he has also performed on Late Night With Seth Meyers (NBC) and The Late Late Show with James Corden (CBS).

Gondelman is also the author of the essay collection Nice Try: Stories of Best Intentions and Mixed Results published September 2019 by Harper Perennial. And as of 2019, he has become a regular panelist on NPR mainstay Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. In Spring 2020, Gondelman launched his own podcast Make My Day, a comedy game show. And, if you remember this far back, he was the co-creator of the popular Modern Seinfeld Twitter account.

Onstage, Josh charms audiences using his good-natured storytelling and cracks them up with his sharp, pointy wit. He takes topics from surprise parties to his experience teaching preschool and makes them all equally hilarious. Josh’s most recent album Dancing On a Weeknight came out in 2019 on Blonde Medicine Records. (His prior album Physical Whisper debuted in March of 2016 at #1 on the iTunes comedy charts (as well as #4 on the Billboard comedy chart) and stayed there for…well…longer than he expected, honestly.)

Offstage, Gondelman is also the co-author (along with Joe Berkowitz) of the book You Blew It, published October 2015 by Plume. In the past, Josh has written for Fuse TV’s Billy On The Street. His writing has also appeared in prestigious publications such as McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, New York Magazine, and The New Yorker.

Additionally, Josh has performed at the Rooftop Comedy Festival in Aspen, CO, and headlined at the Laugh Your Asheville Off Festival in Asheville, NC. More recently he has appeared in the Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival, the Bridgetown Comedy Festival, and SF Sketchfest. His debut standup comedy CD, Everything’s The Best was released in November of 2011 by Rooftop Comedy Productions.

PAT REGAN is a stand-up comedian and writer in New York City, of all places. He was most recently a staff writer on HBO Max's HACKS from Mike Schur and the BROAD CITY trio of Paul W. Downs, Lucia Aniello, and Jen Statsky. He also guest starred in Season 4 of SEARCH PARTY. After three years as a house improviser at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York, he has spent the past few years focusing on stand-up. Pat has performed at venues across the city, including: Caroline’s on Broadway, Ars Nova, Littlefield, Union Hall, Knitting Factory, The Bell House, and The Duplex with his stand up show, “Unsuccessful by Choice” (FKA “Pat Regan: Unrepped and Loving It!”). Pat has performed at Outside Lands, NY Comedy Festival, the Michigan LGBT ComedyFest, NYTVF, Podfest NYC, Vulture Festival, and Comedy Central’s Clusterfest 2018 in San Francisco, featured as one of Comedy Central’s UP NEXT comics. Pat can be heard weekly as host of the widely loved (and maybe hated) podcast (and live stage show) “Seek Treatment with Cat and Pat”, available wherever you listen to podcasts. Pat has been featured in publications such as NEW YORK TIMES, OUT, VULTURE, and PAPER MAGAZINE- where he was included on their list of “100 people that will take over 2019.”

Solomon had his television debut in February 2015 as the featured comedian on CONAN, and followed it up with appearances on Drunk History, The Meltdown with Jonah & Kumail, This is Not Happening, Viceland's Flophouse, Last Call with Carson Daily, 2 Dope Queens and a second appearance on CONAN. 

​In October 2017, Solomon's first half-hour comedy special premiered on Comedy Central Stand Up Presents. His debut album with Comedy Central Records, HomoNégro Superior, is also available. 

As a writer, he’s written for Shrill, High Fidelity, HBO’s Crashing, Adam Ruins Everything and Spongebob Squarepants.

Kyle Kinane is a comedian from Addison, Illinois. According to Wikipedia, he is a notable person from that town. Other notable residents of Addison have been the boxer Leon Spinks and a woman who wrote poetry about Beanie Babies.

Raised in such a cultural fondue pot as this, it was natural for Kyle to find his way from warehouse work into show business. As a comedian, he has been seen on Conan, The Tonight Show, Netflix’s “The Standups,” and three of his own hour-length specials on Comedy Central. As an actor, he’s been in the Judd Apatow series “Love” and truTV’s “Those Who Can’t.” He was also on “Drunk History,” where he unfortunately wasn’t acting. As a voice over actor, he was the former voice of Comedy Central for 8 years and currently plays Bullet on the Netflix series “Paradise PD.” He is also cohost of the Boogie Monster podcast along with Dave Stone, and the streaming show “Hey Girl” with Matt Braunger. As a musician, he has done nothing, as he is not a musician.

Kyle’s most recent standup work, “Trampoline In A Ditch,” was recorded at Comedy on State in Madison, Wisconsin and was released on 800 LB Gorilla Records in 2020. The album was accompanied by an animated short, produced by Meister.

“When you’re here, you’re family.”

Matt Braunger was raised in Portland, Oregon. A headlining comedian since 2007 and an actor since childhood, Matt studied theatre in New York and improvisation in Chicago. Matt’s television credits include recurring roles on ABC’s Agent Carter, NBC’s Up All Night, Netflix’s Disjointed, Starz’ Take My Wife and Amazon’s Upload. Matt was a series regular on Fox’s MADtv, a cast member of the TruTV series How to Be a Grown Up, and has appeared on Carol’s Second Act, Superstore, Fuller House, Man with a Plan, BoJack Horseman, Stan Against Evil, I’m Dying Up Here, Garfunkel and Oates, Maron, HBO’s Family Tree, the Chelsea Lately roundtable, @midnight, The Michael J Fox Show, Happy Endings, CONAN, The Late Show with David Letterman, The Pete Holmes Show, United States of Tara, Pushing Daisies, Carpoolers, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, Acceptable TV, and Live At Gotham. 

In 2009, he was named to Variety’s Top 10 Comics to Watch, and Comedy Central’s Hot 9 in ’09 list. His debut album Soak Up The Night was released by Comedy Central Records and was an iTunes Top 20 Comedy Album for 2009. In 2010, he recorded his half hour Comedy Central Presents special and in 2012 released his debut hour-long special entitled Shovel Fighter, which was also released as an album. Matt has since released two more specials: Big, Dumb Animal and Finally Live in Portland. He also has a hilarious podcast entitled “This Might Help with Matt Braunger”.

Matt has performed at a variety of prestigious festivals including Just For Laughs in Montreal and Moontower in Austin. 

Emil Wakim is a NYC based stand-up comedian via Bloomington, Indiana. He recently made his national television debut on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and was also featured in an episode of "Hunters," a new documentary-style show on Vice.

Emil can be seen charming audiences with his comedy that was once described by his foreign parents as, “We don’t get it.” A lovable combination of self-deprecation and social consciousness, Emil quickly rose onto the scene, becoming the youngest winner of The Comedy Attic’s renowned Bloomington Comedy Festival. He has performed at the Limestone Comedy Festival, 208 Fest, the Laughing Skull Comedy Festival, and was selected as part of the “Best of the Fest” at the 10,000 Laughs Comedy Festival. Emil has opened for Kyle Kinane, Todd Glass, Moshe Kasher, and regularly for Nikki Glaser.

Originally from North Carolina and residing in NYC, Maddie Wiener is a stand-up comedian with a style described as “irreverent humor … with a streak of brazenness,” and “abrasive and likable at the same time.” At 22 years old, her stand-up has garnered attention online with over 6 and a half million views on Laugh Factory Hollywood’s Instagram page. Most recently, Maddie was selected as a “New Face” at the 2021 Just For Laughs festival and filmed a stand-up set for Comedy Central. She has appeared on You Up with Nikki Glaser on Comedy Central’s Sirius XM channel, was a 2018 semi-finalist for Stand-Up NBC, performed in the 2019 Limestone Comedy Festival, the 2019 Asheville Comedy Festival, and is a regular at Goodnights Comedy Club in her home state of North Carolina, as well as at Zanies Comedy Club and The Laugh Factory in Chicago, IL.

Chris Redd is an actor, writer, stand-up comic, and rapper. Redd is a cast member on NBC’s Saturday Night Live and currently stars in the NBC comedy, KENAN, opposite Kenan Thompson. Redd currently stars in the Peacock series BUST DOWN opposite Sam Jay, Jak Knight and Langston Kerman, and has an hour long special in the works for HBO Max. 

In 2018, Redd received the Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics for the “SNL” song “Come Back, Barack.” He appeared in the 2016 film “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping” opposite Andy Samberg, and also starred in the Netflix original comedy series, “Disjointed” opposite Kathy Bates. In 2017, Redd debuted his own half-hour episode of “Comedy Central Stand-Up Presents” and in 2019 released his debut stand-up album “But Here We Are.” Redd was featured as a roaster on the Comedy Central Roast of Alec Baldwin in 2019. 

Redd can be seen in the comedy films “Deep Murder,” “The House,” and “A Futile and Stupid Gesture.” On TV, Redd starred in the cult-classic series “Wet Hot American Summer” and was featured in NBC’s “Will & Grace,” Netflix’s “Love,” Comedy Central’s “Detroiters” and “Comedy Central Stand-Up Presents.” Additionally, Redd was featured as a 2016 Standup New Face at Just For Laughs in Montreal. Redd was previously a performer at Chicago’s Second City. 

The New York Times opines: "Comedian Taylor Tomlinson demonstrates tight joke writing, carefully honed act-outs and a ruthless appetite for laughs” in her second hour-long special, Look At You- now streaming on Netflix. New York Magazine adds, “Watching Tomlinson gives you the same comfort as a Swift concert or a Broadway show that’s been on for years. This is a professional. This performance will be ultraproduced. You do not need to be anxious,” and the Los Angeles Times observes, “Even when she’s navigating painful waters, she can’t help but find the humor… her wit and pinpoint delivery reveal both an incisive writer and also a talented actor.”

Filmed last December at the historic Wilbur Theater in Boston, Look At You is an evolution of the Forbes’ 30 Under 30 star’s Quarter-Life Crisis that debuted on Netflix March of 2020. Her first hour-long special went on to be named “Best of 2020” by New York Times, Decider, Paste and earned unanimous critical praise with the Washington Post calling her “your favorite quarantine-watch” and Newsweek dubbing her “undeniably hilarious.” With appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, CBS This Morning, Kelly Clarkson and more, the woman Mashable calls "whip-smart and spectacularly cynical" and Variety Magazine names a Top 10 Comics to Watch is currently headlining her nationwide theater tour, Deal With It.

Beth Stelling’s hour stand-up special Girl Daddy on HBOMax had The New York Timescalling it “The Best Debut Special of the year,” adding, “It's a virtuosic performance, conversational while dense with jokes." Her half hour special is on Netflix in season one ofThe Standups (episode 5). Stelling has another half hour special on Comedy Central and many appearances on late night television (Conan, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Chelsea Lately, Lights Out with David Spade). Beth is a writer for Apple’s upcoming animated series Strange Planet, and previously wrote on shows such as The Last O.G., I Love You America with Sarah Silverman and HBO's Crashing. She was an on-set writer and associate producer for Good Boys, a feature film produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, and has since been a go-to hire for punch-up. She plays Ms. Fish on Peacock’s comedy Rutherford Falls.