Moontower Comedy Festival Revives Live Festival Comedy This Week! Here’s Our Annual Look at The Lineup!

The Moontower Comedy Festival is Happening THIS WEEK in Austin Texas! September 22-25!!

The Moontower Comedy Festival was one of the first to make the decision shut down back in March 2020 just one month before comedy fans were scheduled to arrive in Austin Texas. It was a tough but responsible decision and now Austin’s flagship comedy festival is proud to be one of the first to reignite the comedy festival format. Moontower kicks off officially in two days with the crux of events taking place this coming weekend. I talked with Colleen McGarr and Lietza Brass, festival directors and curators, about this week’s events, which have been a long time coming.

The lead up to the festival is always exciting for Moontower producers, but this year more than most.  It’s a rebirth of sorts, and everyone was thrilled to see the Moontower banners go up along the streets of Austin at the end of last week. “It feels like life,” Colleen McGarr said about going out and seeing the banners being hung and photographed. “It’s kind of like the first evidence that this is actually going on.”

Comedy has been chomping at the bit to come back, right from the start. That’s both from a performer point of view, and from audiences according to Colleen and Lietza who have helped keep comedy alive and live in Austin throughout the pandemic. And the Moontower Comedy Festival represents a celebration of survival for the industry.

Moontower is one of the most fun festivals to attend for so many reasons. First, It’s fan focused, not industry centric. The shows are fully integrated into the city, making it easier for visitors to immerse themselves in all things Austin.  And the schedule is curated to maximize the comedy experience of every pass holder, regardless of your personal tastes. Moontower’s programming diversity hits so many styles of comedy, and brings together so many styles of performance, that every attendee realizes that they’re going to have difficult decisions to make. Every show that you see represents several others that you can’t attend, but if you plan ahead, you should get the chance to see everyone on your list.

The blend that Moontower brings together on their roster is amazing for audiences, and also for the performers who get to interact with comedians they might not connect with often. “It’s, to me, what makes the comedy festival so fun, right,” Colleen McGarr said. “You know there’s your reliable favorites– and you have to be pretty good to play Moontower..”  Colleen and Lietza and their team love to create that alchemy of people that are same level, but don’t know each other. Or that are coming up together, but maybe in different cities. “And then lifelong friendships are formed. I love that stuff,” she said.

Attending Moontower means having access to comedy giants- and discovering performers you’ve never seen before.

Among the giants who will be taking over the Paramount Theater is Dave Attell, one of the bests to ever do it.  Dave has never appeared at Moontower before so everyone’s excited”. “He’s been a wish,” Colleen said. “A ten-year long wish. When they confirmed, we screamed,” she said adding, “Anybody that’s going to be at The Paramount that night is going to walk out with a fat smile for a really long time.”

Also at the Paramount this week: Sal Vulcano, Margaret Cho, Bob the Drag Queen, Leanne Morgan, and for the first time, ever, Austin Radio Legends Dudley & Bob + Matt. In prior years the KLBJ morning show opened the festival from the Cap City comedy club. But this year, they’ll be center stage at the festival’s biggest venue’. Colleen said it was time for them to have a show at the Paramount. “They’ve supported comedy for the last 35 years. They haven’t done a live podcast since the one they did, probably at [Moontower 2019]. Their fans are hardcore comedy fans, and that’s what Moontower is built for.”

Radio and Podcasts have always been an important part of the festival and this week there will at least 20 shows recording episodes before live audiences giving fans a chance to see their favorites. It’s also a great chance to discover new shows to fall in love with. Returning favorites like The Bonfire, The 500, and The Sklar Brothers will be performing, as will some shows that are new to Moontower. Like The Session with Christian James Hand, a podcast that Tom Segura brought to the fest.  “Christian James Hand is a DJ, artist, he’s originally from South Africa, grew up in England, lives in LA. I think he works for KLOS, the big rock station out there. But he has this Instagram live show called The Session, where they take one song and break it down to its bare bones and then reconstruct it. It’s really fun. It’s very unusual. And people are going nuts that it’s coming to the festival.”

Beyond the pure stand up, and the podcasts, there’s sketch, concept shows, and other unique offerings.

Colleen caught me up on Please Don’t Destroy a sketch show that will be in Austin this week.  “This is three guys from New York that met in college. All three of their dads are pretty famous comedy writers, but they have a sketch group called Please Don’t Destroy. I think they’re playing The Bell House in October and it’s already sold out. And it’s kind of our first sketch show that we’ve had in a really long time. And there’s a big story on them in New York magazine. And they’re all over YouTube and with their digital shows, a lot of comedians follow them. Because they’re really, really funny. So they’ll be doing three shows of live sketch there.”

Ritch Shydner’s History of Stand-Up Comedy is another special show that we’ll be checking out.  “He’s doing this show all across the country now, and it’s basically like a walk through with giant laughs of comedy from the beginning to right now.” It’s not a one man show, Colleen said, it’s a comedy history show, that’s really funny.

The midnight show is back, and Moontower is proud to present Bob The Drag Queen in that slot. “We’ve never had drug at the festival and it’s selling like hotcakes,” Lietza said. Anyone who hasn’t seen Bob perform should put this show high on their list.

Colleen says everyone at Moontower is “massively excited” for Tom Segura en Espanol. “We actually had that booked a couple of years ago, but then things happened. Anyways, it’s like a re-start on Tom Segura en Espanol, but that’s at Antone’s and it’s going to be amazing. People are really excited and I think it’s time for everyone to open their language apps, the ones on their head and the ones on their phone.”

Austin Comedy has not been dormant through the last 18 months of quarantine, in fact, Austin has erupted, taking center stage in comedy news and events. Venues have closed, venues have opened, venues are reopening, comedy celebrities have relocated from hubs like LA and NYC to settle in Austin. And the producers behind the Moontower festival have been keeping live comedy alive throughout the pandemic with social distancing events at the Paramount Theater.

And you won’t want to miss the opportunity to participate in The Joke of Painting. This interactive show is homegrown Austin from the minds of Avery Moore and Andrew Murphy. Everybody in the audience gets a set of paints and paper, and are encouraged to paint along while comedians go up and do sets. Another show that will spotlight the immense pool of local talent is a show called Homebase. Hosted by two local comics, Zach Brooks and Taylor Dowdy, Homebase is “the cream of the crop of Austin comics. And this year on every show, we’re adding a special guest that was born and raised in Texas, like Akaash Singh who works with Andrew Schultz and Shane Torres,  And Paul Varghese from Houston, who is absolutely amazing. So every show will have, not only the Austin comics, but another Texas person on there from maybe another city.”

And two additional “main events” are completely new this year.  The festival has landed their first movie premiere! Joy Ride is a feature length documentary that follows Bobcat Goldthwait and Dana Gould on tour in the south, and they’ll be on hand for the premiere and provide.a Q&A after the screening.

And Wrists of Fury replaces the fest’s annual interactive Ping Pong tournament with Foosball featuring a World Champion Foosball player, comedian, Kelsey Cook. Lietza says “it’s a foosball tournament, and it’s going to pit the comedians against the fans. And the Sklar brothers are going to be our color commentators. They’ve always been the host of the ping pong tournament, but we’ve moved them over to the Wrists of Fury. And so we’ll have four professional tables at the venue. And the winner of that tournament will then play, or rather get beaten by Kelsey Cook. And it’s going to be just a ton of fun. We’re going to have a camera crew there capturing all the actions and then it’ll get uploaded to the YouTube channel. That’ll be a lot of fun.”

Yes, there will be parties. They’ve figured out that the party starts at the Goddamn Comedy Jam shows every year, so they’re moving the party to Austin with the Jam providing the entertainment on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.  There will also be an outdoor party on Thursday night at The Venue ATX with a DJ. And then an outdoor party at Stubbs Saturday night. “It’s outdoors. It’s two stories, it’s just got a beautiful view of downtown at night. So it’s a really sparkling view. It’s a neat, neat venue.”

Other new venues making their Moontower debut include  “the Sunset Room, which is a very neat, a very cool looking place over by the Convention Center. A really special place that we’ve booked called The Parker Jazz Club, which has also  been Cap City comedy home base this year, over in the warehouse district. It’s gorgeous.. It’s got a beautiful bar. It’s got a very classy clubby vibe, very comfortable. So if you really want to settle in and relax and see a show, I highly recommend that, it’s got very comfortable chairs.  The Green Jay too. We have The Green Jay and that is definitely an 1800s venue that’s been refreshed. I’m not going to say remodeled, but that’s cool.” And of course the Creek and Cave which has already integrated into the Austin Comedy Scene.

Moontower regulars know that the annual fest usually takes place in the spring. The addition of this year’s September festival will not interrupt that- consider this to be a bonus fest. Moontower promises to be back again in April with some very exciting news they expect to break this weekend.

“Friday the 24th, we’re going to have a big announcement, Debra.” Lietza said. We can’t wait!

If you’re heading to Austin this week, stay safe, have fun and laugh your asses off.  And for more information, go to austintheatre.org.

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