For two weeks every month, Philly Improv Theater offers crowds in Philadelphia the best stand-up, sketch, and improv the city has to offer. PHIT features a full schedule of regular shows (Chip Chantry’s One Man Show, Guilty Pleasures, TV Party, Hey Everybody!, House Team Night, and more) plus time slots for sketch groups to have short run shows and blocks for improv teams to take the stage.
Helium Comedy Club
Helium Comedy Club is the place in Philadelphia to see A-list nationally touring headliners on stage each and every week. Helium is also home to the annual Philly’s Phunniest Person Contest, an event that has over 150 local comics competing for the crown every year.
The Raven Lounge
The upstairs room at the Raven Lounge is the home to the Center City Comedy open mic every Thursday as well as Rookie Card’s monthly improv show. The tight, intimate room lets the crowd feel close to the action on stage and allows for the bar to always be just a few steps away.
The Adrienne Theater
Permanent home to ComedySportz Philly, as well as the home to many of the shows from PHIT during the Philly Fringe Festival – the Adrienne Theater sits across the street from Helium Comedy Club making that block of Sansom a hotbed of Philly comedy activity.
The Shakespeare Theater
For three weeks in October, The Philadelphia Shakespeare Theater was the home of the second annual Comedy Month. Featuring the Philly Sketch Fest, The Philadelphia Improv Festival, and The City Spotlight, Comedy Month was a celebration of all things funny in Philadelphia, as well as a chance for out-of-town acts to come to perform in our fair city.
Attention Philadelphia comedians and actors, Quarter Life Crisis, a project described as “a narrative of transition and self discovery about three best friends who drop out of college during a quarter-life crisis” is looking to you to fill their cast. Auditions will be held at The Raven Lounge on Monday October 17 beginning at 6:00PM. Interested parties should contact deckmetellus@gmail.com. Below is a rundown of the parts they are looking to fill.
DARIUS: 20′S. AFRICAN AMERICAN. PREFERABLE BEARD AND AFRO, NOT MANDATED. AVERAGE HEIGHT AND BUILD.
ANDY: 20′S. ASIAN: JAPANESE, CHINESE, KOREAN, ETC. SHORT. SKINNY BUILD. LONG HAIR.
CHASTITY: 20′S. MIXED ETHNICITY: AFRICAN AMERICAN/EUROPEAN. WEST INDIAN/EUROPEAN. MUST HAVE PARTIAL AFRICAN ANCESTRY. CURLY HAIR. THIN TO AVERAGE BUILD.
We told you last week that Center City Comedy would be celebrating it’s third anniversary of Thursday night open mics at the Raven Lounge with a special show that would bring together hosts from open mics all over the city, along with some of Philly’s favorite comics. Well, it happened, and our friends at Super DPS were there to capture the action on video. Below are some clips from the night – and you can see more on Super DPS’ Youtube Page.
Three years ago Chris Cotton, H. Foley and Conrad Roth started a new Thursday night open mic at The Raven Lounge. They saw Philly as a city with a lot of talent, and a shortage of stage time – and decided to take matters into their own hands. In the three years that have passed a lot of mics have come and gone but Center City Comedy is still going strong as ever on Thursday nights. Roth has since moved to San Francisco, but his departure made way for Tom Cassidy to join the group in helping run the open mic. The Thursday night mic at The Raven Lounge has been a place where more established comedians can work on new bits, where new guys can get up and join the Philly comedy community, and has become a room where visiting comedians love to do drop in sets. Various comedians from out of town have commented on how great the crowd is, and how lucky Philly comics are to have a spot like the Raven as an open mic room. The guys have also branched out, helping other comics start their own rooms at various places in the city and Philly has gained a strong open mic scene since. Center City Comedy has also started to produce their own sketch videos, and has become an LLC.
Tonight, the third anniversary of Center City Comedy at the Raven Lounge will be celebrated with a show in which favorite comics from the past three years as well as hosts of other open mics around the city will perform. The guys will also give out awards throughout the night, and the show will end with a party in the upstairs room at the Raven. Festivities start, as usual, at 9pm and the party will probably last all night.
