Montreal comedy fans will be eager to find out the latest show announcements that were recently unveiled for this year’s edition of the Just For Laughs comedy festival, with a mixture of the return of several festival favourites, along with some of the hottest names in comedy today who are making their festival debuts.
As a sort of prelude to this year’s festival, Just For Laughs will present a one night only show by Emmy Award-winning comedian/actor/writer/producer Aziz Ansari, who will bring his Road to Nowhere stand up tour to Salle Wilfrid Pelletier of Place des Arts on June 20 at 8 p.m.
Salle Wilfrid Pelletier is also the site of the festival’s flagship galas, and three more galas and hosts have just been added to the line-up. Jonathan Van Ness, one of the stars of the Netflix series Queer Eye returns to host his own gala on the heels of his sold-out live taping of his podcast Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness last year, which takes place on July 28 at 9 p.m. Comedian and political commentator Hasan Minhaj, who got his start with a stint on the Daily Show and now hosts his own Netflix series Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, will host his own gala on July 26 at 9:45 p.m. And Howie Mandel will return for the fifth year in a row to his All-Star Comedy Gala on July 24 at 8 p.m.
And the line-up of concert shows grows even more with an impressive array of comedic talent headlining their own solo or double act live shows. Rachel Bloom, the Golden Globe-winning star of her offbeat CW sitcom Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, will perform five solo shows at the Gesu on July 22, 23, 24, 26 and 27. Jewish comics Elon Gold and Modi, no strangers to sold-out solo shows, will team together for a special dual show called Elon Gold & Modi: 2 For 1 at the Centaur Theatre from July 22 – 25. Hailed as the Funniest Woman on Instagram thanks to her social media experiment #CelesteChallengeAccepted, Australian actor/writer/comedian Celeste Barber makes her festival debut with her solo show that will play for one night only, July 24, at Place des Arts’ Cinquieme Salle. The Improv duo of Marc Evan Jackson and Paul F. Tompkins, aka Mr. Jackson & Mr. Tompkins, will bring the art of improv comedy to a whole new level with Mr. Jackson & Mr. Tompkins: A Two-Gentleman Improv Show on July 25 at the Cinquieme Salle. And comedian/actor/musician Vir Das, who became the first Indian comic to headline his own Netflix special and just completed a 20-country tour, performs at the Cinquieme Salle for one night only on July 25.
Tickets for these shows, and other previously announced Just For Laughs shows, are now on sale, and can be purchased by going to www.hahaha.com
