Mark Stefanos
The Coachella of Comedy is upon us this week, as Netflix is a Joke Fest has taken over Los Angeles. Sprung Monday, May 4, and running through this Sunday, May 10, the festival boasts nearly 500 shows, and features over 500 artists — by our estimation, about two-thirds of the best comics in the country.
Beyond the dozen or so comedy clubs, plus concert halls, theaters and stadiums that feature ticketed events, Netflix has partnered with 78 neighborhood shows and is letting the public attend them for free as part of the fest. It’s an effort to spotlight and bolster our prolific local comedy scene by giving comics more stages and fans a way to be a part of the fest without having to shell out for a ticket. Here’s the list of all the free neighborhood shows.
And take note of these shows for the future — they happen year-round, and outside of this Fest, most are still free or cheap, like 10 or 15 bucks.
Robbie Praw, VP of Stand-Up and Comedy Formats at Netflix (Photo: The Collective You/Netflix)
“We didn’t want the festival to be a separate ‘event’ on the calendar; we wanted it to be an extension of how people actually experience comedy — which is often communal and local,” Robbie Praw, Vice President of Stand-Up and Comedy Formats at Netflix, tells LA Weekly. “You’ll see the big names, but it was just as important for us to plug into the comedy ecosystem that already exists here in LA.”
Netflix did a great job of bringing some of the best neighborhood shows into its fold. These shows are regularly among the best places to see both up-and-coming and A-list comedians, as they work out material and deliver their polished goods, in intimate venues, like bars, backyards, cafes and makeshift comedy stages that dot the greater LA area map.
Praw says they relied on the local comedians to host and curate their own shows to keep the vibe authentic. “We also look for creative partnerships — like working with Black On The Block to curate local vendor marketplaces — to ensure the festival feels as diverse and vibrant as LA itself,” he adds. It’s a testament to how lively and deep our comedy scene is that they were able to include a whopping 78 shows, and there’s still more out there.
Putting the macro festival together was a massive cross-company effort to ensure that all comic tastes were included, and indeed, there’s stand-up, improv, clown, music, variety and more, the free neighborhood shows included.
The goal for Netflix, which operates a massive creative hub in Hollywood, is to cement LA as one of the undisputed global epicenters of comedy. “The LA scene is unique because of its variety and its role as the ultimate launchpad for talent,” says Praw. “We want to show that whether you’re a global icon like Jerry Seinfeld or a rising voice at The Comedy Store, LA is the only place where the entire comedy community — from podcasts to live roasts to scripted hits — comes together in one cohesive home.”
Amen to that. As a personal effort, Praw is running in the 2 Bears 5K at the Rose Bowl with Tom Segura and Bert Kreischer, this Saturday at the Rose Bowl. “By ‘training’ I mean practicing in front of a mirror how to look more athletic than Tom and Bert,” he says. “Training is not going well.” Really? Less athletic than Tom and Bert, Robbie??
Read on to find out more about some of our favorite featured shows: Drunk On Stage, I Need This, Peacock, Bigfoot Comedy, Pupusas and Punchlines and Jetlagged:
Drunk On Stage at Akbar — by Bruce Daniels
Bruce Daniels at Drunk on Stage (Courtesy of Drunk On Stage)
Launched by seasoned comedian and actor Bruce Daniels in 2007, and hosted on the dancefloor of the favorite local gay dive, Silver Lake’s Akbar, Drunk on Stage has developed a loyal following as a consistent room to work out new material for LGBTQ+ and allies, featuring massive names and newcomers. “Sometimes it goes well … sometimes there’s drinking,” they say. Here’s Bruce:
When and where is the show?
Every Tuesday at 8 p.m. at Akbar in Silver Lake
Why the show is great:
It’s a workout room for the voices you don’t get to see a lot of on comedy club stages, LGBTQ+ and allies.
What’s the vibe?
It’s a safe space to try something out, there aren’t a lot of industry people there scouting, so there is a relaxed, fun, no pressure vibe.
Any milestones?
The first time Fortune Feimster did stand up was on our stage. We’ve had two Oscar hosts try out hosting material (Conan O’Brien and Wanda Sykes).
What’s next for the show?
People ask a lot about what I want next for the show, and honestly, I want it to stay the same.
Follow Bruce Daniels @bruce_daniels1.
I Need This at Clark Street Diner — by Nick Tittone and Anderson Gronvold
Nick Tittone and Anderson Gronvold at I Need This (Courtesy of I Need This)
If you’re looking for a standout monthly indie show that features big-namers and local favorites, with two rising comedians as hosts, all in a classic LA haunt, you might just Need This.
The hosts of I Need This, Nick Tittone and Anderson Gronvold, first crossed paths at an open mic and decided to start their own show in 2023 to get more stage time as new comedians, hence the name I Need This. They have since built it into a premier indie show, playing venues around Los Angeles before landing a home at Clark Street Diner, the lovely spot that was formerly 101 Coffee Shop of Swingers and “Entourage” fame.
The hosts are strong comics in their own right and their competitive banter keeps the show flowing in that perfect comedic sweet spot between light-hearted and mean-spirited. Here’s Nick Tittone:
When and where is the show?
Every third Thursday of the month at Clark Street Diner
I Need This (Courtesy of I Need This)
Why the show is great:
What sets the show apart is booking lineups that rival the top comedy clubs in the city while keeping tickets at just $10. Every show features nationally touring comics with credits from Netflix, Hulu, HBO, and Late Night, alongside up-and-coming voices from the open mic scene. All of this takes place inside the iconic Clark Street Diner, formerly known as the 101 Café, where audiences can enjoy diner food and fresh bakery items throughout the show.
Any milestones?
I Need This has appeared at the Comedy Store Belly Room and went on the road to Kansas City in 2025. We’ve also hosted some serious talent along the way, with the likes of Dimitri Martin, Beth Stelling, Robby Hoffman, Melissa Villaseñor, and Fahim Anwar gracing the stage.
What does it mean for you to be in Netflix is a Joke Fest?
It means that every week we have to explain to our parents that no, we still won’t be on TV. But it’s the kind of credit that could help the show level up and expand.
What’s next for the show?
I Need This is looking to make a run in New York and Chicago, but in the meantime, you can find us every third Thursday at Clark Street Diner.
Follow @needthiscomedy, Nick Tittone @nicktittone and Anderson Gronvold @anderson_gronvold.
Peacock at Club Tee Gee — by Ali Hart, Rebecca Rufer, Kiran Deol and Danny Jolles
Kiran Deol and Danny Jolles at Peacock (Brendan Colthurst)
If it’s Thursdays and you’re near Atwater, it’s Peacock night. The hosts welcome some of the biggest names in comedy to the dance floor of Club Tee Gee, one of our favorite dance bars. Launched in February 2019 (a full year before NBC’s streaming service was even a thing, just so you know) by producers Ali Hart, Rebecca Rufer, and Emmy-nominated multi-hyphenate Kiran Deol, with comedian and actor Danny Jolles joining as co-host in August 2021, the show has become a weekly routine, both for folks in the neighborhood and those who travel cross-county to see the banger lineup.
The show starts at 8 p.m. and doors are at 7:30 — we suggest you get there early if you don’t want to end up standing in a doorframe or hanging from a disco ball. Outside of the Netflix festival, the show runs on a suggested $10 donation. Make a night of it and stick around after for drinks and dancing.
What is your regular schedule and location?
Every Thursday at 8 p.m. at Club Tee Gee in Atwater Village.
What are some milestones?
Patton Oswalt has done the show many times, Bill Burr and Jo Koy have dropped in. Earlier this year, Conan O’Brien ran his Oscars monologue and it was really special for us since we’d booked a night with all of his writers hosted by Andy Richter in 2019. Full circle moment. A few weeks ago, Robby Hoffman broke an attendance record for us with lines out the front and back of the bar.
Robby Hoffman at Peacock (Brendan Colthurst)
What’s great about your show?
We’re a donation-based show in a beautiful room, with elevated dive bar vibes and great cocktails. Club Tee Gee opened the side room as a performance space in 2019 so we’ve grown with the bar and have a great relationship with the staff and owners. A lot of regulars and locals come through — it really feels like Cheers sometimes!
What does it mean for you to be in the Netflix is a Joke fest?
We appreciate the visibility that comes with a Netflix bump. Our audience has steadily grown over the years, but it can still feel like we’re a secret. So we love having the opportunity to be promoted alongside other local shows and maybe attract some new regulars.
What’s next for the show?
We always try to curate a well-rounded show with comics from all over and different backgrounds. It’s been a founding principle of the show. So, for now, we’re just going to continue to book comedians we love, and create a space where people can laugh and escape the day.
Follow @peacockshowla, Ali Hart @trahila, Rebecca Rufer @blackswanned, Kiran Deol @shitfromkiran, and Danny Jolles @dannyjolles.
Bigfoot Comedy at Bigfoot Lodge — by Lana Salah and Mikel Albagdadi
Lana Salah and Mikel Albagdadi at Bigfoot Comedy (Courtesy of Bigfoot Comedy)
Whether you’re on the Eastside or West, there’s a comedy show at Bigfoot Lodge on Sunday nights that you should make a home. The Westside edition in Culver City is the one included in the Netflix is a Joke Fest (probably due to its coinciding schedule), but both shows deliver the same formula of touring headliners and up-and-comers worthy of your discovery, in a tightly produced show tucked into the ruggedly cute Bigfoot Lodges.
Launched last year, it’s produced by Lana Salah and Mikel Albagdadi, two killer comics who have been in the game long enough to develop the great taste and deep Rolodex to curate diverse lineups worth carving out time for. Here’s Mikel:
What is your regular schedule and location?
We run two recurring monthly shows: Bigfoot Comedy East at Bigfoot Lodge in Los Feliz on the second Sunday of every month, and Bigfoot Comedy West at Bigfoot Lodge West in Culver City on the last Sunday of every month.
What are some milestones and comics featured for your show?
We’ve been lucky to have a mix of nationally touring headliners and some of the best comics in LA, including Comedian CP, Shapel Lacey, Dave Merheje, Jenny Yang, Jasmine Ellis, and Laurie Kilmartin, among others. Our lineups regularly feature performers who’ve appeared on Netflix, late-night, and major festivals, as well as comics from The Comedy Store and The Improv. The show has built a reputation for consistently strong, surprise-heavy lineups, and being included in the Netflix Is A Joke Festival is a major milestone for us.
What’s great about your show?
The vibe is what people respond to most. It feels like a real comedy show, but in an intimate bar setting. Walking into Bigfoot Lodge feels like stepping into a hidden cabin — dark, woodsy, and a little removed from everything. Most importantly, we pack the room out and the audience shows up ready to laugh.
Because we’re comics ourselves, we’re very intentional about booking. We run a tight, no-dead-air lineup that keeps the energy high and people stay through the end. It feels curated, but still fun and a little unpredictable. And the fact that it’s free and starts during happy hour definitely helps.
What does it mean for you to be in the Netflix is a Joke Fest?
It’s huge for us. We built this as an independent show, so being included alongside larger venues and productions is incredibly validating. It also feels aligned with what the festival is doing — not just spotlighting the big stages, but the smaller rooms that are actively shaping the comedy scene in LA and making it more accessible.
What’s next for you and the show?
We’re continuing to grow both East and West shows and keep them consistently packed. More broadly, Bigfoot was created as a space for us to keep developing as comics while working alongside and learning from other great performers, and we plan to keep building on that.
Follow @bigfootcomedyshow, Lana Salah @thelanasalah and Mikel Albagdadi @mikel_albagdadi.
Pupusas and Punchlines at Jaragua — by Justin Alexio
Justin Alexio at Pupusas and Punchlines (Courtesy of Pupusas and Punchlines)
A few nights a week in the backroom of the Salvadoran restaurant Jaragua that borders East Hollywood, KTown and Melrose Hill, you’ll find the riotous Pupusas and Punchlines.
Comedian and actor Justin Alexio started the show in September 2023 “with the goal of creating a comedy space that felt more like a backyard party than a corporate experience,” he tells us. He’s knocked it out the park, between his high-energy hosting and great sets, the lineups he curates, the venue, which is comfortably wide but small enough for everyone to feel like they’re just under the stage, and the great food you can get there, it’s a show you’ll keep coming back to.
“Pupusas and Punchlines can feel like you’re at your abuela’s,” says Justin, “and it’s one of the only shows where the audience wants to share their plate with the comic on stage. ‘Try this mijo’ is a common heckle.”
Mijo, you should try this comedy show. Here’s Justin:
What is your regular schedule and location?
The back room of Jaragua. We run early and late shows every Friday and Saturday night. Occasional Thursday and Sunday shows as well.
What are some notable comics that you have featured?
In our two and a half years, we’ve produced over 250 sold-out shows. We’ve hosted headlining comics with extensive TV credits that include: Chris Estrada, Fabrizio Guido, Francisco Ramos, Carmen Morales, Carmen Christopher, J.C. Currais, Yassir Lester, and Saul Trujillo.
Pupusas and Punchlines (Courtesy of Pupusas and Punchlines)
What’s great about your show?
The vibe feels like home because the audience is 95% Latino. We are in an intimate 70-seat room where it feels like you’re hanging with your primos, joking around and having a good time. The energy is loose, the comedy is cathartic, and the food is authentic. It’s a comedy show, but also a full on la raza experience.
What does it mean for you to be in the Netflix is a Joke Fest?
Being part of Netflix is a Joke Fest is a huge milestone! We were only a few months old during the Netflix Fest in 2024, and it was my goal to get the show big enough to be on their radar. Two years later and it happened! We are so appreciative because the only reason we got to this place is because of the acceptance and promotion from the LA Latino community. We’re so excited Netflix is giving us the platform to showcase some of LA’s best Latino comics.
What’s next for you and the show?
We’re going to keep doing what we do best: creating an affordable, welcoming, underground space where people can laugh, eat, and unwind. It’s hard being a Latino right now, but we love that people can come and let loose among their people. The industry has been taking notice, and some comics have even gotten signed by big agencies as a result of the show. So we hope to continue to grow and get more and more of Latino comics on your TV 🙂
Follow @pupusas_and_punchlines and Justin Alexio @justinalexio.
Jetlagged at The Rapp Saloon at HI Santa Monica — by HI LA Santa Monica volunteers, Casey Skinner and Sam Piro
Casey Skinner at Jetlagged (Courtesy of Casey Skinner)
Launched as “Comedy In English,” in partnership with the HI LA Santa Monica Hostel in 2012, JETLAGGED has become a go-to show for comedians looking to perform their goods for an international crowd. The show is hosted in the historic Rapp Saloon, the oldest standing brick building in Santa Monica and the city’s first designated historic landmark, which is now located within the HI Santa Monica Hostel on 2nd St., two blocks from the beach and a block from the 3rd St. Promenade.
It’s a free show four nights a week, every week, and is regular programming for the hostel — so it’s usually packed with young travelers, many of whom are seeing their first comedy show. The producers also bark for each show, pulling in tourists off the promenade, so it’s a far cry from the jaded LA crowds you’ll find elsewhere.
For comedians, it can be a tough room with bewildered faces if their material is too reliant on niche local references, or if they don’t enunciate. But if their jokes work there, they’re universal.
The show has been passed down producer-to-producer in its nearly 15-year run, and is produced these days by HI LA Santa Monica volunteers, Casey Skinner and Sam Piro. Here’s Casey Skinner:
What is your regular schedule and location?
Every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday at 8:30 p.m, at The Rapp Room at HI Santa Monica: 1436 2nd St, Santa Monica.
Any milestones?
I think we might be one of the longest-running shows in LA. 14 years? That’s pretty long!
What’s great about your show?
The hostel hosts thousands of guests from across the country and the world every night, welcoming them into the LA area and into this show. It is a bunch of folks from around the world in one space enjoying comedy. In this, comics get to find out if their material works across many different points of reference.
Jetlagged (Courtesy of Casey Skinner)
What does it mean for you to be in Netflix is a Joke Fest?
For so long, it felt like there is the LA comedy scene, and then there is the Netflix is a Joke Fest. To be part of this not only feels like me and everyone involved in the making of our show has leveled up, but has been solidified into the gold standard of The Netflix Is A Joke Fest community.
What’s next for you, Casey Skinner?
I am getting ready to mount and then start touring a solo show about the time I accidentally lived at LA’s infamous Cecil Hotel, and the hilarious circumstances that left me no other option but to go back for one last night.
What’s next for the show?
We have expanded our producing team from a duo into a full team to form a comedy collective to help run the show by committee. This is an effort to build a community of comics who want to build something bigger than themselves, and to grow as artists and producers. We’ll be able to expand what we offer both to the community and to the thousands of guests who come through HI LA Santa Monica every year from across the country and the world. The new team includes: Austin Nelson, Julia Li, Kyle Naughton, Matt Guy, Andrew Morrill, Nick Tittone, Nish Mehta, David Uhlfelder, Whitney Rayner, and Eoin Patrick
Follow Casey Skinner @CaseyBSkinner.
And in case you missed it earlier, here’s the list of all the free neighborhood shows at Netflix is a Joke Fest.