Nashville comics added to “Laugh Your Asheville Off Comedy Festival”

laugh_your_asheville_offThe 3rd annual Laugh Your Asheville Off Comedy Festival has announced this years festival performers. Nashville will be well represented by Chad Riden, Kevin “Renegade” Green, Sean Parrot and Tim Northern.

The 2009 edition of “the largest Stand-up Comedy festival in the Southeast” consists of five shows featuring over 40 comics over the course of three days – July 16-18 – in the Diana Wortham Theater in Asheville, North Carolina. The final schedule with dates, times and details of all performances has not been announced yet. See www.laughyourashevilleoff.com for more info.

Keith Alberstadt in “Stand Up 360”, on “comedy.tv”, at the Great American Comedy Festival

Keith Alberstadt on set of "Late Show with David Letterman"Nashville-native nationally touring comic Keith Alberstadt continues to amaze and astound us with the quantity and quality of projects he’s working on. He is featured in “Stand Up 360” – a movie about New York stand up comedy, has been invited to the Great American Comedy Festival, and has been filmed for Byron Allen’s “comedy.tv”.

Keith recently wrote a guest article for Rooftop Comedy about the comedy.tv project:

It was a big surprise to get the call, especially since in my emails to the producers, I kept calling him Brian Allen. I felt like my mom, who calls comics things like Kathy Mandarin (Kathleen Madigan), Jack Jergensen (Jake Johannsen), and Bill Saguine (possibly Conan O’Brien).

The only bad thing about this whole experience was the timing. I got the invite Thursday last week and had to be in LA Sunday. A trip cross country, connecting in Detroit, sitting in the middle seat between two middle-aged women who laugh out loud at the in-flight movie “Bridal Wars”. . . All of these things are tolerable. What’s not is finding a reasonably-priced plane ticket with only two days notice.

The best rate I could find was $410 which I paid for with 10,000 shares of GM stock. But it was well worth it.

Forty-two comics doing six minutes each. Of course not everyone stuck to six minutes, because there’s still a mentality of “hey, I’m killing so that red light in the back of the room can suck it”. But overall it was amazing. Events like this are fun because it’s like a comedy convention. Comics from all over can catch up on what they’re doing, where they’ve been, and which comedy condos have been de-loused lately.

The Great American Comedy Festival takes place June 14-20 at the Johnny Carson Theatre in Norfolk, Nebraska. Created as a tribute to the legacy of native son Johnny Carson, the festival’s competitors were booked by Late Show with David Letterman‘s Eddie Brill. This year’s line-up features Keith along with 24 other fast-rising comics including Nashville’s own Jesse Case and friend of N’Sup Pat Dixon.

“Stand Up 360” is a series of new big screen productions in theaters now. It’s hosted by Caroline Rhea and spotlights some of the best comics in New York City. Keith’s part of the series will be in theaters June 1-14. Visit www.Stand-Up360.com for more information and to purchase tickets while they last! Check your local listings for select theaters, dates & times of the limited engagement showings.

For more from Keith, visit KeithComedy.com.

Great American Comedy Festival features friends of NashvilleStandUp

There are several friends of NashvilleStandUp mentioned in today’s announcement of the list of the 24 stand-up comedians who will be competing for the top prize at the Great American Comedy Festival this June in Johnny Carson’s hometown of Norfolk, NE.

“These are some of the brightest, most intelligent and creative minds in the industry,” said Eddie Brill, the executive producer of the festival and the talent coordinator for the “Late Show with David Letterman.”

Brill and Lora Young, executive director of the festival, auditioned comedians in 10 cities across the United States — including New York City, Dallas, Seattle, Denver, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Boston and Chicago — to select the top 24 who wanted the chance to compete in Norfolk.

“As a result of the incredible success of last year’s festival, the good word has spread rapidly throughout the comedy community,” Brill said. “The high quality of comedians who auditioned for the Great American Comedy Festival made it so difficult to narrow the list down to just 24.”

The list includes: Keith Alberstadt (Nashville native, now living in New York City), Jesse Case (Nashville native, now living in Seattle), Pat Dixon (currently living in New York City.. he is not from Nashville, but was almost murdered by a crazy chick from here, so we claim him as our own), and Tim Harmston (from Minneapolis, who is a very good friend of our own Mary Mack).

The 24 comedians will be split up so that six perform at each of the four preliminary rounds of competition at the festival on Wednesday, June 17, at 6:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. and Thursday, June 18, at the same times.

Congratulations to everybody selected!