Comedy in Bushwick

Comedy in Bushwick this week

• TUE SEP 22 · 8:30PM

  The Comedy Lottery

  Bushwick Comedy Club · $5

  NYC's biggest weekly stand-up competition, where the crowd's favorite comic walks off with the cash.

Comedy in Bushwick is one of the great open secrets of the borough. It is some of the best-value comedy in the whole city, cheap or free most nights, with lineups that would cost you three times as much across the river in Manhattan. Working comics test material out here, drop in unannounced, and generally slum it in Brooklyn because the rooms are loose and the crowds are honest. If you want to laugh without checking your bank balance first, you are in the right neighborhood.

Comedy clubs and rooms

The anchor is the Bushwick Comedy Club, a proper room with a real schedule, showcases, and headliners who actually know what they are doing. It is the closest thing the neighborhood has to a traditional club, which means you get a booked lineup rather than whoever wandered in off the L train. Tickets tend to be reasonable, the room is small enough that eye contact with the comic is a genuine risk, and the sets move fast. Go here if you want a reliable night of stand-up without gambling on the vibe.

Bar and backyard shows

Most of Bushwick comedy does not happen in a club at all. It happens in the back of a bar, in a basement, or in someone's backyard with a mic run off an extension cord. These shows are the heart of the scene. They are usually free or a few dollars at the door, the beer is cold, and the bit that just bombed will be forgotten in ninety seconds. Backyard shows in the warmer months are especially good, part comedy, part hang. This is also a big part of nightlife in Bushwick, so you can roll a show into a full evening without much planning.

Free comedy and open mics

If free is the operative word, Bushwick delivers. Open mics run all over the neighborhood, and while the quality is a lottery, that is exactly the fun of it. You will see a future headliner and a guy reading jokes off his phone in the same lineup, sometimes back to back. Mics are a cheap way to fill a weeknight, and they fit neatly into the wider world of free things to do in Bushwick. Show up early, buy a drink, and do not heckle the person clearly doing this for the first time.

What a night out actually looks like

Here is the honest version. Tickets are cheap, sometimes nothing, so the deal is that you tip the comics and buy from the bar. The rooms are small, the seats are folding chairs, and the person next to you might be on the lineup. Bring cash. Get there on time, because latecomers in a room of forty people are a bit themselves. It is low stakes, high reward, and it pairs well with everything else on the list of things to do in Bushwick when you want to make a night of it.

The catch is that lineups shift constantly and a lot of the best shows are one-offs that get announced with about a week of notice. That is why we send a weekly email. It rounds up what's on this week so you catch the good sets before they sell out or quietly vanish. You can also scan what's on this weekend if you plan in shorter horizons.

FAQ

Where can you see comedy in Bushwick?

Start with the Bushwick Comedy Club for booked lineups, then branch out to the bar shows, basement rooms, and backyard sets that run across the neighborhood most nights of the week.

Is comedy in Bushwick free?

Often, yes. Open mics and many bar shows are free or a few dollars at the door. Tip the comics and buy a drink, and you have covered your end.

Is Bushwick good for stand-up comedy?

Very. It has real rooms, cheap tickets, and working comics testing material, which makes it one of the best value places to see stand-up anywhere in the city.