North Carolina Comedy Arts Festival Readies for 11th Year

Now in its 11th Year, The North Carolina Comedy Arts Festival continues to be one of the top winter comedy destinations for performers from all of the country. This nationally renowned festival runs from February 2-20 and includes three packed weekends of sketch, stand-up, and improv. Tickets and a full schedule are available at www.nccomedyarts.com.

Throughout the last decade, the North Carolina Comedy Arts Festival has made Carrboro a national comedy destination. Last year, the festival boasted over 500 performers from 17 states and Canada. This year is no exception. The festival continues to get entries from across the country and this year is set to bring over 1,000 comedians to the area to perform and take workshops involving performance techniques and business advice.

This year, the festival opens at The Varsity Theatre in Chapel Hill with a hilarious selection of sketch comedy performances paired with some video and film programs. Sketch Comedy runs from February 2-5. It includes sketch teams from the Triangle and the entire country. The line-up includes: DSI Comedy Theater's wildly popular P.T. Scarborough is A Movie, Boston's Harry Roasts America, Paul Thomas's one-man sketch spectacular Comedogenic, the popular Elephant Larry from New York City, Philadelphia's Meg & Rob, Toronto's Annabelle Gets It Back, and many others. The festival is also screening last year's hit films Trust Us This is All Made Up and Laughology.

Stand-up Comedy follows from February 9-13. Now in its third year, the Stand-Up block shows will run at DSI Comedy Theater, the Cat's Cradle and Local 506 in Chapel Hill. Over 50 stand-up comedians are heading to The Triangle this year. Highlights include: a Cat's Cradle showcase for Letterman talent booker Eddie Brill, the return of Los Angeles based comic Aparna Nancherla; and 2010 Carolina's Funniest comic Tom Keller is set to perform. Also performing is David Lee Nelson, Ed Hill, Maria Champa, Guffran Ali, and Trenton Davis, who grew up in Greensboro.

The festival closes with its annual Improv block. This mainstay will grace four stages and feature improv teams from around the country. The Improv block runs from February 16-20. The festival is excited to welcome pHrenzy from Chicago, a short-form improv team presenting an exciting 30 minutes of eliminations. Other highlights include Harvard's The Immediate Gratification Players, a Super CageMATCH with groups from Atlanta, Boston, Toronto, and North Carolina, puppet improv with Josh Cohen of The Josh and Tamra Show, Neutrino Boston (a live video improv performance that will be taped around Carrboro), Junior Varsity from New York, Plan B from Boston, and musical hip-hop group Northcoast from New York.

Annually, the festival creates a spike in the population of Carrboro for the month of February. In the past, the festival raised the population of Carrboro by 4% and generated $150,000 in spillover spending for the downtown business community in just one week. Local leaders and the Chapel Hill-Orange County Visitors Bureau have started to take notice of DSI and the NCCAF as contributors to area economic development.

More information is available at: http://www.nccomedyarts.com.

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