Shows

Yarnmaze opened hot, laying down the house rules and sharing like she does. Tommy Koch barely got his name out before the audience seized on the spelling, launching a relentless crowd-work detour through anatomy that hijacked his entire set. Birthday girl Mollie McGuire turned her family's rolling diagnoses into a tight set — before confessing to a late-night online shopping spiral. Patrick Bolduc mined gold from his coffee mug and cargo pants trutherism. Liz Becker leaned all the way into self-deprecation before pivoting to a sharp Epstein bit. Ty Riggs closed the show loose and fully committed, turning a chaotic daycare story into an edge-of-your-seat closer.

Hecklers Happy Hour pulled out a Valentine's Day twist — audience members wrote love and dating questions on cards, dropped them in a bucket, and comics had to deal with whatever came out. And comics handed out prizes to their favorite hecklers!

Yarnmaze warmed things up with a Bad Bunny halftime confession, her nephew's banned Spanish class name attempts, and the night's first bucket pull: "What are some healthy ways to talk through a disagreement?" Her answer: "The silent treatment."

Lauren Warwick turned crowd work into collateral damage — one-line impressions of audience members' moms, a Hinge couple barely six months in who won the prize just for surviving, and a love bucket question about getting a husband to listen (her suggestion: try a different husband).

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The February 7 show was wall-to-wall debuts — most of the audience had never been to HHH, and it showed (in a good way). Yarnmaze warmed them up with Italian-passing childhood trauma, Jackie Linn brought Paris energy, and Jackie Linn ran through a greatest-hits set that somehow connected the Grammys, the Lions, and confession. Katie Mark went full crowd-work mode — interrogating a barista, an insurance broker, and eventually the entire room about their fathers' anatomy. Ben O'Connell spent half his set bullying a quiet guy in the back and the other half renaming wars. Tristan A. Smith closed hot, threading race, gentrification and the Mandela Effect.

January 31 was one of those Chicago nights where you question every life choice on the walk over — and then immediately forget the cold the second you’re inside. Yarnmaze leaned into that energy hard: first-timers vs. returning hecklers, permission to get loud, and comics who were willing to spar with the room instead of powering through canned bits. The heckles warmed up fast, the comics kept pivoting, and by the time the closer hit, it felt less like “a lineup of sets” and more like the whole room was doing the show together.

January 24 was a classic Hecklers Happy Hour — Yarnmaze hosting, a killer lineup, and a crowd that understood the assignment. Unfortunately, our “video department” (cough) decided to do performance art instead of recording the actual performance… so there’s no transcript and no replay. What we can confirm: the room was hot, the heckles were flying, and Danny Thomas, Rebecca Joey Schwab, Brook Whitehead, and Uzi Acosta all brought it — with Katie Mark keeping the ship from capsizing completely.

It was sold out on 01/17, and the vibe was more “comedy show” than “gladiator arena”—not a ton of heckling, but the crowd was fully with it. (The host even had to call it a “splash zone” early on, which tells you the room was close.) Katie Mark’s set felt like the heartbeat of the night: sharp observations, surprise turns, and just enough chaos to keep everyone leaning forward. Elijah Nevels finished by turning the closing spot into a mini-interview with the audience—getting people to talk, then punching up their answers on the fly.

The January 10 show lost half its audience to the weather before it started — but the survivors got a show that went fully off the rails in the best way. Katie Zane turned a confession about being "hot for pap smears" into a perimenopause awareness campaign and somehow made the whole second half of the night about reproductive anatomy. KJ Whitehead closed by turning a speech-to-text autocorrect into one of the night's biggest laughs, and landed a J.K. Rowling bit that hit exactly the way it was supposed to. The mic fought back all night. The comics won.

Yarnmaze opened the 2026 season by crediting medicine and therapy for getting her functional again, then took a detour into her mom's unique approach to prenatal motivation. Reese Lanay kept the parenting energy going with a set that landed hardest when she got into teaching her dad technology — and intercepting a message from mom just in time. Sam Fritz showed up in a vest and never escaped it. The crowd latched on and made it the topic no matter what he tried to talk about. Teddy Hill was still working through an encounter with his girlfriend's grandfather that went in an unexpected direction. Rebecca Jaffe closed with a ukulele and an original song inspired by a real dog-walker review she pulled up on her phone to prove she wasn't making it up.

Hecklers Happy Hour celebrated its first anniversary the only way it knows how — by going off the rails. Yarnmaze opened with a deeply personal meditation on motherhood (or the deliberate avoidance of it), including recurring dreams about pea-sized babies and sink drains. The handpicked "best of the best" lineup delivered: Hannah Belmont bonded with the crowd over mental illness diagnoses and got into an escalating dare war with fellow comic Brian that nearly went sideways. Brian Miklas turned his breakup, his ex calling his mom at 2 AM, and an STD test into a full confessional — ending with a medical revelation that left the room stunned. Producer Katie Mark detoured from barista life to John Wayne Gacy and beyond. Xavier Smith charmed the room with his unique reactions to a nice posterior, and closer Larry Smith — rodeo cowboy, lawn dart, and lover of the McRib — brought the house down with a waxing story that cannot be adequately summarized in polite company.

With a smallish crowd (pesky holidays!), the show leaned into intimate, riffy energy. Yarnmaze opened by basically daring the room to participate, then veered into “my body is falling apart” bits and playful rule-setting. Orly K.G. followed with confident crowd work and marriage/kids material that kept landing even without big heckles. Vickram Balaji delivered sharp one-liners on family, travel, and bargain-basement lodging nightmares. Co-producer Katie Mark mixed life-in-Chicago updates with haunted house construction details and a doomed seance that cost real money. Brad Kofman worked the room with relationship/divorce observations and travel riffs — and then Subbah Agarwal came in to close stacking smart social commentary with gross-out specifics in the best possible way.

Must've been a party, our memories are fuzzy on this one!

Yarnmaze opened with a heartfelt anime tangent — she's watching a show about camping and groceries and it's the only thing keeping her sane. William Paik barely got through a sentence before the crowd started firing — his outfit became a group activity. Comparisons flew (Pokémon trainer, Paddington Bear, Justin Timberlake circa NSYNC) and he spent most of his time just trying to survive the love. Yzzy Zarate owned the room with quick crowd work and a set that bounced from childhood nicknames to taekwondo to the LinkedIn job market. Jeremy Plumb gave the audience the remote and let them pick his bits. The dad material landed with weight. Bronwyn Galloway went places. Historical lookalikes, childhood honesty, medical professionals with no filter. Tito closed strong with stories about his roommate's casual chaos and some fearless cultural commentary.

The day-after-Independence-Day crowd came to the Lodge loaded and loud, exactly how Yarnmaze likes them. After a parakeet self-pleasuring bit that somehow ended in a democratic vote, Nicky B took the stage and immediately clocked a possible first date in the front row, then rolled through kidney transplants, quitting porn because of his dead grandfather's screensaver, and a phlebotomist rant so specific it could only come from lived experience. Renny Blackett brought Houston pride and a wedding-in-Montana story that derailed into a genuine philosophical debate: do trees look at log cabins and say "you dead tree, bitch"? The crowd said yes, enthusiastically. Producer Katie Mark casually ranked history's serial killers, earning huge laughs for calling Ted Bundy ugly "in fixable ways" and dunking on Jeffrey Dahmer for being a Packers fan. Elaine Golden opened with her dad dying when she was young, pivoted to a Princeton flex, and somehow landed on flossing. Larry Smith tied the whole night together, roasting everyone who came before and admitting a handsome Nashville opener once short-circuited his brain.

Yarnmaze got the crowd voting on her parakeet's love life. Amba Walka is opening a comedy club on the west side in August — and shared what life's like in her mom's. The audience had thoughts. Rebecca Joey Schwab has a co-parenting situation with her sister that involves a dog and some questionable spending. Dave Ramos brought a family coming-out story that hit different for Pride Month. Katie Kincaid had a realization.

Ty Riggs painted a picture of single life that's equal parts sad and wholesome.

420 Eve and Easter collided at the Lodge with a stacked lineup. Yarnmaze set the tone with a dog-almost-euthanized-by-Cook-County saga and high holy day wordplay. Conor Cawley turned front-row heckler into the show's main character, riffing on baldness and neighbor dynamics. Becca Nix Tham repped the sober folks of with a very specifc trifecta of traits and closed on a dermatologist visit that became a generational trauma punchline. Co-producer Katie Mark educated the audience on seance math and body farms. Hannah Belmont hit hard with micro-penis callbacks, Sniffy app horror, and a genuinely funny RFK Jr. takedown. Melvin Stewart brought it home with a story about a son whose favorite game has them banned from a certain Chicagoland grocery store.

What will he see?

Claire Parlette christened the very first Hecklers Happy Hour by laying down the house rules — be kind, be freaky, and if we have to tell you to stop twice, you're out. Then she got into her dating life and some audience-sourced celebrity lookalike comparisons. Katie Mark brought barista-to-drama-teacher energy and a family nickname that stuck with the crowd all night. Ben O'Connell tried to talk geopolitics in a room full of theater kids — it went how you'd think. Abbigale Blaze introduced herself as "wildly problematic" and proved it. Yarnmaze hijacked her own show when an audience member spotted her shirt and yelled "Voyager!" — the whole room was whistling theme songs and doing "the wormhole" on command. Brian Miklas ran a death pool with the audience and it went off the rails. Kayley Horton closed by roasting every man in the room.