Blue Heaven 2020

About the Festival

Who’s on the fringe of funny?

FringeArts welcomes the most exciting new voices in comedy to Philadelphia for two nights of provocative performances, multimedia stand-up, dynamic sketches, and more. Join us in Blue Heaven for a weekend of laughter and socially relevant acts from the latest generation of artists redefining what contemporary comedy looks like in America.

Artist Lineup

Friday, Feb 7

7PM: Lorelei Ramirez: Alive! (For Now)
8:15PM: Courtney Pauroso: Gutterplum
9:15PM: BREAK
9:45PM: Megan Stalter & Sarah Squirm
11PM: Patti Harrison (& Friends!)

Saturday, Feb 8

7PM: Max Wittert: Portrait of the Artist Seated with Grapes
8:15PM: Natalie Palamides: NATE
9:15PM: BREAK
9:45PM: Jamie Loftus: Boss Whom is Girl
11PM: Joel Kim Booster

Content Considerations

Some artists in Blue Heaven use their comedic practice to interrogate: assault/abuse, systems of oppression, violence, body horror, mental illness, and suicide. Some artists will also feature moments of nudity in their sets.

Clinicians from the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual DisAbility Services are on-site for Block 1 of Blue Heaven. If you would like to chat to a licensed counselor to process anything that you’ve seen or heard about tonight, you can speak to one of our Box Office staff-members or House Managers and they will pull the counselor from the audience, and the two of you can retreat to a private area. DBHIDS clinicians will also be tabling during the break with free resources for mental health access.

Audience Participation

If you are ever asked to participate in an artist’s show and do not want to, you are always entitled to say “no thanks.”  The black chairs set up on stage are our designated “Splash Zone;” an area where the artists can see the audience members and interact with them. If that’s not your thing, we recommend sitting in the central rows of our theater’s risers.

During the Break

All patrons must leave the theater during this break, including Festival & Day pass holders.

Join us in Haas Biergarten for special clown guests Ding Dong and Scrumpy’s Face Painting Pleasure Paradise! Pony up to the sundries stand and choose from a cut and dried election of face flash for a rootin’ tootin’ make over, at no cost to you! Ding Dong and Scrumpy are Rose Luardo and Jarmel Reitz. They both enjoy dressing up and electrifying your night. Catch them at the Fairmount House Gallery 2020.

Make sure to also apply one of our customized Blue Heaven tattoos designed by Max Wittert and Lorelei Ramirez. 

Enjoy the special Blue Heaven menu at La Peg! The below menu of items can all be brought with you to your seat in the Theater during Blue Heaven. Place your order at the bar!

Blue Heaven Menu

– Fast Food Cheeseburger $8
5 oz patty, potato roll, onions, pickles, special sauce, cooper’s sharp cheese 

– Fried Cheese Curds $7
Marinara dipping sauce

– French Fries $5

-Spiked Hot Chocolate $8
Made in-house with Peppermint Schnapps, Kahlua, or Fireball Whiskey

-Caprese Panini $10
Tomato, basil, mozzerella

About the Artists

Lorelei Ramirez is an artist, comedian, and writer based in Brooklyn. They have written, produced, and directed a comedy special called Pervert Everything for Adult Swim. They can be seen on the HBO poetic, psychedelic comedy series Random Acts of Flyness, the final season of Comedy Central’s Broad City and currently recurring on HBO’s new half-hour comedy Los Espookys’ opposite Fred Armisen. In the VO world, Lorelei is a regular on the upcoming animated Adult Swim spinoff series Birdgirl, and heavily appears in John Cameron Mitchell’s upcoming musical anthology podcast Anthem, opposite Glenn Close. Last year, they were named one of Comedy Central’s Up Next Comedians, featured at San Francisco’s Cluster Fest comedy festival and earlier this year, they were invited to perform at the Public Theater as a part of 2019’s Under The Radar Festival. They’ve performed at Caroline’s, UCB, Ars Nova, The Special Without Brett Davis, The Chris Gethard Show, The Brooklyn Comedy Festival and has exhibited their work at Family Business Gallery, The Living Gallery, Cloud City and The Experiment Comedy Gallery. They grew up in Miami, Florida and graduated from SVA.

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Take note: Blue Heaven comedy festival may be the last time we will all be assembled in this room—some of us might die someday. Lorelei Ramirez’s playful morbidity seeps through in this multi-media comedy special, which invites us all to be unsettled together in this unsettling moment. Crafting at the intersection of art and comedy, Lorelei perverts the familiar and profanes the sacred—all in pursuit of one last laugh.

Courtney Pauroso is a Los Angeles-based actor/writer/comedian/clown who recently completed sold-out, critically-acclaimed runs of her solo show Gutterplum at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Soho Theater London, and her home theater in Los Angeles, The Lyric Hyperion. She also performed the show at Union Hall in Brooklyn and was profiled in the New York Times as one of the new “carnal clowns” of comedy along with Natalie Palamides and Zack Zucker, who called them “smart acts working hard to appear stupid.” Recently she co-created and acted in a series of shorts for FXX’s late night block Cake with her 8-person clown group under the direction of acclaimed clown Dr. Brown. She is a Groundlings Sunday Company Alum and teacher, and has been featured in Florida Girls, Key and Peele, Like & Subscribe, 2 Broke Girls, and the recently released feature VHYES with Thomas Lennon. Before breaking into comedy she was a member of Washington D.C.’s premier physical theater company, Synetic Theater.

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Courtney brings her smash-hit total sell-out Edinburgh Fringe show Gutterplum to Philadelphia. Come see this “dangerously delightful” clown perform the show that “takes its audience on an intense and hilarious journey in what is an hour of utter chaos that somehow portrays a deep life-spanning story.” A woman. A journey. Twists and turns. Laughter, tears, blood, bullshit. Any questions? “You have to see this show. That is pretty much all you need to know.” (The Scotsman) Directed by Edinburgh Comedy Award winner Dr. Brown. Co-devised by Corey Podell.

​Megan Stalter is an actress and comedian based in New York, where she has a monthly show at Union Hall. Most recently she was in the writers room for National Lampoon’s Radio Hour, launched in early 2020. She was listed by Vulture as one of this year’s up-and-coming comics to watch.  Originally from Ohio, Meg moved to Chicago to study comedy.  Meg trained at Second City and iO in Chicago.  She is a former member of The Lincoln Lodge, as well as the creator of Freak Fest and The Megan Stalter Show. Megan has opened for James Adomian, Liza Treyger, Kate Berlant and Vanessa Bayer.

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Who is Meg Stalter? Well she’s an exquisite painter, an incredible host, she can balance an apple on her head and won’t let you forget it, tight waist, fat ass, everyone wants to be her and be WITH her, incredible singer, tasteful dancer, can hardly walk, bad at spelling good. Meg manages to be both Alice and the Mad Hatter all in one what could be more enchanting than that? Mother of 12, wife of Mason James, she still manages to perform and be a huge star. She’s played the New York Gala and the Chicago Arena but also willing to do smaller venues (3,000+ ideally though.) Come along with her on a wild ride for at least one night she won’t let you forget it.

Sarah Squirm is an LA-based comedian who has become known for her unconventional, and popular show in Chicago, Helltrap Nightmare. She recently opened for Eric Andre on his fall tour. Previously, she was staffed on Netflix’s Magic for Humans and wrote on The Eric Andre Show for Adult Swim. She was named one of Vulture’s comics to watch for 2018 and one of TIME OUT Magazine’s five comics to watch for 2017. Sarah starred in FLAYAWAY, a new late night infomercial for Adult Swim which aired last December. Sarah mixes stand up with multimedia video art performance to give audiences a gross-out body horror experience that will (hopefully) make them laugh/ but also/ sick.

Comedian, stand up, and actress Patti Harrison brings her signature, unique brand of comedy to Blue Heaven with a few of her talented friends in tow. Known by fans for her role as Aidy Bryant’s “sociopath-adjacent” coworker Ruthie, comedian, actor and writer Patti Harrison just wrapped shooting season 2 of the hit Hulu series Shrill and went straight into production on her first leading role in director Nikole Beckwith’s Togetherish opposite Ed Helms. In addition to her impressive list of TV writing credits, she most recently wrote on the upcoming season of Netflix’s Big Mouth.

Patti has been profiled by Rolling Stone, The New York Times, GQ, Interview, Time, Vulture, and BUST Magazine, among others. This summer she was honored as one of Variety’s 10 Comics to Watch at this year’s prestigious Just for Laughs festival in Montreal. Additional credits include Paul Feig’s feature A Simple Favor, High Maintenance, Search Party, The Tonight Show, Full Frontal, and Netflix’s I Think You Should Leave.

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Performing with Patti Harrison, Amy Zimmer is a comedian and writer based in New York. She has performed at venues all over New York City, including The New York Comedy Festival, MoMA PS1 and the Brooklyn Museum. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Comedy Central, Adult Swim, and more. Her short films “Sneakers” and “A Riveting Thriller” has been featured on Vulture and No Budge, and was a New York Television Festival official selection. Her solo show A Better Me Is Coming, premieres February 22nd in New York, at Union Hall.

Performing with Patti Harrison, Spike Einbinder is a shape-shifting demon and comedian from Los Angeles. They have appeared in High Maintenance (HBO), Los Espookys (HBO), The Chris Gethard Show and written and starred in multiple episodes of the public access cult comedy series The Special Without Brett Davis.

Max Wittert is a comedian, artist, and animator from LA, now based in NYC. His work has been featured on Buzzfeed and in The New Yorker. He has produced a short cartoon for Nickelodeon, and has a recurring role in the HBO show High Maintenance. He is the co-host of the monthly show Get Reel at Union Hall in Brooklyn, and hosts the podcast So Fashionating. Max was selected to be one of Comedy Central’s 2019 Up Next Variety Comedians at this year’s Clusterfest. His solo animated comedy show Portrait of The Artist Seated With Grapes has sold out rooms in New York City and recently played the New York Comedy Festival.

Max Wittert: Portrait of the Artist Seated with Grapes is a fully illustrated hour of comedy, performed and drawn by, well, Max Wittert. Come watch his rants, essays, and stories come to life through his drawings for a visually engrossing show.

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Opening for Max Wittert, Eudora Peterson is a Brooklyn based comedian, but she was born & raised in New Jersey! Her written work has been featured in The Huffington Post, Jezebel, & Beat Magazine, and while she performs regularly in New York, she’s played at numerous theaters & clubs throughout the country, including UCB, Good Good Comedy Theatre, The Bell House, and the Kennedy Center. You can see her on HBO’s Los Espookys, and you can look out for her in the upcoming season of Search Party.

Natalie Palamides won the Best Newcomer award at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival for her “enthralling one-woman show”, LAID. The following year, her gender-bending one-person show NATE premiered to critical acclaim, including sold out runs in Edinburgh, Los Angeles, and New York City. As an accomplished writer/improviser/comedian/clown, Natalie’s other theater work include Upright Citizens Brigade, The Groundlings, Pig Iron Theatre Company and The Idiot Workshop. Her high profile TV credits include voicing the role of ‘Buttercup’ on the reboot of PowerPuff girls and many notable commercial appearances. In 2016, Natalie was selected as a “New Face of Comedy” by the prestigious Just for Laughs Comedy Festival.

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For the first time in history, it’s hard to be a man. Natalie doesn’t understand this… but NATE does. Natalie Palamides is NATE. May include: consensual touching of boobies, non-consensual mind-blowing, and Nate’s hard, stretchy cock. Directed/co-devised by Edinburgh Comedy Award Winner, Dr. Brown.

NATE is a playful and powerful exploration of masculinity and consent and winner of 2018 Edinburgh Total Theatre Award. A dynamic must-see, every show is fearlessly performed and different night-to-night as Palamides allows the audience reactions to play a part in the show. NATE received a glowing 5/5 by The Times UK who praised, “it’s not quite like anything else…I’d see it again in a heartbeat.” NATE was also shot as a special this summer, produced by none other than Amy Poehler.

Jamie Loftus is a writer, stand-up comic and animator who in 2018, Vulture called one of the Best New Comedians to Watch. Most recently a writer on the Adult Swim series, Robot Chicken, Jamie currently hosts the HowStuffWorks feminist movie podcast The Bechdel Cast.  Jamie is a regular contributor to publications such as Vice, Paste, The New Yorker, and Playboy.

In Boss Whom is Girl, meet Shell Gasoline-Sandwich, a toxic corporate feminist who is teaching all fellow girlbosses how to use technology to steal data for fun, profit and #feminism. Come meet Shell and her digital companion Patricia to learn about the Inverted Pussy Pyramid of Girlboss Needs and learn how to take advantage of the poor for personal profit just as well as the boys! Written and performed by Jamie Loftus. Produced/tech directed by Isaac Taylor.

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Joel Kim Booster is a Chicago-bred, Los Angeles-based comedian and writer. This fall you can catch Joel starring in the new NBC sitcom Sunnyside. Other TV and film credits include Shrill (Hulu), Search Party (TBS), BoJack Horseman, Big Mouth, The Week Of (Netflix) and Viper Club (You Tube Premium). Alongside Patti Harrison, Joel co-hosts Unsend, a comedy central digital series where they sift through social media and highlight the weirdest and most shame worthy stuff out there. As a comedian he has appeared on Conan, The Late Late Show with James Corden, Netflix’s The Fix, Comedy Central’s The Meltdown with Jonah and Kumail, This Is Not Happening and @midnight, Logo’s Comedy Cabaret and truTV’s Comedy Knockout. In 2017, Joel recorded a stand-up special for Comedy Central’s The Half-Hour, a full-length stand-up album called Model Minority and was listed as one of Esquire’s “10 Comedians to Watch.” Joel recently had the honor of being featured in The Hollywood Reporter’s 2019 Comedy Issue as one of “Comedy’s New LGBTQ Breakouts”, as well as appearing on GQ’s 2019 list of “7 Funny People Reshaping Comedy Right Now”. Previously, he’s been included in the Wall Street Journal’s “Young Hollywood Portfolio” highlighting rising stars in Hollywood, Variety’s 2018 “10 Comics to Watch,” and Vulture’s “20 Comedians You Should and Will Know.” His writing credits include Billy on the Street (truTV), Big Mouth (Netflix), The Other Two (Comedy Central) and the pilot for Comedy Central’s Problematic with Moshe Kasher. Follow Joel on Twitter @ihatejoelkim.

Nerd Out

Go deeper into Blue Heaven 2020. Visit the FringeArts Blog to read our full Who’s Who in Blue Heaven post, complete with videos of the comedians in past performances.

You can also tune into the FringeArts podcast, Happy Hour on the Fringe, for our a Blue Heaven Preview with Artistic Producer Zach Blackwood and an interview with comedian Megan Stalter on the Chicago comedy world, high school thespian society, and how to follow your heart when others tell you not to.

Blue Heaven 2020 is Sponsored By

Coming up at FringeArts

Thank you for joining us for the second annual Blue Heaven Comedy Festival! Join us later this spring for High Pressure Fire Service, a series dedicated to new works by Philadelphia artists, and check out some of our ongoing events such as Scratch Night, Get Pegged, and our Historic Building Tours.