Friday, August 23, and Saturday, August 24
Downtown Davenport IA
Nearly 20 local, regional, and national comedians will be bringing the funny to this year's Alternating Currents festival, with August 23 and 24 standup sets – plus one hilariously awful movie – scheduled to make patrons roar with laughter at four venues in downtown Davenport.
At the Great River Brewery (332 East Second Street), the evenings of August 23 and 24 will be chock-full of comedians participating in the venue's 6 p.m. standup shows. Scheduled for Friday's bill: Los Angeles-based Sam Wiles, who has written for NBC Universal and Mad magazine; local comic Bobby Ray Bunch, featured at the Mission Creek Festival and Turnbuckle Comedy & Music Festival; Alex Price, a 6'9” veteran of the Limestone Comedy Festival; Kyle Scanlan, a cast member of Lincoiln Lodge and Speakeasy Comedy; Lyn-Z Harney, an Iowa native who produced her show Spicy Chicken Sandwich at the Under the Gun Theatre; Jeff Bailey, an Iowa-born comic who performed at last summer's Alternating Currents festival; and Davenport native Jake McDowell, whose credits, he writes, include “He performed with Screech once in a bar.”
Wiles, Price, and McDowell will also perform at Saturday's comedy night at Great River Brewery, with the scheduled comedians joining them: Donny Townsend, a performer at the Floodwater Comedy Festival and Turnbuckle; James Draper, an opener for standups including Larry Reeb and Donnie Baker; AJ Grill, winner of the 2016 “Funniest Person in Iowa” contest at the Penguin's Comedy Club; Andrew Stuart Cline Cline, a standup of eight years running based in Orion, Illinois; and Jessica Misra, a veteran of Chicago's Second City IO and Laugh Factory.
Like the Great River Brewery, Davenport's Front Street Taproom (421 West River Drive) will deliver two nights of comedy with standup sets on August 23 and 24. On Friday, and in addition to the aforementioned Wiles, Draper, Grill, Price, Scanlan, and Bailey, the attending comedians include: Mike Adrales, a Philippines native and regular at the Circa '21 Speakeasy; Joel Kilgallon, praised by the Chicago Tribune for his “straight-shooting, pull-no-punches style”; Zach Pugh, an L.A.-based comic regularly featured on SiriusXM; Mike Lucas, winner of the 2016 Laugh Hard Comedy Challenge; Kristen Toomey, deemed “a Chicago original” by The A.V. Club; and Kellye Howard, seen on Last Comic Standing and the podcast host for Be Less Pretty. Saturday's comedy night at the Front Street Taproom, meanwhile, will feature more laughs courtesy of Draper, Grill, Price, Lucas, Harney, and Bailey. Mac's Tavern (316 West Third Street) adds additional laughs in Davenport with August 23 and 24 standup showcases of its own: Friday sets with Townsend, Grill, Pugh, Lucas, Toomey, and Misra; Saturday sets with Kilgallon, Bunch, Scanlan, Bailey, and Howard.
Finally, for those seeking a comedy experience in the vein of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, Davenport's Triple Crown Whiskey Bar & Raccoon Motel (303 East Third Street) will also host comedians on Friday and Saturday, with the August 23 lineup boasting Townsend and Cline, and the August 24 roster featuring Wiles, Kilgallon, Bunch, Pugh, Scanlan, Howard, and Toomey. And at 9 p.m. on Friday night, the venue invites you to a special screening of the 1966 cult classic Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter, a laughably horrible movie featuring live satiric commentary by comedians Donny Townsend, Chris Schlichting, and Andrew Stuart Cline.
For more information on comedy events at this year's Alternating Currents festival, visit AlternatingCurrentsQC.com/comedy.
