Just For Laughs Announces This Year’s New Faces of Comedy

Comedy conquers Montreal every July with the annual Just For Laughs event, the world’s largest comedy festival. This year’s Just For Laughs started on July 14, but will reach its peak this week, with dozens of comedy shows spread across a number of venues throughout the city. Just For Laughs has been the preeminent festival within the comedy industry for much of the last 40 years, and has been crucial in helping some of the most famous comedians in the world take the next step towards superstardom—with many of them being highlighted as part of the festival’s annual New Faces of Comedy lineup.

The New Faces of Comedy series is typically split into a handful of showcases that run during the festival’s last week. There are two showcases for the main group of New Faces, which this year includes 21 different comedians, a showcase for New Faces from Canada, another one for international comedians from outside Canada or the US, and also a showcase for comics without representation. There’s also a showcase called New Faces: Characters for improv and sketch comics, and New Faces: Creators for content creators. Former New Faces include Mike Birbiglia, Kevin Hart, Amy Schumer, Taylor Tomlinson, Kumail Nanjiani, John Early, Julio Torres, Conner O’Malley, and a few dozen other future all-stars.

This year’s New Faces were announced yesterday and will be performing at a series of showcases in Montreal this week, with hosts including Chris Redd, Langston Kerman, Mark Forward, and others. There are 66 comedians in this year’s batch, and given the festival’s track record, there’s a good chance at least a few of them will become top stars in the near future. Here’s the full round-up:

New Faces of Comedy 1 & 2:

Fumi Abe
Darius Bennett
Troy Bond
Zach Brazão
Tommy Brennan
Nico Carney
Morgan Jay
Dan LaMorte
Leslie Liao
Sam Morrison
Chike Robinson
Kelly Ryan
Brittany Schmitt
Anna Seregina
Sahib Singh
Sahana Srinivasan
Derrick Stroup
Audrey Stewart
Saul Trujillo
Asha Ward
Maggie Winters

New Faces: Characters

Chris Cafero
Parker Callahan
Carl Foreman Jr.
Chris Kleckner
Evan Mills
Hannah Pilkes
Laura Ramoso
Susan Song
Chloe Troast

New Faces: Unrepped

Clara Blackstone
Liz Blanc
Aldo Campana
Aminah Imani
Ibhan Kulkarni
Neill Lynskey
Max Manticof
Lukas McCrary
Wellington Ojukwu
Bianca Parato

New Faces: Canada

Spencer Adamus
Brendan D’Souza
Michelle Forrester
Dakota Ray Hebert
Faris Hytiaa
Moe Ismail
Maddy Kelly
Natasha Lyn Myles
Henry Sir
Ryan Williams

New Faces: International

Ceyla AB
Brennan Reece
Katie Boyle
Abhay NadkKarni
Sarah Keyworth
Glenn Moore
James Roque
Amy Gledhill
Emmanuel Sonubi
Tom Walker

New Faces: Creators

Caroline Baniewicz
Cliff Benfield
Heather Chelan
Devin Gant
Leo González
Hayley Morris