EXCLUSIVE: Underground Overground Comedy, the pop-up comedy show producer from Ethan Mansoor and David Levine, has announced that the third edition of its biggest event, the Paragon Comedy Festival, will take place from April 30 through May 2, with 12 shows across three floors at the 117-year-old Paragon Sports store in Union Square.
Selling out two years in a row, the festival will welcome approximately 1,800 guests over the weekend, with the same signature element that built Underground Overground’s following: completely secret lineups. Previous Paragon festivals have featured notable comics like Chris Distefano and Saturday Night Live cast member Marcello Hernández, while other Underground Overground Comedy shows have featured performers such as Sam Morril, Roy Wood Jr., Mark Normand, Jeff Arcuri, Dave Attell, Jordan Jenson, and more. But audiences never know who they’ll see in advance.
This year, there will be an added layer of programming at the festival, pushing it beyond stand-up, with the addition of live magic performances and immersive afterparty elements within Paragon’s basement surf shop after each show. Tickets go on sale April 6.
A pair of Manhattan natives and childhood friends, Levine and Mansoor founded Underground Overground Comedy during the pandemic, beginning to produce pop-up comedy shows when traditional venues were closed. Their first show took place inside a friend’s Upper East Side gym, followed by rooftop shows near NYU that quickly gained attention.
The Paragon Comedy Festival is the largest expression yet of their pop-up model, as New York’s answer to pop-up producer Don’t Tell Comedy, which shares their mission of reshaping the way live comedy shows are produced, bringing stand-up performances out of traditional clubs and into unexpected venues. Mansoor and Levine have been highly successful at building up their brand, producing nearly 350 shows in the last five and establishing great demand for tickets, with a 36,000-person waitlist in place. Producing shows in venues ranging from retail shops and laundromats to iconic institutions like Katz’s Delicatessen, Zabar’s, Peter Luger and Economy Candy, the duo most recently reached a major milestone with the first-ever stand-up comedy performance inside the Empire State Building.
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