A talk with comedians Jody Sloane and Jimmy Dunn plus a look at upcoming shows
Last summer, the official story was that Jimmy Dunn skipped his own comedy festival due to a dream-come-true gig headlining at Casino Ballroom. That much was true. What didn’t make press reports was the bigger reason he was missing. Two days after that big show, Dunn checked into Massachusetts General Hospital to have his spine rebuilt.
“I was essentially laid up waiting to do the Casino, and then they wanted to do the surgery like two days before, and I said I can’t do that because I have to be able to stand on stage,” Dunn recalled by phone from his home in Hampton Beach recently.
He made it, walking out under the lights the way he’d visualized since he was a kid who’d sit on the venue’s back stairs to listen to Buddy Hackett and George Carlin. Then after what Dunn calls as a career highlight, surgeons were putting $30,000 worth of titanium into his back.
“That was just the parts,” he said with a wry laugh. “It’s a bad joke, but I was a stand-up comedian who couldn’t stand up, so that’s not good.” A year later, Jimmy Dunn is back, and by his own account, firing on all cylinders in a way that he hasn’t in two decades.
“I feel great, man. I haven’t felt this good in 20 years. I’m open ocean swimming and walking every day,” he said. The Hampton Beach Comedy Festival, the institution he built from scratch 19 years ago, returns with Dunn fully mobile again after a stretch where the injury quietly reshaped what he could do on stage.
“It was really tough to be on stage for about a year because of this back injury, and it limited my movement and just what I could do creatively,” he said. “But now I can fly around on stage again, and I love it.” The Casino Ballroom night itself, he admits, ran largely on adrenaline and painkillers.
“I would have done that show with one leg,” he said. “I’ve been waiting 30 years to do that show, and to be a headliner at the Casino Ballroom was just a dream come true.” Local radio helped fill the room, and while Dunn won’t swear it was a total sellout, “it was packed.”
This year’s festival — the 17th edition, missing two along the way to Covid and an earlier back surgery — comes with a lineup change Dunn is clearly proud of. In past years, he says, the show ran long because organizers kept squeezing in new comics eager for stage time, which meant rushing seasoned headliners off before they got going.
This year, the roster is smaller and the sets are longer for the veteran Boston comics who don’t just tell good jokes. “Any good comic can get a laugh, but the ones that can just hammer laugh after laugh, that’s what Boston has always been known for; that’s what Boston comics do best.”
Dunn is also handing off hosting duties so he can do a 20-minute set each night, which allows him to actually hang out with his friends instead of running the show.
“I just don’t like breaking up my thoughts,” he said of hosting. “I’m going to go in there and have fun with my friends … just tell some jokes and hang with the gang like I used to.”
Among this year’s hammers: Will Noonan, whom Dunn remembers showing up to the festival’s earliest years at the old Ashworth venue “in a suit … looking like a young Elvis Costello,” and who’s since become, in Dunn’s words, a true Boston headliner.
There’s also Andrew Della Volpe, Karen Morgan — fresh off a viral run on social media and a national touring schedule — Ken Rogerson, Mike Donovan, Brian Glowacki and Paul D’Angelo.
A notable thread running through this year’s bill: two father-son comedy pairs. Tony V, Dunn’s best friend and longtime collaborator — the man who helped him pick material for his Letterman audition — shares the stage with his son Gus, who started doing stand-up at Emerson College before moving to Los Angeles.
“They look alike and they sound alike, but they’re talking about completely different things,” Dunn said. “It’s really fun.” The second pairing features Ethan Printz, son of veteran comic Robbie Printz, a friend of Dunn’s for three decades.
“Robbie called and asked, ‘Hey, can you get my son on the festival?’ With a friend like that, that’s all I need,” Dunn said. New comics get one shot to prove themselves in front of an audience that, in Dunn’s words, isn’t a young comedy-club crowd — it’s real Hampton Beach tourists who “will let you know real quickly if you’re not funny.”
Festival lore runs deep for Dunn: cash Pachinko games at Playland with Tony V, Danny Miller, Gus, Dave Rattigan and Steve Bjork; a homemade ice cream sundae bar on his back deck; a banner plane he hired to fly over the beach reading “Hampton Beach Comedy Festival Tonight.”
Marketing, even now, stays defiantly old-school — hand-to-hand flyers on the sand, because half the audience is tourists who won’t see a Facebook ad. “The only way to market to the beach is to be on the beach,” he said.
Dunn is also branching out this fall in a new direction: teaching. Starting Sept. 23, he’ll lead a four-week stand-up comedy course in the Cantin Room of Concord’s BNH Stage. He’ll walk students through finding their comedic voice, writing jokes that land and performing them with confidence, capped by a mainstage graduation set Oct. 15.
It’s the first time Dunn has put together anything like it, and he says the idea had been around for a while waiting for a good moment.
“People have been asking me forever to teach a class,” he said. “It seemed like the right time and the perfect venue.”
Off stage, Dunn is also finishing a book about his comedy career, aiming for a Thanksgiving release alongside a show at Portsmouth’s Music Hall Lounge, and still looks back fondly on his two seasons on Frasier, including one surreal week trading lines with Kelsey Grammer and Bebe Neuwirth.
The combination of surgery and weather nearly ended the festival for him. Last year, lying in a hospital bed listening to pouring rain and wondering whether to cancel a night of the festival, Dunn wondered if he should carry on. Then his back healed, and his head cleared like a summer thunder buster.
“Of course I want to keep it going,” he said.
Holding the field (and the crowd)
Comedy veteran writes her own advice book
As a standup comic, Jody Sloane is adept at reading a room — it’s a means to survival. Recently she wrote a book that places that and other life skills in the context of mental well-being. It’s called Hold the Field — A Practice for Staying Present Without Disappearing.
The book grew out of her own lifelong habit of feeling responsible for defusing tense situations, even if her help was never requested, a form of social diplomacy that quickly becomes conscription. It’s a reflex, she believes, that most people recognize in themselves if they’re honest.
“Everybody who does it thinks they’re coming from a helpful place, and often they are,” she said in a recent Zoom meeting. The trap, as she describes it, is that they end up fully responsible for the problem, absorbing a job that was never theirs to begin with, often at the cost of their own presence. It’s its own kind of vanishing act.
To deal with it, Sloane created the APART™ framework: Awareness, Permission, Attunement, Restraint, and Trust. In a classic self-help format, she describes the toxic behavior and ways to address it. Real life examples, many that are deeply personal, illustrate corrective work.
It all begins with a bad tattoo.
Sloane stresses that she isn’t writing as a professional or offering a therapy substitute. Rather, she’s someone who’s “read all the books,” but didn’t find one that spoke to her. She’s there for people who “need a way to notice tension without absorbing it,” and avoid vanishing into a fog of good intentions.
She spent years in therapy herself to deal with PTSD, every modality from IFS to cognitive behavioral and EMDR. All valuable, she said, but not definitive.
“What it did was tell me why I am the way I am, and not necessarily how to be in the world with these things I was dealing with,” she said. “I didn’t really find a book like that.”
So Sloane wrote it herself, believing she wasn’t alone in knowing that compulsively trying to lower everyone’s emotional temperature was fruitless. “The most important takeaway is, you do it at the expense of yourself,” she said. “You’re not helping yourself … and that’s the opposite of what you were hoping for.”
What, then, is this … Field?
It’s not the room, but rather what happens inside it, specifically its collective energy and tension. In comedy, it gives Sloane cues for things like dealing with a heckler, owning a joke when it triggers one audience member but makes everyone else laugh — or introducing a slate of comics.
That’s something she’ll do when she returns to the Hampton Beach Comedy Festival to host its final night on Aug. 23. It’s a job she describes, only half-joking, as one she doesn’t even like.
“I hate hosting, too,” she said, echoing fellow comic Jimmy Dunn, who said the same thing in an interview to preview the festival he launched in 2010.
Her job as host is to gauge the temperature of the room and follow its flow, comedian by comedian. If a high-energy act is coming up, she’ll ramp up the crowd’s energy up to meet them. If it shifts down — for example, with a Stephen Wright type following Bobcat Goldthwait — her task then is to ride it, so the next comic lands on their own terms.
A few days prior to HBCF, Sloane will be at Beans & Greens Farm in Gilford, this time not as the person running the whole show but as part of Frank Santorelli & Friends. There she’ll perform an extended set, longer than the 20 minutes she’ll lead with at McGuirk’s Ocean View before yielding to six more comics, including closer Dunn.
Sloane’s 29-year-old daughter is woven into the act these days, a way to examine the friction between Gen X and Gen Z sensibilities. It’s a reluctant choice.
“I normally hadn’t brought her in,” she said. “I was worried she’d be sensitive about what I’d say about her, but what I say is fun and sweet. And it’s true.”
Now that Hold The Field is out — it’s on sale at Sloane’s shows, by the way — she’s exhaling, happily.
“The experience of doing it, and fulfilling it, has been huge,” she said. “There are a lot of people who are willing to support me in this endeavor, and that’s been the most heartening thing, I think — that people are like, ‘go, go, go!’ It’s been awesome.”
Night after night
The Hampton Beach Comedy Festival runs six nights at McGuirk’s Ocean View, in their outdoor Post 8 bar and restaurant. Festival creator Jimmy Dunn will do a 20-minute set to close each show, with Dave Rattigan also telling jokes nightly.
A big change from previous years is fewer comics with more stage time. Dunn wants The Hammers — his name for the veteran comics who’ve anchored the festival since it began 19 years ago — to have room to stretch out. In past years, packed lineups precluded that.
“Mike Donovan would get up there and just start murdering the crowd, and I’m like, I don’t want to give him the light, I want him to keep going,” Dunn said. “So some of the bigger names, or the more experienced comics, or my friends that I just find funnier, we’re going to let them go a little bit longer.”
All shows are scheduled to start at 7:30 p.m. (doors 5:30 p.m.) weather permitting, with rainouts announced 2 p.m. day of show. Shows are 21+ and include adult content. “No, your kids can’t come even if they’ve heard it all,” reads the festival website, hampton-beach-comedy-festival.weebly.com, where you can purchase tickets. “Send your child to Playland with a handful of quarters like a good parent.”
Tickets remain $20 per show, something Dunn is quite proud of. “Most of these comics you can’t see on their own for $20,” he said. “I’ve been working hard with my management [to] lower those ticket prices. People are feeling it, and I want them to be able to come out and have a good time.”
Tuesday, Aug. 18
Paul D’Angelo
Once an assistant district attorney and criminal-defense trial lawyer, D’Angelo is a comedy veteran with nearly four decades of standup under his belt. He’s the author of six books and appeared in the Showtime standup concert film The Godfathers of Comedy. He’s performed at venues ranging from New York’s Friars Club to the Waldorf Astoria ballroom, as well as Harrah’s and Caesars Palace.
Paul Nardizzi
A winner of both the HBO U.S. Comedy Arts Festival and the Boston Comedy Festival, Nardizzi has appeared on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Comedy Central, NESN and Fox Sports’ Best Damn Sports Show Period. He offers observational humor about his family life, sports, and more, and is touring New England through 2026 with a parenting-focused show, including a September date at Cary Hall in Lexington, Mass.
Mike Hanley
He’s opened for Jay Mohr, Tom Arnold, David Koechner and Jessica Kirson. One of his best bits is about being the father of an infant girl and accidentally brushing his teeth with Desitin and calling for emergency medical assistance. He became the funniest thing the help line encountered that evening. He’s been on the Today show and Good Morning America, and his 2014 daddy/daughter dance YouTube clip topped 24 million views.
Wednesday, Aug. 19
Mark Riley
He was once a professional ice hockey referee (with a very short stint in the NHL) who also ran a Gymboree. He headlines in Boston as well as playing in Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Atlantic City, and he’s a former first runner-up at the Boston Comedy Festival. Also a school teacher, he co-authored a movie script, Penalty Box, drawn from his hockey-reffing days, and is finishing his first book, Not Every Kid Should Get a Trophy.
Mike Donovan
A mainstay in the Boston comedy world who’s also written several books, including one on U.S. history that began as a manuscript twice as long as the Bible. “He’s not a normal guy,” comic Steven Wright once said of Donovan. “His head is not a casual head. He’s got like 18 Harvards up there.” His writing has appeared in the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald and Sports Illustrated as he continues to headline New England rooms in 2026.
Mitch Stinson
Ex-Navy jet pilot with more than 200 carrier landings during his career, he’s now a comedian. Stinson’s material frequently touches on the transition from military to civilian life. He appears at comedy clubs all over New England. He’s the winner of Rhode Island’s Funniest Stand-Up and a Boston/Rhode Island Comedy Festival performer. Still a fixture on the New England club circuit in 2026, including dates at Nick’s Comedy Stop.
Ethan Printz
16-year-old comic turning his teen years into laughs, frequently performing with his father, a multi-decade standup veteran. He frequently tours with his comedian father Robbie in their joint A Night with the Printzes shows, while building a following on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube for his insights into coping with his voice and body changing, while entertaining crowds in rooms he won’t be able to drink in until five years from now.
Robbie Printz
When he shares the stage with his son Ethan, it will be a rare gig on land for the seasoned comic, as he’s spending most of August and September telling jokes on cruise ships. He’s been a headliner aboard Princess Cruises since 2004, and in 2016 he earned the line’s Entertainer of the Year. He still splits his year between cruise ship gigs and land dates with son Ethan.
Thursday, Aug. 20
Ken Rogerson
A veteran of Rescue Me and When Standup Stood Out, the superb documentary about Boston’s comedy heyday in the 1980s. “I legitimately find him one of the funniest people on the planet,” Dunn said of Rogerson. “I would put his Zookeeper bit up there in the top five or 10 comedy bits of all time.” Other TV credits include “Pat the Cop” on It’s All Relative, plus Conan O’Brien, Letterman and Comics Come Home.
Paul Gilligan
This perennial Boston headliner likes to riff on family life and his pale Irish heritage. “On summer vacations,” goes one joke, “I hide under the deck in a ski mask with 68 sunblock, wrapped in a towel.” Gilligan is a solid draw throughout New England clubs. He’s also a licensed electrician who emcees the Boston Construction Awards, as well as a regular on NESN’s Charlie Moore Outdoors and Dirty Water TV.
Harrison Stebbins
Observational comic who created his persona following a family tragedy when his teen brother was disabled in a car accident. He’s shared the stage with Lewis Black, Mitch Hedberg and Bill Burr, and is a winner of the Sam Adams Best of Boston Comedy Festival. Other credits for the New England funny man include Comedy Central and Comcast Comedy Spotlight.
Friday, Aug. 21
Brian Glowacki
He’s headlined Boston’s Wilbur and the Cape Cod Melody Tent. Glowacki has a secret weapon: a face that telegraphs mischief. When he pauses with a sly smirk during a joke setup, it’s like watching a Mento dropped into a bottle of Coke; audience laughter builds, then explodes. A few years ago, he was the first independent local comic to headline Boston’s Wilbur Theatre.
Andrew Della Volpe
A Boston Comedy Festival finalist and a regular all over New England for the past six years, Volpe has appeared at Boston’s Comedy Attic as well as Manchester’s Shaskeen and Rex Theatre. From 2021 to 2023, he co-hosted a podcast, The Soft Boys, with HBCF favorite Will Noonan. Recently named a Boston Globe “Comedian on the Rise.” Now newly married, with 2026 dates at the Spire Center and Music Hall Lounge.
Kristy Kielbasinski
Boston-based stand-up comedian and author, drawing inspiration from her life as a stay-at-home mom and housewife. Her children’s book, I Don’t Know, combines her comedic sensibilities with a love of reading. Won the 2025 Mohegan Sun Comix Contest (Feature Division) and has opened for Bobcat Goldthwait, Matt Rife and Natasha Leggero. Continues touring New England clubs through 2026.
Jeff Koen
He regularly supports Juston McKinney at his shows, and performs throughout New England. Koen’s self-deprecating humor lands well with audiences, and some may remember him from his role as Uncle Rick in the 2011 cult film Heavy Times. Won $10,000 on America’s Funniest Home Videos in 2015 and co-starred with Juston McKinney in the short film “Suck It Up.” Still a frequent support act for McKinney’s shows.
Saturday, Aug. 22
P.J. Thibodeau
Comedian, basketball coach, sports official and New England comedy circuit veteran known for blue-collar charm, easy stage presence, and observational storytelling frequently drawn from family life, aging and athletics. He’s now among the Northeast’s upper-tier headliners, having grown from the college circuit into opening for major national acts and headlining clubs throughout the region in 2026.
Karen Morgan
Former trial attorney who got her start as a finalist on Nickelodeon’s Search for the Funniest Mom in America. “Fortunately she’s a dear friend who’s right up the street; otherwise I wouldn’t be able to get her at something like this,” Dunn said. In 2024, her third album, Shiny Happy People Laughing, arrived. Her two Dry Bar Comedy specials, Go Dawgs! and Rub Some Dirt On It, have millions of online views, with her third due soon.
Dan Miller
According to his bio, Boston native Miller was “born a comedian but made it official in 1992.” He’s shared stages with local and national headliners including Lenny Clarke, Dane Cook and Dave Attel. Dunn calls catching up with Miller one of his favorite things about the HBCF. He remains a regular headliner at Nick’s Comedy Stop and Giggles Comedy Club at Prince Pizzeria.
Sunday, Aug. 23
Tony V.
A Boston comedy legend and Dunn’s best friend. “Tony V. and I will probably be walking through the gates of Hell together at some point,” Dunn said. Voted “The Funniest Man in Massachusetts” by Showtime back in 1986, he’s a national headliner who’s been on late night television and shared stages with everyone from Steven Wright to Adam Sandler.
Jody Sloane
Doing a sit-down shtick as a cheeky “conducktor” named Penny Wise on more than 4,000 Boston Duck Tours was the perfect tee-up to becoming a stand-up comic for Sloane, who now tours regularly from New York to Maine. Sloane also authored Hold The Field, a self-help book. “It was something I needed that no one else wrote,” she said. She’s been invited back to host and perform at HBCF multiple times.
Will Noonan
Noonan self-released his Live in Boston special on YouTube rather than waiting on a streaming deal, part of a wave of Boston comics producing their own specials. He made an impression on the festival organizer at his initial HBCF appearance, and now he’s a regular. “The first time Will came up, he was wearing a suit,” Dunn recalled. “I was like, ‘Oh, I like this kid’s style already.’”
Carolyn Plummer
She appeared at Denis Leary’s annual Comics Come Home benefit in 2022, along with the far-flung Burbank Comedy Festival on the West Coast. A New Hampshire native — she grew in Wolfeboro, a minister’s daughter — Plummer got into comedy after responding to an ad. Now 25 years into her comedy career, Plummer’s also a Woody Herman Jazz Award-winning trumpet player.
Gus V.
Comedian, writer, playwright and a graduate of Emerson College in Boston, he’s now based in Los Angeles. Gus has worked on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Cobra Kai, and When Stand Up Stood Up. In addition to his writing credits, he runs a monthly show in L.A. called Bughouse with Ben Zieper at the Yard Theater. His appearance with dad Tony V. is one of two father-son HBCF combos.
Upcoming comedy shows
Averill House Vineyard 21 Averill Road, Brookline, mikedupcomedy.com
Saturday, Aug. 15 – Carolyn Plummer
Beans & Greens Farm (Notch Biergarten) 245 Intervale Road, Gilford, strideevents.com
Thursday, Aug. 13 – Lenny Clarke
Saturday, Aug. 15 – Frank Santorelli & Friends w/ Jody Sloane
BNH Stage 16 S. Main St., Concord, ccanh.com
Friday, Aug. 28 – NightOUT with Bunny Butchers Broadway
Saturday, Aug. 29 – Dulcé Sloan
Wednesday, Sept. 23 – Jimmy Dunn Comedy 101
Capitol Center for the Arts – Chubb Theatre 44 S. Main St., Concord, ccanh.com
Saturday, Aug. 22 – GenX Takeover Comedy Tour
Thursday, Sept. 3 – Jerry Seinfeld
Friday, Sept. 11 – Maria Bamford
Saturday, Sept. 26 – Jessica Kirson
Chunky’s 707 Huse Road, Manchester, chunkys.com
Friday, Sept. 11 – Tom Cotter
Colonial Theatre 609 Main St., Laconia, etix.com
Saturday, Aug. 15 – Juston McKinney
Earth Eagle Tavern 350 Route 108, Somersworth, eventbrite.com
Saturday, Aug. 22 – Anders J Nielsen, Katy Coughlin, Zach Valencia
Friday, Sept. 11 – Emily Ruskowski
The Flying Monkey 39 Main St., Plymouth, etix.com
Friday, Aug. 14 – Peter Antoniou
Saturday, Sept. 19 – Bob Marley
Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom 169 Ocean Blvd., Hampton Beach, ticketmaster.com
Sunday, Sept. 27 – Terry Fator
Friday, Oct. 16 – Kathleen Madigan
Headliners Comedy Club 700 Elm St., Manchester, ovationtix.com
Saturday, Sept. 19 – Tim McKeever
Saturday, Sept. 26 – Rob Steen
Saturday, Oct. 3 – Jody Sloane
Saturday, Oct. 10 – Steve Bjork
Saturday, Oct. 17 – James Dorsey
McCue’s Comedy Club 580 Portsmouth Traffic Circle, Portsmouth, eventbrite.com
Saturday, Aug. 15 – Rodney Norman
Moka Pot 8 Hanover St., Manchester, eventbrite.com
Friday, Aug. 21 – Robby Slowik
Saturday, Sept. 19 – Sarah Tollemache, hosted by Ethan Cannon and featuring Dan Doherty
Saturday, Sept. 26 – Josh Day & Friends
The Music Hall Lounge 131 Congress St., Portsmouth, themusichall.org
Sunday, Aug. 30 – Dulcé Sloan
Saturday, Oct. 3 – Heather Shaw
Nashua Center for the Arts 201 Main St., Nashua, nashuacenterforthearts.com
Thursday, Sept. 24 – Natalie Cuomo
Monday, Oct. 5 – Nurse Blake
Newmarket Millspace 55 Main St., Newmarket, portsmouthnhtickets.com
Friday, Aug. 21 – Lamprey River Comedy Competition
Palace Theatre 80 Hanover St., Manchester, palacetheatre.org
Thursday, Oct. 1 – Colin Mochrie & Brad Sherwood
Friday, Oct. 9 – Juston McKinney
Players’ Ring 15 Marcy St., Portsmouth, portsmouthnhtickets.com
Friday, Aug. 14 – Stranger Than Fiction Improv
Queen City Center 215 Canal St., Manchester, wickedjoyful.com
Saturday, Sept. 19 – Jay Chanoine, Matt Barry, Brienna Woodward (comic-con event)
Rex Theatre 23 Amherst St., Manchester, palacetheatre.org
Friday, Sept. 18 – David Nihill
Saturday, Oct. 3 – Frank Santos, Jr.
Rockingham Ballroom 22 Ash Swamp Road, Newmarket, portsmouthnhtickets.com
Saturday, Sept. 5 – Jim Colliton
Sunstone Brewing Co. 298 Rockingham Road, Londonderry, eventbrite.com
Saturday, Aug. 22 – Amy Tee, Matt Barry, Alex Giampapa
Tupelo Music Hall 10 A St., Derry, tickets.tupelohall.com
Friday, Aug. 14 – Orlando Baxter, Kristy Kielbasinski and Ethan Printz
Saturday, Sept. 12 – Pete Correale
Zorvino Vineyards 226 Main St., Sandown, eventbrite.com
Thursday, Aug. 13 – Steve Bjork & Friends, Tim McKeever and Pat Napoli
Featured photo: Jody Sloan. Courtesy photo.