Preserve, Educate, Celebrate

Comedy Hall of Fame

Comedy has had a breathtaking impact on American culture.

The founding principle and primary mission of the Comedy Hall of Fame is to aggregate and elevate comedy to its proper place among the literate arts. This is of particular importance due to the lack of institutions to adequately understand, appreciate and preserve comedy’s rich history and artistry, as well as the important role it plays in understanding both our lives and the culture.

We believe that this mission can be accomplished as we forge a place for comedy in this nation’s artistic and educational institutions: public schools, colleges, museums and performing arts centers. Through these institutions, the art of comedy will be preserved and taught to ensure its development, as has been the case with the other performance arts: music, theater, film, dance, etc.

Current Programming

The New York City club stages are to comedy what the Broadway stages are to theater.

The Comedy Hall of Fame is proud to present Live from the New York Comedy Stage, a new special airing on PBS THIRTEEN and currently available for streaming on their website.

Through this innovative, branded program, the Comedy Hall of Fame has reached a new horizon in the development of stand-up as a performance art. Providing a front-row seat and backstage pass, Live from the New York Comedy Stage completely immerses the viewer within the New York comedy scene.

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Preserve

The Comedy Hall of Fame preserves the rich history of comedy through the Comedy Hall of Fame Archives, a group of individual biographies that form an oral history of comedy over the last 100 years. The Archives serve as a platform for comedians, as artists, to define the art of comedy in their own words.

Educate

A not-for-profit organization, the Comedy Hall of Fame Foundation is the charitable arm of the Comedy Hall of Fame, responsible for the Laugh it Out Improv program. The program introduced comedy to the New York City public school system, the largest public school system in the country, for the first time. Laugh it Out teaches comedy through improv, allowing students to further develop advocacy and listening skills and forging an important new avenue for both communication and self-confidence.      

Celebrate

The Comedy Hall of Fame and The Comedy Hall of Fame Foundation celebrate comedy through an ongoing partnership with the Museum of the Moving Image and comedic documentary programming for public television.