Improv Presents Comedy All-stars Featuring Dom Irrera, Jake Johannsen and Tammy Pescatelli” will ignite the night with raucous laughter* on Sunday, December 29, 2013 at 8 p.m. in the Ballroom at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. Tickets go on sale Friday, November 22 at 10 a.m.
Nominated, six times for an American Comedy Award, Dom Irrera’s stand-up material was honed in a multi-generational Italian household in South Philadelphia. His first big break was his performance on Rodney Dangerfield’s Nothing Goes Right comedy specials for HBO. In 1989 Irrera’s own HBO One Night Stand earned him his first CableACE award for Best Stand-Up Comedy Special. In 1995, he won a second CableACE for the Showtime stand-up series he hosted, Full Frontal Comedy. That same year he received a second CableACE nomination in the writing category for his work on Comedy Central’s animated series, Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist. He has also starred in a solo stand-up special for HBO in ’92 titled Command Performance and, more recently, was part of the 2010 Emmy-winning cast of Nickelodeon’s Back to the Barnyard. A talk show regular, Irrera has performed on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Late Show with David Letterman, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and more. Recent credits include the Joy Behar show on HLN, hosting Half Time on the NFL network and starring in his own series for Direct TV (now in its 3rd season), The Supreme Court of Comedy. An avid sports fan, he hosted four seasons of Comedy Central’s irreverent Offsides, interviewing football greats. He also hosted Comedy Central’s Behind the Scenes at the American Comedy Awards specials in in the late ‘90s. Irrera was a series regular on the Fox comedy Damon starring Damon Wayans and his guest-star credits include Seinfeld, Becker, Everybody Loves Raymond, and King of Queens. His film work includes Robert Townsend’s Hollywood Shuffle, a cameo in the Coen Bros. The Big Lebowski, The Fourth Tenor and The Godson. He is veteran global comedy festival performer including appearances at the “Just for Laughs Festival,” “The Cats Laugh Festival,” “Melbourne Comedy Festival” and “Edinburgh Festival’s” Assembly Hall. It was there that he received the “Herald Award” for artistic excellence. In 2010, Dom continued his quest for international DOM-ination with a 10-day run at the Sydney Comedy Festival and his first ever one-man show, Plugged, Unplugged then Plugged Again played to sold out audiences in Montreal.
Jake Johannsen’s bizarre take on life and his uniquely intelligent style have made him a regular at comedy clubs all over the country. A former host of Comedy Central’s Two Drink Minimum, the Iowa native made his comedy debut at San Francisco’s Cobbs Comedy Club in 1982. Four years later, in 1986, he won the 11th Annual San Francisco Stand-Up Comedian Competition. A self-confessed raconteur of weird stories, it’s no wonder Johannsen is one of David Letterman’s favorite comics. With over thirty five Letterman appearances under his belt (not to mention a handful of Late Night with Conan O’Brien, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and Politically Incorrect gigs) Johannsen is no stranger to late night television. His HBO comedy special, This’ll Take About An Hour received incredible reviews, strong ratings, and a Cable Ace Award nomination for Best Writing in an Entertainment Special. People Magazine rated the special as one of the “ten best television shows of the year,” and TV Guide named it one of the “50 Funniest Moments of TV.” Making his mark on the silver screen, Johannsen appeared with Bruce Willis in the Alan Rudolph film Breakfast of Champions. He also worked with Rudolph on Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, co-starring with a cast that included Matthew Broderick, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Campbell Scott. His latest Comedy Special entitled “I Love You” is currently airing on Showtime.
Comedienne Tammy Pescatelli is the kind of woman you wish was your sister or your best friend – she‘s always ready with a good joke or lively quip. She learned her “funny skills” growing up in a large, crazy, Italian family outside of Cleveland. She went on to marry into an even larger, crazier, Italian family. Being one of the final five on NBC‘s Last Comic Standing 2 solidified Pescatelli’s position as one of the sharpest women in the comedy world. A Comedy Central‘s 2010 Stand-Up Showdown winner, she has appeared twice as a guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, on BRAVO TV’s Rocco’s Dinner Party, CBS’s The Talk, Nickelodeon’s NICK Mom’s Night Out, and more. Tammy also appeared in her own half-hour special for Comedy Central, Comedy Central Presents: Tammy Pescatelli. She has made numerous appearances on the CBC’s hit show, The Debaters, as well as the Jerry Lewis Telethon. She has performed on The Bonnie Hunt Show, TBS‘s Evening at the Laugh Factory, Last Call with Carson Daly, and has been a guest on the syndicated show Comics Unleashed was chosen for their Best of the Best worldwide top-selling DVD. Tammy has also made more than 100+appearances on VH1, CMT, MTV, E!, A&E, REELS, TVGuide and many more. She was also featured weekly as part of US Weekly’s “Fashion Police.” Giving poker pros a run for their money, Pescatelli participated in the GSN poker series Poker Royale: Comedians vs. Pros, finishing in second place. A regular on USO Comedy tours, Pescatelli has entertained our troops all over the world. In films, she’s co-starred in the sleeper hit Everybody Wants to Be Italian and appeared in Single and in the award-winning indie film Made in Brooklyn. On her previous album, It Is What It Is, she tackles family, religion and politics Pescatelli’s recent reality series, A Stand Up Mother (which she co-created, executive-produced, wrote and starred in) on WEtv, documented her life as she balanced her family and her growing career. Her most recent DVD is Finding the Funny, an exclusive Netflix release.
Tickets cost $37;* all seats are general admission and available at all Ticketmaster outlets online at www.myhrl.com, www.ticketmaster.com or charge by phone: 1-800-745-3000. Doors open one-hour prior to show start time. *Additional fees may apply.