Opening Night - Kick Off Comedy Event

About this event

The Catskills Comedy Festival runs from October 16-18, 2026. Check out tccfest.org for all the shows.

Join us for the 3rd annual Catskills Comedy Festival Opening Night Kick-Off comedy event. Ophira Eisenberg hosts Jocelyn Chia,  and Raanan Hershberg on the MainStage of the Community Theatre.

AGES 17+

Ophira Eisenberg is a Standup Comedian, Writer, and Podcast Host (NPR, CBS, CNN, The Moth, HBO, Comedy Central, iHeart) who headlines theaters and comedy venues across the world, tours regularly with the Moth Mainstage, and hosts the weekly parenting-comedy podcast Parenting is a Joke (Webby Finalist for Best Host). Her new comedy special, I Used to Be Nicer, produced by Lewis Black/Stark Raving Black Productions, is available now. She also hosted NPR’s Ask Me Another for 9 years. Her breakout memoir Screw Everyone: Sleeping My Way to Monogamy (Seal Press) has been optioned for a television series, and her solo show Leaving A Mark: A Comedy About Scars won Women in the Arts & Media Award for Solo Show Scripts and just finished a successful European tour. She recently returned from the Just For Laughs festival where she performed her 3rd gala for CBC/Global Television.

Jocelyn Chia is a Georgetown Law graduate and former M&A attorney. She eventually ditched corporate America to tell jokes to strangers. She is now a regular at the New York City comedy clubs including the legendary Comedy Cellar and Gotham Comedy Club, and is an international touring headliner. She has been featured in Vulture, South China Morning Post, CNN, BBC, The New York Times, and The Independent UK. She has been on The Howard Stern Channel of SiriusXM, MTV, AXS TV’s Gotham Comedy Live, Fox News Saturday Night, Gutfeld! on Fox News, ABC, Vice TV, Discovery+, and Comedy Central.

Raanan Hershberg is one of comedy's most explosive voices, high-energy, joke-dense, and relentlessly funny. He's performed on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, The Late Late Show with James Corden, and Comedy Central. His special Jokes from the Underground was named one of The New York Times "Best Comedy of 2022," with critic Jason Zinoman calling it "the funniest YouTube special of the year". Raanan has since released Brave, filmed at The Comedy Cellar, and It Could Have Been Better, now streaming on Amazon. On stage, his solo show Off the Grid premiered at the New York International Fringe Festival, where Hy Bender of Best New York Comedy declared it "one of the best one-man shows you are likely to see anywhere.”