Look, we can’t promise that the rest of the year will be any better than the past couple of months. But we can promise that plenty of original, funny comics in the Twin Cities would like to help us through whatever comes next.
This year’s list of local comics to watch might be the most unique yet, which says a lot about just how deep the talent pool in Minnesota is.
Lucy Beers Shenk
Onstage, Lucy Beers Shenk is bluntly personal but not abrasive, proving you can balance difficult topics with an approachable silliness.
“I like to talk about my real life. I talk about my grandfather committing suicide. It’s important for me to talk about that stuff,” she says. “Someone came up to me after a show this year and said that they had a death in the family that week, and that I made them laugh … I’m here to make people forget about their own lives for a little bit.”
She also has some shit to say about AI.
“My little brother just told me about the dead internet theory, which is the idea that the internet will basically become dead because of AI and misinformation, and nothing on the internet will be trustworthy,” she explains. “It’s so insane because the internet affects our jobs as comedians.” Still, she’s not too worried. “What we’re doing is so human and it’s about connecting with people in the moment.”
The New York native started exploring the Minnesota comedy scene IRL when she moved to Minnesota for college. Over the past four years, she has dedicated herself to connecting with local audiences.
“I remember feeling so excited to meet other comics when I first started out,” she says. “Just finding these people who loved comedy and standup as much as I did, and wanting to be friends with those people. They made me want to keep getting better.”
And she has! A regular at Comedy Corner Underground in Minneapolis (the old one and the new one) and Laugh Camp in St. Paul, Beers Shenk also recently started a weekly Saturday-night showcase at Sisyphus Brewing with fellow comic (and 2025 Comic to Watch) Lily Meyer. This year, she says she plans to find more ways to engage with her audience while staying true to her cynical, Jewish, New York upbringing.
“My family has a very dark sense of humor,” she says. “My dad is always calling and pitching Hitler jokes to me.”
IG: @lucybs
Luis Uz
Luis Uz refuses to make any comedy career goals. And not because he’s afraid, or uncertain about his future. He’s just focused on enjoying the process.
“The moment you place goals like, ‘I need to be here at this time,’ you set yourself up for disappointment,” Uz says in his quiet, thoughtful tone. “That doesn’t serve me in any way. I just want to have fun and worry about making people laugh.”
Just two years in, Uz has already achieved more than many comics who have been grinding for decades.
This past year he appeared in a regional Super Bowl commercial alongside comedians Sam Tallent and Tommy Pope, made the final of Acme Comedy’s Funniest Person Contest, and got selected for festivals in Nebraska and Montana.
“I’m just taking it day by day and taking whatever comes that day,” he says.
The reason for his gangbusters year of comedy is simple: He’s insanely funny and original, reflecting on his upbringing as an immigrant in small-town Minnesota with self-deprecating observations and surprisingly educational bits about Guatemalan-specific racism. It’s a perspective that no one else on the scene can replicate.
“I’ve learned how to put more of myself into those jokes,” he says. “Like OK, I’m a minority from a small town. But I want to put more of myself into it and add my personal touches to these jokes.”
Uz is also one of the most active comics on the scene, getting onstage—by his estimation—approximately 10 to 12 times each week.
“I’m finally starting to accept the truth of myself: People find me funny,” he says.
IG: @realluisuz
Derrick Johnson
“Everything I consume is stupid,” says Derrick Johnson. “I talk about stupid stuff because of it. I guess my goal for the next year should be to try and be relatable for once instead of being like, ‘Aye! Y’all seen that fucked up guy on the internet who microwaves diapers?’”
While we will be furiously searching for that video, Johnson’s friends weren’t enthusiastic when he first told them he planned to get into standup.
“I had always done sketch comedy, just filming shit when I was at home,” he says. “I figured that if I wanted to be funny I had to do sketches, so I told my friends I wanted to do them live. They were like, ‘Fuck no. I don’t want to act like this in front of people.’”
His girlfriend at the time was equally unsupportive—though not entirely wrong in her assessment.
“The girl I was dating was like, ‘I don’t want you to do standup because you’ll embarrass me. You’ll say something fucked up and everyone will hate you,’” he says. “And that’s exactly what I did.”
Johnson admits that his early material was “the most shocking, edgelord shit I could think of, which was not funny at all.” So he quit, restarted, quit, and restarted once again, and over the past four years he has grown into one of the most disarmingly charming comedians in the Twin Cities.
“If I’m telling a joke, and someone gets what I’m trying to say, it’s a really cool feeling,” he says. “It’s just a really nice, symbiotic relationship with the audience.”
His comedy still has an edge. “So I’ve been sober right now from alcohol for almost two years, but I just started smoking weed again,” one joke begins. “I forgot how much I missed being scared; paying my hard-earned money to get worried about things I said in high school.” But his observations are clever and confident in a way that can make the audience double-back and laugh at a joke from more than one angle.
Johnson is already attracting attention from his comedy peers, who also happen to be some of his heroes.
“Timmy Williams from Whitest Kids U’Know did my show at Elm Creek Brewery in February,” he says excitedly. “Landing him was huge for me, because I was obsessed with Whitest Kids growing up. So to have someone who I looked up now be my contemporary was like a really poignant moment where I was like, ‘Wow. I’m really pursuing comedy. Holy shit.’”
Johnson says he’s becoming more comfortable with himself onstage, and trying to give himself that same level of respect.
“I’ve always dumbed myself down and been a little more monotone, and that’s melting away,” he says. “I’m talking more like myself, feeling more in control. I know I’m funny and don’t want to do the thing where I’m coyly shitting on myself to be humble. I can be humble, but I also know I’m a damn good comedian.”
IG: @stolenvhs
Sofia Bisbocci
Lots of people claim to have a dark sense of humor. Sofia Bisbocci has earned that rep.
“I’m way more scared of getting an STD than getting pregnant. You can’t shake an STD to death,” she said during a set last year.
When Bisbocci first started getting up on stage in 2022, her approach was to spray the audience with jokes and see what happens.
“I just had a mental throw-up,” she laughs. “I brought up everything I had ever put in my mental piggybank, and it was a lot of garbledy junk. I was new and needed to get a lot of things out of my brain.”
Eventually she tamed the vomit, and actually found herself trying to tone down her comedy to be less, well, unsettling. It didn’t stick.
“[Twin Cities comic] David Harris said to me one time, ‘Where’s the funny?’ and that really connected for me because it made me realize that I can stay true to myself and say what I want, as long as I can still find a way to make it funny,” she says. “Like, I can stop abandoning myself in terms of the material I write to appease other people.”
That no-fucks-given outlook paid off for Bisbocci this past year, as she’s steadily made the move from a delightfully off-putting MC to a full-blown brooding headliner, taking her talents on the road to Chicago, New York, and yes, even western Wisconsin’s Chippewa Valley.
“As they say, I gotta lock in,” she says of her 2026 plans. “I want to dream big. Sharpen my writing. I don’t want people to give me headlining spots wherever. I want it to be like I’ve earned it, people around me know I’ve earned it, when I’m in that position everyone has a good show.”
IG: @sofiabisbocci
Ira Ford
“I like to exude fun,” Ira Ford says. “When people think of me? I want them to think of fun. For me, it’s all about the yuk yuks.”
Ford is now nearly 15 years into his comedy career, but 2025 was truly a breakout year for the man who has redefined the phrase “Bustin’ makes me feel good.”
“I had a plan [last] year to get my name out there more than ever,” he says. “I wanted to do more headlining gigs and I’ve done more than I ever had before. I wanted to release a special and have it do well, and I’ve had more than 5,400 people watch it. I didn’t know that 5,400 people knew who I was.”
The special in question, Rantings of a Sane Man, was recorded during one of his many headlining gigs at St. Cloud’s Beaver Island Brewing Co. The culmination of years of work, it’s a perfect blend of real-world observations and weird things that cross his mind. (“A handjob from a deaf person is technically a blowjob,” he quips.)
“I’ve never been into politics or anything like that, and I’m like, super introverted,” he says. “So my only choice is to talk about things that are going on that I think are funny.”
Aside from being a feature comic at Acme Comedy Co., Ford is probably best known as the mastermind behind some of the most creative shows in Minnesota. That includes The Bong Show, a monthly comedy game show at Hook and Ladder, and Minnesota Nice, a backhanded compliment battle he hosts at Sisyphus.
“When I started comedy, I just wanted a job where nobody could tell me what to do,” he laughs. “But the reason I got into it and have stayed with it is to make people laugh. Like I said, all about the yuks.”
IG: @iragram1981
