AF COMEDY FEST to Mark 10th Anniversary in LA
Aparna Nancherla, Asif Ali, Raymond Lee, Amy Hill and Zac Oyama join the Highland Park lineup.
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Asian AF, the acclaimed Asian American comedy variety show and comedy community founded in Los Angeles in 2016, will celebrate its 10th anniversary with the AF Comedy Festival, a four-day celebration bringing together more than 200 AAPI comedians and performers from across the country Thursday, September 3 through Sunday, September 6, 2026, at Outside In Theatre in Los Angeles' Highland Park neighborhood.
The festival marks a decade of Asian AF championing Asian American and Pacific Islander voices in comedy and brings together performers from Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Austin, San Francisco, Baltimore, Hawaiʻi and beyond for an expansive weekend of stand-up, improv, sketch, character comedy, musical comedy, variety shows, workshops, live role-playing and special events.
Special guests and featured performers scheduled throughout the festival include Margaret Cho, Joel Kim Booster, Aparna Nancherla, Asif Ali, Raymond Lee, Amy Hill, Tim Chantarangsu, Dylan Adler and Zac Oyama, alongside an extensive roster of established performers, longtime Asian AF collaborators and emerging comedic talent from around the country.
Founded in Los Angeles in 2016, Asian AF grew from a desire to create a stage where Asian American comedians could perform without being limited to a single token role or point of view. Over the past decade, the show has developed into a wide-ranging comedy community spanning Los Angeles, New York and beyond, showcasing established performers alongside the next generation of AAPI comedic voices.
Festival programming includes special editions of Asian AF Los Angeles featuring Margaret Cho on September 4 and Aparna Nancherla on September 5; Asian AF New York; reunion performances from South Asian AF; Filipino AF; Gaysian AF; Hawaiʻi AF; and Voltron and Friends, Asian AF's resident improv show.
Dragons AF, Asian AF's comedy tabletop role-playing series, will stage a live Dungeons & Dragons adventure with special guest Zac Oyama from Dropout's Dimension 20. A special AF Comedy Fest Rap Battle Show, presented by Asian AF and Dopetown 3000, will bring together Tim Chantarangsu and other comedians for an improvised freestyle roast battle. An All-Star Musical Comedy Show will feature Dylan Adler, The BackyardAsians, Josh Fleury, Fourspice+, Sam Oh and Joy Regullano.
Stand-up programming includes showcases featuring Joel Kim Booster, Helen Hong, Leslie Liao, Robin Tran, Fumi Abe, Sierra Katow, Andrew Orolfo, Alex Song-Xia, Irene Tu, Jenny Yang, Kevin Camia, Brent Weinbach, Peter S. Kim, Tien Tran and many more.
The festival's national scope will also bring together comedy groups and performers representing AAPI communities around the country, including Baltimore's A++, Chicago's long-running Stir Friday Night, Austin's Y'all We Asian, New York's Shoes Off and Joy F*ck Club, Fresno's Hmong American sketch show Hib Hib, LA's Cold Tofu, the nation's first and longest running Asian American improv and comedy troupe, and numerous Los Angeles-based teams and performers.
Programming reflects the breadth of AAPI identity itself. The festival includes Facial Recognition Comedy, featuring female-identifying comedians of Middle Eastern, North African and South Asian descent; the LGBTQ+ Asian American showcase Gaysian AF; Filipino, South Asian and Hawaiʻi-centered programming; and improv performed entirely in Mandarin by Tian Mi Mi, among many other shows.
In addition to performances, AF Comedy Festival will offer workshops for comedians, actors, writers and filmmakers led by working artists including Sarah Claspell, Lilan Bowden, Woody Fu, Ryan Chittaphong, Shilpa Das, Joy Regullano, Donald Chang and Jonathan Lee-Rey. Topics range from improv and acting technique to career development, comedy songwriting and writing and producing short films.
The festival concludes Sunday evening with Voltron and Friends: End of Festival Headliner Improv Show, bringing performers from Asian AF Los Angeles, Asian AF New York, Dragons AF, Hawaiʻi AF, Filipino AF, Gaysian AF and South Asian AF together for a final all-star performance.
Asian AF began in Los Angeles in 2016 following Scarlett Johansson Presents, an Asian American improv show created at Upright Citizens Brigade amid national conversations about whitewashing and Asian American representation in Hollywood.
Asian AF went on to create and inspire an interconnected family of shows spotlighting different communities and forms of comedy, while establishing a model in which AAPI performers could take the stage not as a monolith, but as comedians with radically different backgrounds, styles, identities and perspectives.
Ten years later, the AF Comedy Festival brings many of those artists, teams and communities together in Los Angeles for the largest celebration yet of the world that has grown around Asian AF.
The AF Comedy Festival will take place at Outside In Theatre, a nonprofit theatre and arts space in Los Angeles' historic Highland Park neighborhood dedicated to equitable and transformative storytelling. Festival performances and programming will take place across Outside In Theatre's spaces, including the ArtSpace, ArtBox and additional workshop spaces, with The Lobby serving as a gathering space for artists and audiences throughout the weekend.
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