These are Time Out New York’s comedians to watch for 2025

Kenice Mobley’s comedy career began because she dated a self-proclaimed comedian. “After we’d been dating for months, he let me go to one of his shows. It turns out it was an open mic,” says Mobley. “And he was so bad, we actually broke up a couple of days later.” As awkward as that experience was, it served as an epiphany—Mobley realized that people could be bad at comedy, so she decided she might as well give it a shot. 

Mobley began her comedy career in L.A. before she moved to Boston and eventually found her way in New York. One of her favorite spots to perform in the city includes Friends and Lovers in Crown Heights, a bar with a small stage that hosts musical acts and local comedians. “It is always a good time and you can chat with the comedians after and you get more specific vibes,” she says. “I’ve had an experimental Black comedy show there where it’s only Black comedians doing weird stuff and I love that.” She’s also a fan of New York Comedy Club and the Bell House in Gowanus. 

Mobley’s career as a funny person has led her to perform at the Netflix is a Joke Festival. She’s also opened for Amanda Seales and was on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Perhaps her most standout work so far is her acclaimed comedy album Follow Up Question, which she recorded in 2022 and includes episodes with names like “Is 31 too old?” and “Mom, I’m so Sorry.” The album literally centers follow-up questions she’s had throughout her life, a unique concept when you think of how follow-ups are usually thought of as tangential to a central point. Like most top-tier comedians, Mobley is a master storyteller. These days, you can find her at Union Hall (where she recorded her album), a spot that’s near her heart for its ability to bring together seasoned comedians alongside up-and-coming ones. “You can see a lot of the folks that you would see at the Comedy Cellar and a lot of the clubs downtown at a fraction of the price,” she notes.

The funniest thing about her life right now:

"I’m on this kick of self improvement, I’m calling it the day of 100%. Everyday I try to do as much as possible but now I’m also sleepy all the time."

The one joke that always lands:

"I just got back from traveling where I saw tons of dudes flying back from having hair transplant surgery. Women can go to the DR and we can get fake tits and butts and come back to find a husband. Men go to Turkey, get hair transplants and they come back just to find out that wasn’t the problem."

Kenice Mobley plays several shows a month; check out her schedule here.

JC Mendoza’s comedy journey started on Snapchat stories, where he used to make funny videos for kicks. In fact, his Snapchats were so funny that he managed to lock down an audition for an MTV show called Joking Off. He got to the last round, “and then I got exposed for not knowing what I was doing,” Mendoza tells Time Out. His comedy journey didn’t end there though: Thanks to that audition, he got noticed by comedian and DJ Chipha Sounds, who brought Mendoza on to write with him. Mendoza did his first standup show in 2015, and hasn’t stopped since. In recent years, the New York born-and-raised comedian has kept himself busy, most notably with his hilarious podcast Soft Launch, which he does with his girlfriend and fellow comic Samantha Santos.

“I didn’t watch too many comedy shows before I started doing standup,” Mendoza admits. Now that he’s part of the community, though, that’s changed: He loves going to New York Comedy Club for the calibre of the people they bring on, who are some of the funniest people in the business. He also appreciates performing at Barbershop, a LES venue that’s a functional barbershop—”it’s a small venue and it’s quirky, and it’s not a place where you would expect a comedy show.” He’s also a fan of Greenwich Village Comedy Club, which Mendoza describes as “a dark dusty basement where it feels like nasty jokes are supposed to happen.” As we speak, I’m noticing a trend: Mendoza likes spaces that bring something unexpected. He shouts out Comedy Underground Overground, an independent show that pops up in quirky venues throughout the city. They’ve done shows at Katz’s Deli and Peter Leuger Steak House, for example. “Anytime they hit me up I know they’re going to take me to a super fun venue I’ve never performed at and the crowd is going to be super excited.”

The funniest thing about his life right now?

"We just moved into my grandma’s apartment, she passed away at 94 years old in August. The funny thing to me is that we sleep in the same bed that she passed away on because it’s so comfortable."

The one joke that always lands:

"Me and my girlfriend use Task Rabbit a lot for work that needs to be done for our apartment. It’s a very expensive service and my girlfriend gets upset and says JC you understand if you were more handy, we could save a lot of money on Task Rabbits. But I just tell her I can’t because I am a sassy Puerto Rican."

JC Mendoza is the host of “Uncomfortable Questions” and @softlaunchpodcast. You can follow along on where he's performing at thestandnyc.com and Instagram.

Jamie Wolf is a comedian who tours around the country, and has amassed an Instagram following of 125K, but when it comes to his future in the comedy world, it’s safe to say he’s not idealistic. 

“I'm more realistic now than when I started,” Wolf tells Time Out New York. “Almost everyone who even gets to where I am doesn't become a comedian for their career. Nearly everyone.” 

Even so, the 28-year-old has already passed, meaning he was accepted and allowed to perform after an audition, at New York City’s iconic Comedy Cellar, which is a milestone many comedians only dream about. For Wolf, the opportunity to audition came to him at a time when he was considering giving up on the career path for good. 

“I was about to move out of New York to Philly a year ago because nothing was going on and I was gonna have to quit and get a day job,” Wolf says. “And my friend was like you should just, ask to get in the Cellar—comedians recommend you get in there—and I asked people, and they recommended me.” 

It has now been one year since that five-minute-long audition, and Wolf says it’s still one of his favorite memories at the club. “Like five hours after finding out I was auditioning, I was getting spots at the club,” he says.

“It went better than I could have possibly imagined it,” Wolf added. “I was so lucky with the crowd—they were such a good crowd and they just happened to connect with me a lot—I've done so many shows at the Cellar, and that still is one of my best sets there.” 

Wolf considers his almost-nightly shows at the Comedy Cellar to be the reason why he was able to afford to stay in New York City. Originally from Philadelphia, Wolf initially attended college at U.C. Santa Barbara before transferring to NYU when he realized that he wanted to pursue stand up comedy.

As he’s continued to hone his comedic voice, Wolf has spoken on stage about the more serious topics he’s faced in his life, like addiction and anxiety. In addressing darker topics, Wolf makes it clear that the same elements of stand up that initially spoke to him when he started loving the art form are something that he is working on honing in his own act. 

“Stand up has helped me through really hard times,” says Wolf. “By bringing levity to the horrible shit, it actually makes it less horrible.”

The funniest thing about his life right now:

“I can’t even understand what that means.” 

The one joke that always lands:

“That doesn’t exist. If someone told you it does exist, they’re lying. Or they’re delusional.”

Jamie Wolf is on tour this spring. You can find out where he'll be performing on his website and on Instagram.

Alex Kumin’s comedy is a confluence of hilarity and the hard-earned perspective she’s gleaned from her wide-ranging life experiences.

At 37, Kumin has been performing comedy for 12 years. She moved to New York City three years ago from Chicago where she studied improv comedy at The Second City. From there, she discovered stand up and ended up teaching classes and hosting shows across the city—all of which led to her landing her acting and voiceover agents and eventually to NYC. Luckily, many of her peers from the Chicago scene had already ventured to the city with the goal of broadening their comedic horizons. 

After moving, Kumin quickly started hosting shows at comedy clubs throughout NYC. This helped her integrate herself in the New York comedy scene as she was able to meet and even book up-and-coming comedians on her show. 

“Hosting shows is always a big one for me because the host is forced to meet everyone on the show,” says Kumin. “New York Comedy Club was the first club that I really started to work heavily in, and again I hosted a ton, which I also did a lot in Chicago—I love hosting, it’s just fun.” 

On stage, Kumin is open about having been through three bouts of thyroid cancer. She also worked in sexual health education after college, and it’s a topic that’s still very near and dear to her heart. 

“I'm pretty open on stage, and I think it comes from having worked in sexual health education for so long and just wanting to normalize all of these things,” says Kumin. “Let's normalize talking about sex. Let's normalize talking about cancer. Let's normalize talking about this stuff that we're not supposed to talk about.” 

She not only manages to make these topics funny, she has written and performed hilarious critiques of the healthcare system on stage at the iconic Comedy Cellar, where she was passed in March 2022. 

As her comedic voice continues to develop over the course of her career, Kumin is adamant about continually honing a voice that expresses hard truths with both levity and heart. In addition to her comedy, she also brings her vivacious but welcoming demeanor to her podcast, “Into the Mud,” which she co-hosts with Broadway performer and actor, Drew King. On it, they’ve interviewed a wide range of performers and discussed topics ranging from creator burnout to patterns of behavior in friendships. It’s at once meaningful and funny. 

As Kumin tours to cities across the country and manages all of her creative endeavors, she’s never lost sight of the reason she fell in love with the artform in the first place.

“I love strangers in a room coming together from all walks of life—different ages, genders, religious groups, political backgrounds—and being able to sit presently and laugh together and create that once in a lifetime evening that’s never gonna happen again,” says Kumin. “It's never gonna be that combination of people in the room again. That's the drive for me.”

The funniest thing about her life right now: 

"I think it's just that the world is burning around us, and every day I'm waking up just like, ‘What’s funny about the coffee shop?'"

The one joke that always lands:

"HPV is so common, it's like the first day of law school. It's like, look to your left, look to your right. You have HPV."

Alex Kumin is touring this spring. You can see her perform live by following her website and Instagram.