On almost any night in a given week, you can find live comedy in Columbus. The city’s thriving scene boasts stand-up, improv and experimental performances in venues across town. Meet some of the local comedians, teachers and producers who are contributing to local comedy while building the next generation of comedians—and find out where you can see them in action.
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Tara DeFrancisco and Rance Rizzutto: The Nest Theatre
Husband and wife duo Tara DeFrancisco and Rance Rizzutto first met in Chicago, where they worked with renowned improv theaters including Second City and iO Theater Chicago. DeFrancisco says those places “were kind of like a grad school for comedy” in the early 2000s.
ComedySportz—an improv show that Rizzutto describes as being like a competitive version of Whose Line Is It Anyway?—first brought the couple together in 2003, though it would be another decade before they started dating.
Around the time they became a couple, they launched a groundbreaking improv show, Here: The (Improvised) Musical, an idea they pitched as iO was moving to a new building and the couple had an opportunity to experiment.
“We just thought, ‘Let’s see if we can sustain almost an hour-long show as two people.’ And we did it and got a standing ovation the first night, and it packed the place and sold out. … So when we moved buildings, we got a residency show,” DeFrancisco says.
Even as Here was gaining recognition—the couple has toured the show internationally, performing in 24 countries—the idea for The Nest was percolating. DeFrancisco, a Columbus native, says her local connections were asking for workshops akin to what was offered in Chicago.
Here’s success also gave them more flexibility on where to live. “It’s an easy combo for people to bring us in,” Rizzutto says. “You just have to fly two people.”
Though some in the Chicago improv scene were surprised to see DeFrancisco and Rizzutto start their transition to Columbus as Here was taking off—and there was a lot of back and forth between cities as they settled—they opened The Nest 10 years ago, eventually settling into a North High Street brick-and-mortar. With The Nest, they also founded a local comedy community, offering classes and hosting up to seven shows every week, even as they continued to perform. Rizzutto estimates over 1,800 students have come through the programs at The Nest, which prioritize care and support for all participants in constructing a safe creative space.
“Everyone’s just so kind and so hungry,” DeFrancisco says. “They take really good care of each other. And that’s been really in the fabric of design of this space.”
The Nest Theatre, 2643 N. High St., Old North
Barack Lesnar and Nef Johnson: The Attic Comedy Club
The Attic Comedy Club is aptly named. You’ll find it up a flight of stairs above Osteria Pizzeria in Olde Towne East. And the climb is steep, but worthwhile. Co-managers and bookers Barack Lesnar and Nef Johnson have made The Attic a premier destination for comedy in Columbus since they took over management in 2025 from the club’s founder, comedian Bo Stenger.
“It feels like watching comedy in somebody’s living room, somebody’s house that you really like being at,” Lesnar says of the space, crediting Stenger for his vision.
Johnson agrees. “That room is pretty close to the layout of the Comedy Cellar in New York, … so it’s just the best place you could ever do stand-up physically,” he says.
Johnson knows New York City rooms, as he spends roughly half of his time living in the city while pursuing stand-up, performing at clubs including the New York Comedy Club and The Stand.
The Attic nurtures the growing Columbus scene by providing audiences to local comics while elevating the level of talent that comes through town. “We’re still going to create opportunities to make the local comedy scene better. But we’re also going to bring big names. We’re going to bring national headliners,” Lesnar says, mentioning upcoming shows from The Office actor David Koechner and Saturday Night Live alum Chris Kattan.
Lesnar says they also have worked to break down barriers in local comedy. “I felt the comedy scene in Columbus was very segregated. There [was] Black comedy, white comedy and there was often not a whole lot of mixing. I wanted something that just recognized everything as comedy within the city, brought everybody under an umbrella.”
Johnson shares the sentiment. “How far is The Attic going to get if we don’t have a plethora of different types of comics?” he asks. “It should be a mixing pot.”
For Johnson, comedy came from tragedy: He became serious about performing following his daughter’s suicide. “Comedy was the only thing I could do to get out of bed,” he says. “That was the only thing that could make me feel something good. And it wouldn’t last long, but I had to do stand-up.”
Lesnar, a New York City native of Dominican decent, grew up in Milwaukee and came to Columbus when he was 25 after finding a job while helping his mother relocate here. His stand-up draws heavily on his background: One of his jokes talks about how he was born on an island with many other Dominicans, and then revealing the island is Manhattan. Other parts of this routine talk about cultural clashes he experienced in the Midwest.
“I’ve always felt the need to express myself with words, so there just happened to be a convergence where my love of comedy and my professional life kind of led me to where I am now,” Lesnar says.
Johnson sees comedy as the right art form for this cultural moment. “I think comedy is huge right now because it’s needed,” he says. “It’s needed because we’re in a troubling time … because nobody’s talking to each other. And comedy is a version of the English language that you can only experience in a comedy club,” he says. “[We] don’t talk like that to each other at work.”
The Attic Comedy Club, 892 Oak St., Olde Towne East
Hannah Romich: Hashtag Comedy Co.
Hannah Romich, co-owner of the Hashtag Comedy Co., is making a big impact on the local scene at a young age. Romich, who performs under the stage name Hannah Romes, was recognized by Forbes in 2025 as a member of the 30 Under 30 Columbus class.
Now 30, Romich already has been performing for a decade. After not being selected for an improv team while she was an undergraduate at Ohio State University, Romich jumped into the local scene instead. “I wanted to do more, so I started going to those community classes,” she says. “And it was really neat because I got tapped into the comedy scene so early.”
Romich grew up in a suburb of Akron, but brings her family’s rural roots into shows like Meemaw’s House—a variety show that includes an opossum puppet and Werther’s Original candy for the crowd. The show is inspired by the Appalachian culture her mother brought to her household and its contrasts with Romich’s suburban upbringing. “I’m first generation suburban,” she says. “First in my family to go to Target, not to brag.”
Romich also serves as executive director of the nonprofit organization Columbus Laughs, which aims to promote the local comedy scene and help comics navigate it by connecting them “with tools that already exist in the community that they might not be aware of,” such as grants and funding opportunities, she says. Peter Ostapowicz, Midwest regional manager for Don’t Tell Comedy, serves as the organization’s director of development.
“Fair pay is something I really care about, something Peter really cares about,” she says.
Hashtag Comedy Club, 1253 N. High St., University District
Tanya Vora: Stand-up comedian and business owner
Tanya Vora was interested in business before she was interested in comedy. She had the idea for a company—Spice Up—that would connect the community through food and culture. In 2019, she began developing and pitching her idea at hackathons.
“Throughout these hackathons, I had been talking into a mic in front of people. And so that developed an interest in doing that in a comedic way,” Vora says. She started attending open mics and finally stepped onto the stage herself in 2023.
Today, she’s one of six women co-hosts of Brats, a weekly open mic on Tuesdays at The Spacebar that Vora says is “women and femme focused,” though it is not meant to be exclusionary.
“I think it still holds true that comedy can be a boy’s club. That’s just our industry,” Vora says. With the number of open mics in the city, Brats’ founders wanted to establish a women’s night “to allow women and femmes to feel safe and welcome in our space specifically.”
Brats is named for the first letter in the names of its six rotating hosts—Bridjet Mendy, Rochelle Collins, Ria Pinkman, Allison McBane, Tanya Vora and Sydney Wingate. The group approach allows for the work to be shared among them.
Vora says the scene in Columbus is supportive. “It’s welcoming. The comedians here, we all get to know each other. And that’s different from other scenes,” she says. “People drive from other cities here because our scene is vibrant.”
Brats open mic at The Spacebar, 7 p.m. Tuesdays, 2590 N. High St., University District
Amber Falter: Stand-up comedian and podcaster
Amber Falter is no stranger to Columbus’ comedy scene: She’s been performing for nearly 15 years. Falter says comedy was part of a healing process for her after her mother died when she was 19 years old. “I was so sad and desperate to learn how to laugh again,” she recalls. Finding community and seeking a way “to not feel alone in a lot of my trauma” brought her to the stage.
In addition to performing, Falter is a producer and the host of All Beef, a podcast focused on her work in the service industry and “all the beef that I have and other people have with the industry,” she says.
Beef is a recurring motif in Falter’s work and her life: Her family has owned and operated the Herman Falter Packing Co. meatpacking plant on the city’s South Side for over 130 years, and Falter currently lives on the site.
“A lot of my friends in comedy tell me to write about my experience here, but I’m still living it. So it’s not funny to me. It’s my reality,” she says. “Maybe when I move out, I’ll be like, ‘I lived in a meat packing plant and the butchers did my laundry,’ It’s so bizarre. But it’s just so normal to me, and I can’t see the irony in it yet,” she says.
Until she’s ready to write that stand-up routine, you can hear her on All Beef, which began its second season in June. Catch it on Spotify.
This story appeared in the September 2026 issue of Columbus Monthly. Subscribe here.
This article originally appeared on Columbus Monthly: Faces of Columbus Comedy: Meet the People Making the City Laugh
Reporting by Linda Lee Baird, Columbus Monthly / Columbus Monthly
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Linda Lee Baird, Columbus Monthly | USA TODAY Network
