NYC comic/actor Cory Fernandez headlines stand-up show at Scranton Comedy Club in Dunmore on May 15
The Scranton Comedy Club is back in full swing, which means regular pricing has returned for its monthly stand-up shows at the Holiday Inn Scranton East in Dunmore.
New York/Los Angeles comedian Cory Fernandez, who has appeared in movies like “Cop Out” starring Tracy Morgan and Bruce Willis and television shows like “Orange Is the New Black,” will headline the club’s next event on Saturday, May 15. Amanda Gail, Natalie Cuomo, and Scranton’s own Will “Half & Half” Robbins will open the evening.
Doors at the Holiday Inn Scranton East (200 Tigue St., Dunmore) open at 7 p.m., and the show starts at 8 p.m. All state and CDC guidelines will be followed, and seating will comply with indoor restrictions. Dinner and drinks will be available.
Tickets, which are $15 in advance or $20 at the door, are on sale now via Eventbrite. For a limited time, advance tickets are two for $20, and there is a special group rate of 11 tickets for $100. For more information, call 570-357-2693 or visit scrantoncomedyclub.com.
Scranton Comedy Club owner Kevin Lepka said that, despite current regulations on indoor events, over 100 people attended last month’s show with Bob Levy. Before the coronavirus pandemic, he opened the club in the newly remodeled Holiday Inn and hosted several successful monthly shows until the statewide shutdown.
It was able to reopen briefly for a sold-out socially distanced event on Nov. 28 before all indoor entertainment was shut down again in December. When it opened once again in March, seating was limited but events have continued to reach capacity under the new guidelines.
After only a year of performing stand-up, Cory Fernandez made his debut television appearance as a finalist on BET’s stand-up comedy competition show “Coming to the Stage” alongside comedians Kim Coles, Bruce Bruce, and Lil Duval. Two years later, he was a semi-finalist with comedians Tiffany Haddish and Lil Rel on Bill Bellamy’s “Who’s Got Jokes” on TV One and he also appeared on Jamie Foxx Presents “Laffapalooza” on Comedy Central, hosted by Anthony Anderson.
In the same year, NBC/Universal held their annual nationwide search for the top diverse comics in the country. This search, known as “Stand Up NBC,” selected Fernandez as a finalist out of a pool of hundreds of entrants. Three years later, he made his HBO debut, sharing the stage with one of the “Original Kings of Comedy,” D.L. Hughley, becoming the first Puerto Rican to perform on Russell Simmons’ “Def Comedy Jam.” Four years after his TV debut on “Coming to the Stage,” he made a return to BET when he performed with Kevin Hart on “Comic View: One Mic Stand,” shortly followed by an appearance on “The Mo’Nique Show.”
He has since made his first transition to acting in the Warner Bros. film “Cop Out” starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan, directed by Kevin Smith (“Clerks,” Jay and Silent Bob). Fernandez’s other acting credits include “Mercy” (NBC), “I Just Want My Pants Back” (MTV), “Kony Montana” (sharing scenes with “Saturday Night Live” star Leslie Jones), and “Womack” (HBO) starring Rob Morgan (“Mudbound,” “Stranger Things”) and Clifton Powell (“Black Lightning,” “Saints & Sinners”). Shortly after filming “Cop Out,” he returned to Comedy Central to tape “Live at Gotham,” hosted by comedian Jo Koy. The following year, he made his NBC late-night debut on Byron Allen’s Comedy.TV.
Fernandez booked a principal role in an HBO pilot entitled “Da Brick.” Spike Lee directed, Mike Tyson and Doug Ellin (creator of “Entourage”) produced, and John Ridley (Academy Award-winning writer from “12 Years a Slave”) wrote the screenplay, and he shared the screen with Rosie Perez, who played his character’s mom, and John Boyega (Star Wars films “The Force Awakens,” “The Last Jedi,” and “The Rise of Skywalker”).
Fernandez recently relocated to Los Angeles from his hometown New York City and continues to perform at comedy clubs and colleges across the country and around the world. He has toured overseas in countries like England, Germany, and Japan, entertaining troops for the U.S. Army, Marines, Navy, and Air Force. Look for him on the Netflix original series “Orange Is the New Black,” “White Collar” (USA), “The Following” (Fox) starring Kevin Bacon, the Boston Comedy Festival, and “Laugh Tonight with Damon Williams” on UrbanflixTV.
Amanda Gail is a New York City/Hoboken, New Jersey-based comedian, writer, producer, and podcaster. She can be seen every Thursday in Hoboken performing at her own show, Showboken. Her writing can be seen on Reductress and other tweets floating around the Internet. Her opinions on current events can be heard on the Compound Media Network, and she hosts the “Thirst Trap Podcast” with Natalie Cuomo where they talk about who, what, and why it’s thirsty. Known to be parched themselves from time to time, they are a hilarious team as they share their insight and chat with specials guests that include comedians, influencers, hosts, actors, and more.
Scranton comic Will “Half & Half” Robbins has performed with Kevin Hart, Tracy Morgan, and Gilbert Gottfried and is the author of two books, “Ice” and “The Big Payback.”
Natalie Cuomo is an up-and-coming comedian born and raised in Queens, New York. She is a fixture in the New York comedy scene and can be found performing regularly at the New York Comedy Club, The Stand, Greenwich Village Comedy Club, Caroline’s on Broadway, Governor’s Comedy Club, and The Comic Strip. She has performed in several comedy festivals, such as New York Comedy Festival, Idaho Comedy Festival, and the Laugh Riot Grrrl Festival in Los Angeles. She has become a regular on SiriusXM and has been featured in Time Out New York and Metal Injection for her work as a comedian.
Cuomo is the producer of a weekly rooftop comedy show in Brooklyn at The Tiny Cupboard as well as a bi-weekly comedy show at The Stand. In 2019, she completed a residency in Los Angeles where she performed consistently at The Comedy Store and Hollywood Improv.
She spent her formative years attending acting classes at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute and Stella Adler Teen Conservatory. She attended Bard College where she received a BA. As a child, she was always performing for her parents, making up songs whenever she could, and standing on the table at Christmas trying to tell jokes to her family.
Cuomo graduated from the professional conservatory at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting ’17. She then furthered her studies with Wynn Handman, founder of the American Place Theater. She decided to take the leap into stand-up comedy where she found her calling and has not looked back since.
Aside from her work as a comedian, she is the co-founder of Classy Trashy Magazine, a motorcycle and tattoo publication. She has written for Inked Magazine in their July 2021 issue, and she is also a co-host of the “Thirst Trap Podcast” with Amanda Gail.
In her free time, she is usually listening to rock music, getting (yet another) tattoo, or hanging out with her dog.
Scranton-based comedian, actor, and producer Kevin Lepka has many years of experience as a stand-up comedian, host, and sketch comedy/improv performer in all types of venues up and down the East Coast, sharing stages with Gilbert Gottfried, Artie Lange, Pete Davidson, Andrew Schulz, and more. He founded Laugh Out Lepkas Comedy to bring comedians like Gilbert Gottfried, Artie Lange, Rich Vos, the Reverend Bob Levy, Jessimae Peluso, and even the WWE’s Honky Tonk Man to the area in addition to his Scranton Comedy Club shows.
Over the years, the club has hosted shows in downtown Scranton locations like the Ritz Theater, Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel, and the second floor of Tequila (now the AV Restaurant & Lounge) as well as the Ramada Inn in Clarks Summit. It debuted at the Holiday Inn Scranton East in January of 2020.
Monthly shows at the current location are headlined by nationally touring comedians who play at clubs, casinos, resorts, and colleges across the country and have appeared on HBO, Comedy Central, Showtime, Netflix, “Last Comic Standing,” “America’s Got Talent,” SiriusXM, Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS, MTV, VH1, BET, and more. Local and up-and-coming comedians are featured as well.
The Scranton Comedy Club also offers a no-cost way for nonprofit groups to raise money for their organizations through ticket sales. Those who are interested can email Lepka at laughoutlepkascomedy@gmail.com.
