Ken Garr grew up on the south side of Chicago. The son of a retired Chicago Fire Fighter and Homemaker, Ken proudly hails from three generations of fire fighters. The youngest of 4 children, Ken’s hilarious views on life are derived on growing up in a blue collar family with his own white collar aspirations.
A former Managing Director at NASDAQ, Ken spent 13 years in corporate sales before leaving 6 years ago to pursue his dream of being a stand up comedian and motivational speaker. Since then Ken has been featured on Sirius XM Radio, Fox, HULU and Comedy Central as well as featured in several Comedy Festivals including the “Laugh Your Asheville Off”, Big Sky and the World Series of Comedy Festivals.” Ken was also a finalist in the prestigious 40th Annual San Francisco International Comedy Competition, The San Diego Comedy Festival and the Ventura Comedy Festival and he performs regularly at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas at Brad Garrett’s Comedy Club
Nick Cobb Hailing from Memphis, TN, Nick Cobb attended Indiana University where he majored in Psychology and learned to obsess over meaningless nonsense. This led him to work in his first comedy club, aptly named“The Looney Bin.” It was at a tiny Beale Street bar where Nick won a stand-up competition, was bitten by the comedy bug and moved to New York to pursue The Dream. While in New York, Nick was seen on Comedy Central’s Live at Gotham, VH1’s Morning Buzz, AMC’s Date Night as well as on NBC’s “Last Comic Standing”
Kristen Toomey’s standup career began in 2008. Since then she has headlined comedy clubs all over North America and the UK. Her recent Micro Special, produced by Zanies Chicago, was well received with over 300K views. Currently, with back to back viral reels amassing 20M+ views, her follower count continues to skyrocket. Kristen’s comedy style is unapologetically truthful and energetic cementing her status as a force to be reckoned with. She can be seen regularly at the top clubs in New York and Chicago like The Stand, New York Comedy Club, Zanies and Laugh Factory. Kristen has performed at numerous festivals such as the prestigious Just For Laughs in Montreal, 312 Comedy Festival, Oddball Festival, Flyover in St. Louis and more.
Chris Trani is a fantastic stand-up comedian from Chicago who integrates all forms of comedy into his act: Stand-up, storytelling, crowd work, one-liners; and if need be, he can do it all in Spanish (kinda!). Winner of National Public Radio’s The MOTH and the SNUBFEST Comedy Festival for Storytelling, Chris has shared the stage with Roy Wood Jr. of The Daily Show, Beth Stelling of Netflix’s The Standups, and Dov Davidoff of HBO’s Crashing. Chris is the official house emcee at The House of Blues Stand-up Showcase and can be seen performing at clubs all throughout the country, including Chicago’s very own Laugh Factory.
DJ Rybski – Is a paid regular at Zanies, DJ has built a reputation for sharp storytelling and joke writing. He performed on the Nateland Live showcase in Nashville and was invited to the prestigious 312 Comedy Festival A-List Showcase. In 2025, he recorded a 10-minute special for OFTV. DJ’s comedy has amassed over 20 million views online, where fans have coined him “the best Irish-Polish-Korean comedian in the Midwest.”
