Introduction

Every year, Variety selects comedy creatives to honor at the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival. This year’s crop will be feted with a cocktail party, panel and performance on July 26-27.

Joel Kim Booster

“Model Minority”

Chicago-born, Los Angeles-based comedian-writer Booster has fought hard for his accomplishments. “Since I was 17 years old, my life has all been on me. I’ve been completely responsible for myself, and because of that, my comedy is borne out of personal experience.” He’s made a roll call of appearances on some of television’s funniest programs, including “Conan,” Comedy Central’s “The Meltdown With Jonah and Kumail,” and “This Is Not Happening.” “Any time I step on stage to do standup, it doesn’t feel like work,” he says. “I write jokes based around my experiences, and I enjoy mythologizing my life into an absurd way.” Booster also recorded a standup special for Comedy Central’s “The Half-Hour,” a full-length standup album called “Model Minority,” and starred in the Netflix feature “The Week Of,” as well as the upcoming YouTube Red feature “Vulture Club.” He’s got big aspirations, too. “I’d love to write, produce, and star in a show, and expand my range into dramas. I’ve been working with Nick Kroll on Netflix’s ‘Big Mouth’ and I love his career, as he’s popped up in dramas while still doing comedy.” Booster is passionate about his identity, which plays a big part in his life. “While touring, I love visiting gay bars in whatever city I’m staying in, and exploring the environment.” His writing credits include TruTV’s “Billy on the Street,” and the upcoming Comedy Central series “The Other Two.” Booster says “likes to open as many doors as possible with comedy.” — Nick Clement

Influences: Tig Notaro, Madeline Kahn, Nora Ephron
Agency: WME
Management: OmniPop
Lawyer: Ginsburg Daniels

Sam Jay

“Saturday Night Live”

Jay says her goal as a standup is to “take people to the edge and talk about the things that people are uncomfortable talking about.” “For me, it’s just about being honest and going to those places that make me laugh and finding the jokes in there,” says the performer, who frequently speaks about her experiences as an out woman of color (even her Twitter name, Snatches O’Houlihan, is a lesbian-friendly pun on a character from the movie “Dodgeball”). She says she’s not “about pushing an agenda,” as much “as a woman, I think about rape and rape culture. As a gay person, I think about LGBT issues. As a black person, I think about race.” Jay will soon release her debut comedy album, “Donna’s Daughter” and will be on Netflix’s “The Comedy Lineup” standup special. But these past few months have brought a new challenge: She recently completed her first season as a writer for NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.” This means she’s been learning to write for other people, including a particularly crowning moment collaborating with co-head writer Bryan Tucker on the “Black Panther” themed edition of the show’s popular Black Jeopardy sketch. Part of Jay’s success might be that she’s willing to allow herself some trial and error. “I’m honest with myself and give myself room to be a person,” she says. “Also, it’s knowing that I’m going be a standup until I die; I’m never going to not do this. If I’m going to commit myself to this for life, which I have, there’s going to be ups and downs. That’s just the nature of it.” — Whitney Friedlander

Influences: Eddie Murphy, Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock
Agency: ICM Partners Management: Avalon
Lawyer: Schreck Rose Dapello & Adams

Darren Knight

“Southern Momma”

Plenty of comedians got their starts by parodying and mocking their family members. Not all of them have seen the same meteoric rise as Knight. In under two years, Knight’s online performance of his Southern Momma character, a hybrid that’s partially based on his mother and largely his grandmother, has garnered a windfall of social-media page views, 175 shows and his own documentary. Not bad for a struggling comic who uploaded his first video of the character on a whim. “It’s something that just kind of took off; I just made a funny video one day. I don’t know. God had a plan or something,” says the Alabama-raised comic whose digital persona shares her thoughts on everything from the Fourth of July to meeting her ex’s new lady friend. Knight’s no dummy with this character though; while he certainly credits her for his career boost, he knows the shtick can get old. Between his live shows and social channels, he intermixes his own standup and other characters such as Old Man Steven, a prank phone call connoisseur. “If I were going to spend 45 minutes yelling at imaginary kids, it’d get a little redundant after a while,” he says matter-of-factly of the stage performances. Naturally, Knight’s act has been compared to the likes of Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy. So how does he feel about playing up the Southern in this political climate? “I don’t identify myself as Republican or Democrat,” he says. “People do expect you to hold a certain political role or agenda, so to speak.” What he wants, Knight says, is to be relatable. “Not everyone has a yacht off the coast of Bermuda,” he notes. — Whitney Friedlander

Influences: Chevy Chase, Jim Carrey, Ron White
Agency: ICM Partners
Management: Bang Productions
Lawyer: Music Maker

Anna Konkle & Maya Erskine

“Pen15”

The lively duo of Konkle & Erskine, who serve as co-creators/co-stars of the upcoming Hulu series “Pen15,” seem primed for everything that’s coming their way. Konkle, an NYU Tisch graduate, previously starred in the Fox drama “Rosewood” and recently recurred on Showtime hit “Shameless,” while Erskine, another NYU Tisch grad, has wrapped Netflix production “Wine Country” and the indie feature “Plus One,” with other credits including “6 Balloons” and a memorable turn on the FXX series “Man Seeking Woman.” Their acting styles and personalities certainly complement each other. “Anna is so funny, and she absolutely kills me in real life and during performance,” Erskine says. She herself is “drawn to people’s vulnerable truths while bringing to life awkward characters.” Konkle’s got a similar viewpoint on comedy in that she “finds humor in sadness,” and refers to Erskine as her “best friend and a great collaborator.” They both have a shared passion for food, which makes them both laugh. “I worked for some amazing chefs in the NYC restaurant scene for many years,” Konkle says. Erskine is a fan of online Korean food-eating videos. “I love food so much, and I’m always thinking about what to order for lunch when I’m in the writers’ room!” Considering they both have further feature ambitions both in front of and behind the camera, it’s no surprise to learn they’re movie buffs, with Konkle expressing love for “Grizzly Man” and “Dogville,” and Erskine calling “Happiness” and “Splendor in the Grass” favorites. — Nick Clement

Influences: (Konkle) Lisa Kudrow, Todd Solondz, Amy Sedaris. (Erskine) Gilda Radner, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, her mother.
Agency: Gersh 
Management: Odenkirk Provissiero Entertainment (Konkle), Mosaic (Erskine)
Lawyer: Hansen Jacobson Teller Hoberman Newman Warren Richman Rush Kaller & Gellman

Hari Kondabolu

“The Problem With Apu”

Kondabolu is always busy. The Brooklyn-based comedian-writer has recently released an album (“Mainstream American Comic”), a socially relevant documentary (“The Problem With Apu”), and a Netflix standup special (“Hari Kondabolu: Warn Your Relatives”), while having served as a writer-correspondent on the FX series “Totally Biased With W. Kamau Bell.” “I’ve wanted to do standup since I was 14 years old. Comedy is challenging enough, but when you go out there and face a live audience, it makes you want to do better,” he says. After studying at Wesleyan University and then graduating from Bowdoin College with a B.A. in comparative politics in 2003, he received an MSc in human rights from the London School of Economics in 2008. “Shock only has a value to me when it has a greater purpose,” he says, when discussing what he finds genuinely funny. Kondabolu admits to “getting obsessed with old things. I’ve been watching episodes of ‘All in the Family,’ which of course would be hard to get made these days, but there’s a level of depth to the hilarity, and that’s what I’m always looking for. I like stuff that has a full range of emotions and provides a full experience for the audience.” He’s also a podcasting veteran, and co-hosts both “Politically Reactive” and “The Bulge,” which keep him sharp. “I could see myself doing what Samantha Bee and John Oliver are doing. I want to be on television telling great and important stories.” — Nick Clement

Influences: Chris Rock, Margaret Cho, W. Kamau Bell
Agency: WME
Management: Avalon Management
Lawyer: Jeff Endlich, Morris Yorn Barnes Levine Krintzman Rubenstein Kohner & Gellman

Amanda Seales

“Smart, Funny, & Black”

Maybe you remember Seales from her early days as a VJ and a musician. Maybe you recognize her as the bougie and vapid Tiffany on Issa Rae’s HBO comedy, “Insecure.” Maybe you listen to her podcast, “Small Doses.” Or maybe you were lucky enough to score tickets to “Smart, Funny & Black,” her live show currently on tour. And if you don’t know her from any of these things, you will soon enough. “I always fancied myself busy,” Seales purrs, her tone an affectation of exaggerated luxury. The impressiveness of her resume is only compounded by the fact that she didn’t even start doing standup until November 2013. She says she knew she was growing out of the hip-hop space of her youth, but that “humor was always at the base of everything that I did and I, myself, wouldn’t be able consider myself a comedian until I did standup.” This doesn’t necessarily mean that Seales is the type of performer who obsessively writes jokes at 4 at the morning. “I’ve found that I’m really good at writing narratives, but I’m not good at writing jokes,” says Seales. She adds she has a killer memory and perhaps that’s because she neither drinks nor smokes. “For me, my jokes come in conversation. I work everything out on stage.” Has Seales always been this confident? “Nothing I do is scary. I was flat chested and 15 at one point in time. But even then, I knew what I knew.” — Whitney Friedlander

Influences: Her mother, Chris Rock, Malcolm X, Maya Angelou
Agency: CAA
Lawyer: Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz

Dulce Sloan

“The Daily Show”

Rising star Sloan has wasted no time in sprinting to the comedic top, becoming the latest full-time correspondent to join Comedy Central’s “Best F#@king News Team” on “The Daily Show With Trevor Noah.” Performing has always been in her blood. “I’ve been acting since I was a child. I was involved in lots of theater as a kid, both musicals and non-musicals, and I come from an artistic background so and I credit my mother, Mary Ann Hill, as being a big inspiration for me,” she says. Sloan won the 2016 NBC Standup Showcase and mentioned on “The Steve Harvey Show.” Sloan made her standup debut in 2009 on TBS’ “Conan,” and says she “enjoys when a joke takes a second to register. That’s when it becomes something even funnier than you first thought.” She starred in the Fox pilot “Type-A” opposite Eva Longoria, and the Amy Poehler project “Dumb Prince” for NBC. She’s also appeared on MTV’s “Acting Out,” Comedy Central’s “@Midnight,” and TruTV’s “Comedy Knockout.” And she’s got a lot more that’s set in her sights. “My focus is to develop my own daily show, and become a better writer. I want to branch out with my material and deliver content that’s both socially relevant and very funny.” — Nick Clement

Agency: APA
Management: Levity
Lawyer: Jackoway Austen Tyerman Wertheimer Mandelbaum Morris Bernstein Trattner & Klein

Taylor Tomlinson

“Last Comic Standing”

One of the things Tomlinson says she’s learned since she started doing standup at 16 years old is that “you probably shouldn’t do standup when you’re 16 because you have nothing to talk about.” “I’m 24 now and I’m still constantly worried about the fact that I’m so young and I have so little life experience,” says Tomlinson, who cut her teeth in coffee shops and on the church circuit because she was too young to get into the 21-and-over comedy clubs. “I think this prompts me to, hopefully, dig a little deeper because you’re always trying to get that older couple after the show to say ‘you’re wise beyond your years,’ which is really just saying ‘you’re not like other girls.’” They’re wrong about that last part, she adds. But world weary or not, Tomlinson still has a bit of a security blanket in her act: her jet black motorcycle jacket. “I think part of it is that I wanted an extra piece of armor when I went on stage and I think I was trying to look older,” says the “Last Comic Standing” alum who has also performed on TBS’ “Conan.” She adds that, despite her husky voice and confident stance, “I must have been 18 or 19 when I realized that when I get up, people were nervous that I was going to suck, which is a fair assumption. [So] I put a lot of time into how I presented myself.” She talks about perception and what it’s like to be a woman in her 15-minute segment of Netflix’s new “The Comedy Lineup,” a showcase of up-and-coming comics. Her goals, she says, are to follow in the footsteps of nice-guy comic Brian Regan and “get to a point where not only am I so respected by fellow comedians, but I have a loyal fan base and only do standup unless it’s a project [I’m] into.” — Whitney Friedlander

Influences: Maria Bamford, Beth Stelling, Brian Regan
Agency: UTA
Management: Levity Entertainment Group

Julio Torres

“My Favorite Shapes”

As with most comedians and writers, Torres found that his biggest challenge as a standup was figuring out how to begin. That’s why he usually starts his sets with multiple renditions of the word “hello,” as if he’s calling for attention without having to raise his voice. Essentially, he says, this opening simply came from his own overthinking. Torres’ devotion to the minimal details of life is omnipresent in his sets. He likes to tell his audience that his favorite color is clear and he is obsessed with emojis. “Sometimes instead of texting back my opinions to someone, I’ll just text back a deer,” he says laughing. His new show, titled “My Favorite Shapes,” is about miniature objects. “I know when someone sees me that this may be the first and last time that they see me, so I should convey whatever I want to convey without any assumptions or backstory,” Torres says. He’s fully aware that this sounds rather Andy Kaufman-esque, which he says he “agrees with, in spirit, because comedy isn’t just jokes beyond a microphone.” Whatever the reason, we will be seeing more of Torres. He’s appeared on NBC’s “The Tonight Show” and “Late Night” and is a writer on “Saturday Night Live,” where he’s responsible for such hits as “Melania’s Moments.” Given that he also has an obsession with what he calls the “fantastical” worlds of children’s films and books, would he ever want to do an animated film? “I have always fanaticized with having this disgusting, gigantic, colossal studio budget and it will flop like nothing else has flopped before,” he says, completely straight-faced. — Whitney Friedlander

Influences: Kate Berlant
Agency: UTA
Management: 3 Arts Entertainment
Lawyer: Hansen Jacobson Teller Hoberman Newman Warren Richman Rush Kaller & Gellman

Jaboukie Young-White

“Set It Up”

People like to pigeonhole Young-White as the whippersnapper Twitter comedian. But he’ll have you know that he’s growing up and has a proper day job now, writing on Netflix’s “Big Mouth” and enjoying all the La Croix that writers’ room has to offer. “I could truly win an Emmy and they’d say ‘Twitter comedian Jaboukie Young-White,’” he jokes now. “I do love Twitter. It’s fun. But at this point, it’s not that I’m offended by it. It’s just not truthful.” FYI, he’s on Instagram too. Still, social media certainly was helpful in upping his profile. His fans recognized his small part in the Netflix rom-com “Set It Up” and he will also be in another film for the digital channel: The Gina Rodriguez-starring “Someone Great.” Young-White also performed standup on NBC’s “The Tonight Show,” a major moment in both his career and his family because that’s how his parents learned he is gay. He says it’s important for comics to talk about their personal lives onstage because “it’s sharing your point of view” and “giving people an insight into your life.” “It has been beaten into the ground, but representation does matter,” he says, mentioning the positive feedback he’s gotten from that act. Young-White says his goal is to have his own show. He’s developing a half-hour comedy that he says is “loosely based on my experiences growing up in a first-generation Jamaican household and my early 20s.” — Whitney Friedlander

Influences: Richard Pryor, Donald Glover, Greta Gerwig
Agency: CAA
Management: 3 Arts
Lawyer: Ginsburg Daniels