Comedy with a view: Harbor View Hotel hosts comedy show Friday

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From left: Harrison Stebbins, Mike McCarthy, and Dick Doherty will perform stand-up comedy at the Harbor View Hotel Friday, Jan. 27. — Photo courtesy of Middleton & Gendron Inc.

January generally isn’t a barrel of laughs on the Vineyard so the Harbor View Hotel’s Friday night event with three of Boston’s top comics is a welcome addition to our entertainment menu.

The Edgartown hotel’s first-ever comedy show kicks off a weekend of fun, including the 26th annual WMVY’s Big Chili Contest at the Portuguese-American Club in Oak Bluffs on Saturday.

Dick Doherty, of Dick Doherty’s Beantown Comedy, will headline the Harbor View show that also features Mike McCarthy and Harrison Stebbins. The show begins at 9 pm in the hotel’s Water Street Restaurant, set up with a nightclub ambiance including snack and cocktail service, according to Elizabeth Rothwell, the hotel’s director of marketing and events. Full dinner will be available at Henry’s Hotel Bar in the hotel.

The comedy show represents the year-round hotel’s “increased emphasis on entertainment and promotional events primarily primarily staged for Island residents,” Ms. Rothwell said last week.

“This is the first time we’ve ever done a comedy show,” she continued. “We’re looking at interesting ways to appeal to people, new events to bring into the hotel for Island residents.

“We were very active in Christmas in Edgartown and our traditional New Year’s Eve party was expanded to include two dance floors and fireworks,” she said.

Mr. Doherty and friends come to the Harbor View at the suggestion of Bob Forbes, the hotel’s new director of food and beverage, who joined the staff in October from St. John, a U.S. Virgin Island.

Mr. Doherty is a comic impresario based in Boston, whose work spans five decades. He operates Dick Doherty’s Beantown Comedy Club, and has prospered in a difficult business by generating fresh and salty topical insights on the human condition and serving as a proving ground for emerging comedy talent with the “Boston attitude.” Many Beantown Comedy regulars have gone on to the national scene.

Mr. McCarthy has worked on cable comedy shows, including Showtime and Comedy Central. He is known as the Comedy Barbarian, based on his high-energy. He “hits the stage like a titan and does not relent until the entire audience is under his spell laughing at things they never thought they would,” according to his website.

Mr. Stebbins’s animated improv persona and clever insights have made him a popular act in the Northeast and on national stages. A veteran of Nick’s Comedy Stop, Gotham Comedy Club, and Catch a Rising Star, his on-stage persona has engaged audiences from high school students to corporate executives and has crowned him the current champion of the Sam Adams Best of Comedy competition.

He has performed on the Comedy Central Live Tour, Dave Attel’s Insomniac Tour (featured on Comedy Central), and The Comcast Comedy Stoplight. He has worked with Dave Chapelle and Dane Cook, among many other comedians. His razor sharp wit and animated persona have made him one of stand-up comedy’s fastest rising stars and an act you don’t want to miss.

On tap next month at the Harbor View is a Valentine’s Day prix fixe dinner at $65 per person, which includes a one-night stay at the hotel or at the Kelley House, both open all winter this year for the first time, Ms. Rothwell said. She also noted that the hotel accepts the Island Club Card for discounted weekend room rates and breakfast, brunch, and dinner specials at both the Harbor View and at The Newes From America restaurant and pub in the nearby Kelley House.

The Harbor View event is another in a growing list of winter events planned by Island venues and organizations to enrich the winter months for residents. In recent years, other venues, including the Mansion House in Vineyard Haven and the Winnetu Oceanside Resort in Katama, have added affordable “getaway” stays for Island residents.

Comedy Night, 9 pm (doors open 8:30 pm), Friday, Jan. 27, Harbor View Hotel, Edgartown. Tickets for the 21+ show are $20 in advance, $25 at the door, and may be reserved by calling 508-627-7000.