Brooklyn, NY · comedy

Robby Hoffman

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Deadpan stand-up sharpshooter — the festival's comedy detour, delivered with tailored-suit precision and jokes engineered like watchworks.

Hoffman was born in Brooklyn's Crown Heights, the seventh of ten children in a large Hasidic family; her parents later divorced and she was raised by her mother in Montreal, where the family struggled financially. She attended Bialik Secondary School, then studied accounting and communications at McGill University, quitting a graduate accounting program hours into her first day to pursue comedy instead.

Much of her material draws on that upbringing, on being gay, and on money and family. She performs in a flat, insistent deadpan, often in a suit, working through carefully built bits with little visible effort to charm the room.

Alongside stand-up, Hoffman has written for television, including The Chris Gethard Show, Baroness Von Sketch Show, Workin' Moms and the children's series Odd Squad, whose writing earned an Emmy in 2019. She later appeared on screen in further incarnations of The Chris Gethard Show, and clips of her stand-up sets have circulated widely online.

Hoffman was named one of Comedy Central's Up Next comedians in 2018, and appeared on Conan O'Brien's Comics to Watch list and Vulture's list of comedians to watch. Her debut stand-up special, I'm Nervous, appeared in 2019, later earning her a Juno nomination for Comedy Album of the Year. She has also drawn notice for a recurring role as Randi on the series Hacks, earning an Emmy nomination and praise from the New York Times as a breakout star.

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comedy