Hop For Pop
Press Kit
Stand-up · Storyteller · Crowd work
Greg Stone
A New York comic who has spent twenty-five years trying to get back to his first night on stage, went viral by refusing to make the cruel joke, and believes strength is showing vulnerability.
Based
New York City
Stand-up since
2001 · New York full-time since 2008
Known for
The Late Late Show with James Corden · Nobody Presents Greg Stone · viral Comedy Cellar crowd work
Interview
46 min · Hop For Pop · 2026
“Strength is showing vulnerability, not hiding it.”
Greg Stone — Hop For Pop
Ready-to-use copy
Biography
230 words — lift as-is, no rewriting required
Greg Stone is a New York stand-up comedian known for true stories told at full volume. He started in 2001 on a bringer show, booked for ten minutes, and by his own guess did about twenty-five before they turned the lights out on him and cut the microphone. For seven years he told himself comedy was a hobby. In 2008 the comedian Mike Vecchione told him he was going up five times a night, not five times a month, and to move to New York. He did.
He has since performed on The Late Late Show with James Corden, NBC’s America’s Got Talent, truTV’s Friends of the People and AXS TV’s Gotham Comedy Live. His first hour, The Amazing Greg Stone, came out as an album, followed by the special Nobody Presents Greg Stone.
On stage he is a storyteller who treats a room like a party: stories loaded, beats known, and the audience invited in rather than talked at. His crowd work grew from the same place. A clip from the Comedy Cellar, in which a woman told him her father had murdered her mother and he chose to make every joke about himself, reached a couple of million views. He calls himself, cheerfully, “the king of meltdowns”.
The part other press kits leave out
What you should know before you book him
Greg Stone works from empathy rather than attack. It shapes his writing, his crowd work and how he handles a difficult room.
He follows the fear
He writes about the things he is scared to talk about, so that people in the room who share that fear don’t feel crazy. “All of my comedy comes from empathy.”
Crowd work that is really writing
Good crowd work, for him, is a real conversation that reminds him of a story he has already written or has been thinking about for years. Not “where are you from” and a joke about Ohio.
He will not punch down at a guest
In his best-known clip he had options and chose to make every joke about himself, checking the whole time that the woman was all right.
Long stories, not laugh counts
“I love a six minute story.” He doesn’t believe in laughs per minute: if Tyson hits you once and you go down, who won the fight?
Vulnerable on purpose
Being mean to a crowd, he says, is fight or flight. Saying “these are my flaws, I don’t really care” is harder, and it is the strength he aims for.
He knows comedy is a business too
Comedy is art and business, and most comics neglect the second half. He is clear-eyed about both, and about wanting to be famous enough to sell tickets, not more.
For press · cleared for use with attribution
Quotable
01
“Strength is showing vulnerability, not hiding it.”02
“The first time I was on stage, I was probably the most of myself.”03
“I like following the fear.”04
“All of my comedy comes from empathy.”05
“If there’s a microphone, I’m a comedian.”06
“I want to make these people in this room happy for a minute.”07
“Right now comedy is kind of run by a lot of different McDonald’s.”08
“I love a six minute story.”09
“If you’re a boxer and the guy’s got more punches per minute, but then like Tyson hits you once and you go down, who won the fight?”10
“I am the king of meltdowns.”11
“I have two or three of the things I want in my life.”12
“We always come back.”
Attribution: Greg Stone, speaking to Hop For Pop, 2026.
Career
Selected credits
Television
- The Late Late Show with James Corden (CBS)
- America’s Got Talent (NBC)
- Friends of the People (truTV)
- Gotham Comedy Live (AXS TV)
Albums & specials
- The Amazing Greg Stone — debut hour, album
- Nobody Presents Greg Stone — special
Clubs
- Comedy Cellar, New York
- Regular across the New York club circuit since 2008
This kit was produced by Hop For Pop. The interview and quotes are drawn from Hop For Pop × Greg Stone, recorded 2026. Greg Stone and their representatives are free to use any part of this document — the biography, the quotes — for booking, press and promotion, with credit to Hop For Pop for the interview material.
Hop For Pop shines a light on stand-up artists and spreads comedy across the world. Follow at instagram.com/hopforpop.
Message us at instagram.com/hopforpop to get your interview and press kit with us.
See our Instagram post about this interview. Follow Hop For Pop on Instagram at @hopforpop and @thecomicsunseen.