Maria Bamford's 2026 Tour: 40 Nights, 36 Cities, Almost All of Them Weekends
Maria Bamford is touring through January 2027, with 40 dates across 36 cities in the United States and Canada. The next two are this week: Des Moines on Friday, August 21 and Iowa City on Saturday, August 22. There is no branded tour title attached to this one — venues are billing it simply as Maria Bamford live, and the run is built around a new hour rather than a named product.
The routing is the thing worth noticing. Look at the calendar and a pattern jumps out immediately: almost every date lands on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Bamford is touring in weekend blocks — fly out Thursday, play three or four nights in a cluster of nearby cities, fly home. There is no Tuesday-in-Toledo grind here. It's a deliberately humane way to tour, and for a comedian whose entire body of work is about the machinery of mental health, that reads as intentional rather than incidental.
Bamford's audience knows her from a deep catalog: four hour-long specials (Local Act, Weakness is the Brand, Old Baby, and Maria Bamford: The Special, Special, Special!), the surreal semi-autobiographical Netflix series Lady Dynamite, and the New York Times bestselling memoir Sure, I'll Join Your Cult. Jackie Kashian opens select dates, including the Iowa stops and Tucson.
Tour Dates
Dates marked (two shows) have an early and a late performance. Club engagements are listed as ranges — each night is a separate ticket.
August 2026
- Friday, August 21 — Hoyt Sherman Place, Des Moines, IA
- Saturday, August 22 — The Englert Theatre, Iowa City, IA
- Thursday, August 27 – Sunday, August 30 — Cap City Comedy Club, Austin, TX (four nights; Saturday, August 29 has two shows)
September 2026
- Friday, September 11 — Chubb Theatre at Capitol Center for the Arts, Concord, NH
- Saturday, September 12 — The Wilbur, Boston, MA
- Sunday, September 13 — Uptown Theater, Providence, RI
- Friday, September 25 — The ELM, Bozeman, MT
- Saturday, September 26 — Bella Concert Hall, Calgary, AB
- Sunday, September 27 — Myer Horowitz Theatre, Edmonton, AB
October 2026
- Friday, October 2 — Miller Theater at the Kimmel Center, Philadelphia, PA
- Saturday, October 3 — Warner Theatre, Washington, DC
- Sunday, October 4 — Carnegie of Homestead Music Hall, Munhall, PA
- Saturday, October 10 — The Bell House, Brooklyn, NY (two shows)
- Sunday, October 11 — The Bell House, Brooklyn, NY (two shows)
- Thursday, October 15 — Spokane Comedy Club, Spokane, WA
- Friday, October 16 — McPherson Playhouse, Victoria, BC
- Saturday, October 17 — Neptune Theatre, Seattle, WA
- Friday, October 23 — The Sheldon Concert Hall, Saint Louis, MO
- Saturday, October 24 — George Van Dusen Theatre at North Shore Center, Skokie, IL
- Sunday, October 25 — Hilarities 4th Street Theatre, Cleveland, OH
November 2026
- Friday, November 6 — The Lensic, Santa Fe, NM
- Saturday, November 7 — Rialto Theatre, Tucson, AZ
- Sunday, November 8 — Tempe Improv, Tempe, AZ
- Thursday, November 12 — Funny Bone Comedy Club, Syracuse, NY
- Friday, November 13 — Hart Theatre at The Egg, Albany, NY
- Saturday, November 14 — Electric City, Buffalo, NY
- Sunday, November 22 — The Vogel at Count Basie Center for the Arts, Red Bank, NJ
- Saturday, November 28 — Plaza Theatre, Palm Springs, CA
December 2026
- Thursday, December 3 — The Howlin' Wolf, New Orleans, LA
- Friday, December 4 — Buckhead Theatre, Atlanta, GA
- Saturday, December 5 — Fletcher Hall at Carolina Theatre, Durham, NC
- Sunday, December 6 — Attucks Theatre, Norfolk, VA
- Friday, December 11 — Crest Theatre, Sacramento, CA
- Saturday, December 12 — Paramount Theatre, Denver, CO
- Thursday, December 17 — The Studio, Hamilton, ON
- Saturday, December 19 — Algonquin Commons Theatre, Nepean, ON
January 2027
- Friday, January 15 — Strings Music Pavilion, Steamboat Springs, CO
Where the Listings Disagree
A few things are worth flagging honestly, because ticket aggregators do not have these right across the board.
November 12 is Syracuse, not Omaha. Several listings file this date at a Funny Bone in Omaha, NE. Bamford's own calendar and the Syracuse venue both put her at the Funny Bone in Syracuse, NY — and the Omaha club's published November schedule has a different headliner that week. The routing settles it: November 12–14 is a Syracuse–Albany–Buffalo run straight across upstate New York. Omaha would be a 2,400-mile detour in the middle of it.
Austin is four nights, not three. Some feeds drop the Friday. Cap City Comedy Club's own calendar lists the full August 27–30 engagement, with two shows on Saturday the 29th. If you're in town, Cap City is the stop.
Calgary and Cleveland are real. Both the September 26 Bella Concert Hall date in Calgary and the October 25 Hilarities date in Cleveland are confirmed at the venues but missing from some aggregated schedules.
An Anchorage date is circulating but unconfirmed. A March 27, 2027 show at Discovery Theatre appears in some ticketing feeds. The Alaska Center for the Performing Arts box office is not currently showing it. We're leaving it off the list above until the venue posts it.
Tickets
Check the Maria Bamford page on StandUpdates for ticket links and updated dates — listings refresh throughout the tour. The Brooklyn dates in particular move fast; the early show on October 10 was already gone at the time of writing.
What to Expect
Bamford's stand-up doesn't work like most people's. She performs in voices — her mother, her sister, an HR representative, a duck — and the act-outs aren't impressions so much as full inhabitations that let her say the darkest possible thing in the friendliest possible register. Mental illness, medication, family, the indignity of being a person: it's all in there, and it is consistently much funnier than that description suggests.
The venue mix tells you something about how she's playing it. This tour splits between mid-size theaters (the Neptune in Seattle, the Warner in Washington, DC, the Paramount in Denver) and actual comedy clubs — Cap City in Austin, Spokane Comedy Club, Tempe Improv, Hilarities in Cleveland, the Funny Bone in Syracuse. Comedians working out a new hour tend to want club rooms, where the audience is close and the material can breathe. Bamford is doing both, in the same run.
Cities on the Tour
The 2026 run reaches 36 cities including Des Moines, IA, Boston, MA, Providence, RI, Calgary, AB, Edmonton, AB, Philadelphia, PA, Brooklyn, NY, Victoria, BC, Saint Louis, MO, Santa Fe, NM, Tucson, AZ, Albany, NY, Buffalo, NY, Red Bank, NJ, Palm Springs, CA, New Orleans, LA, Atlanta, GA, Durham, NC, Norfolk, VA, Sacramento, CA, and Hamilton, ON.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Maria Bamford's 2026 tour have a name?
No. Unlike most theater-level comedy tours, this run isn't branded. Venues are advertising it as Maria Bamford live, and her own calendar lists dates without a tour title. Treat any site presenting a catchy "official tour name" as marketing invention.
When does the tour end?
The last currently confirmed date is Friday, January 15, 2027 at Strings Music Pavilion in Steamboat Springs, CO. A March 2027 Anchorage date is circulating but is not yet confirmed by the venue.
Which dates have two shows?
Saturday, August 29 at Cap City Comedy Club in Austin, and both Bell House nights in Brooklyn (October 10 and October 11). Club engagements commonly add a second weekend show when the first sells; check the Maria Bamford page for the current count.
Who is opening for Maria Bamford?
Jackie Kashian is opening select dates, including Des Moines, Iowa City, and Tucson. Support is not announced for every stop.
Is Maria Bamford performing new material?
Yes — the run is built around a new hour rather than material from her existing specials (Local Act, Weakness is the Brand, Old Baby, and The Special, Special, Special!). The club dates in particular are where new hours get sharpened.
Why are so many dates on weekends?
Bamford is touring in Thursday-to-Sunday blocks, clustering nearby cities into single trips instead of running consecutive weeknights. It's a lighter schedule than a typical theater tour, and it means most markets get exactly one shot.
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