Events

Update 8/24/2026--  The online ticket system has been deactivated, but there are still a few tickets left.  contact Mark Vadala (978-490-0939) to reserve tickets for Thursday, Sept 3, 2026 Comedy Show.  

Tickets are now available to the annual Gloucester Rotary Comedy Night, featuring Paul Gilligan, Kelly MacFarland, Dan Donahue, and Dave Rattigan on Thursday, Sept 3, 2026, at Cruiseport Gloucester, located at 6 Rowe Square on Gloucester’s harborfront. Doors open at 7pm and the show starts at 8pm.

Don't miss this evening of fun and laughter! Tickets are $35 each. Proceeds from this fundraiser will benefit local and international programs of the Gloucester Rotary. For information, contact Mark Vadala (978-490-0939).

(This event always sells out!!)

Thank you to Scamps Comedy for producing this event. 

Comedian Bios:

Paul Gilligan is one of the most requested headliners in Boston, bringing down the house with an attitude developed as a high school class clown in Malden, and with material culled from his life as a licensed electrician, husband and father living in a North Shore suburb. In addition to working Boston clubs, golf tournaments, fundraisers, roasts, and other events, Gilligan is a regular performer at the Riviera Casino in Las Vegas. He's appeared on NESN on Dirty Water TV and Charlie Moore Outdoors. He is often requested to work for trade association groups, including as MC at the Boston Construction Awards.

Kelly McFarland has an extensive and well-rounded resume including comedy clubs, theaters, colleges, cruises, festivals, television appearances and entertaining US troops overseas. She was first runner up in the Boston Comedy Festival and voted Best of the Fest at the Aspen Rooftop Comedy Festival. McFarland has two albums available on iTunes, Amazon and SiriusXM radio. She has performed at the Oddball Comedy Festival, the Comedy Stage at Boston Calling Music Festival, Lucille Ball Comedy Festival – National Comedy Center and has been a featured headliner for the Boston Women in Comedy Festival since inception. She has also appeared on Stand Up in Stilettos on the TV Guide Channel, The Today Show, The View, Comedy Central, NBC’s Last Comic Standing and AXS Gotham Comedy LIVE. Kelly won 1st place in the professional category of the 2016 Ladies of Laughter.  She has played Boston Garden with Denis Leary’s Comics Come Home concert.

Man-mountain Dan Donahue works in theaters around New England as the opener for Juston McKinney, and he’s also shared the stage with Boston headliners such as Jimmy Dunn, Mike McDonald, Christine Hurley, Mike Donovan, Paul Nardizzi and Dave Rattigan. He has performed at the prestigious Hampton Beach Comedy Festival and appeared in the horror-comedy short Mars Hill Bait & Tackle.

Host Dave Rattigan has performed in Ireland, Japan, at Fenway Park, The Cape Cod Melody Tent, South Shore Music Circus, a lumberyard, the lobby of an ad agency, a library, and several parking lots. His stand-up has been played on SiriusXM Radio, he’s performed on the syndicated Steve Katsos Show, and he’s been featured on television commercials on NESN. He’s a regular at the Hampton Beach (NH) and Cotuit comedy festivals and is part of the Ranting Parents Comedy Tour. “There’s nothing funny about the way he looks, until he gives that deadpan look of his,” popular blogger Ralph Fatello (RalphsPic.com) wrote. “His outward appearance is something out of a mature GQ magazine.  He looks like a cross between a semi hip banker, and your mild-mannered father-in-law …. Dave is the master of completely dismantling himself in front of a crowd of strangers.  I’m always torn as to whether I should console him or just laugh my ass off like everyone else ….”