Abby Wambaugh's 'The First 3 Minutes of 17 Shows' to run off Broadway this fall

Hannah Gadsby presents Wambaugh's solo comedy show, which comes to Dixon Place for four weeks only following a hit run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Award-winning comedian Abby Wambaugh will bring her debut solo comedy show The First 3 Minutes of 17 Shows off Broadway this fall. Presented by Hannah Gadsby (Nanette, Woof!), the show is set to run at Dixon Place in Manhattan from October 1-25 only.

Wambaugh is a comedian, writer, and improviser who won multiple awards for her performances of The First 3 Minutes of 17 Shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2024 and 2025. The show, directed by Lara Ricote, takes place after Wambaugh has a miscarriage and decides, while still high on anesthesia, to become a comedian.

Within 65 minutes, she shares bits of 17 ideas she had for her first show, like “Old Man Learns Parkour” and a long impression of the number nine. Spanning multiple comedy genres, the show explores gender, pregnancy, loss, creativity, and the value of beginnings without a middle or end.

“When I moved to Copenhagen from Brooklyn seven years ago, I was a teacher who had never even considered trying stand-up. To return to the place where so much of this story happened with an Off-Broadway show about beginnings, is nearly unbelievable to me,” said Wambaugh in a statement. “I'm so excited to get to do this show in front of the friends and family who were there for the real thing, and — maybe most of all — in front of my high school drama teacher. I'm also thrilled to finally perform it in a country where I don't have to explain what a CVS is.”

“I saw this show a year ago and haven’t stopped thinking about it since…except for maybe a couple of days when I was being very self-involved,” said Gadsby in a statement. “Abby is a brilliant, rare talent, and this show is so many good things. It’s genius, it’s refreshing, it is so, so funny. And you have to be in the room to experience the real magic.”

Check back for information on The First 3 Minutes of 17 Shows tickets on New York Theatre Guide.

Photo credit: Abby Wambaugh. (Photo by Marie Hald)