Today’s highlights include the opening of the new exhibit and art show at the Dykeman-Young Gallery on 2nd Street in Jamestown entitled “Lucy I’m Home!”

The exhibit will feature furniture and other household items from Lucy’s Beverly Hills Home. You will also be able to view several pieces from Lucy’s personal art collection, and you will learn more about the artists who created the fantastic pieces that graced the walls of her fabulous abode.

The “Lucy’s Lasting Legacy Experience” will allow you to share your favorite Lucy memories while viewing the brand new “For the Love of Lucy” movie, featuring interviews with some of comedy’s hottest stars, including Bill Engvall, Kathleen Madigan, Martin Short, and others.

The exhibit is open for viewing today-Sat. 10am to 7pm and Sun. 11am to 5pm. There is no cost to see the exhibit.

Other downtown events on Wednesday include:

• Tropicana Room Lunch: Lucy’s Lost Movie
  12:30 pm
  The Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Center
• Lucy Art Class with Gary Peters
  2:30 pm
  Infinity Performing Arts
• Tropicana Room Dinner: Finding Lucy
  5:00 pm
  The Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Center
• Intro to Stand Up Comedy
  6:00 pm
  Infinity Performing Arts
• The Lucille “Ball”
  8:00 pm
  Crystal Ballroom – Hotel Jamestown

Later during the festival, stand up comedy will take center stage with appearances by Caroline Rhea, Tom Cotter and late night TV legend Jay Leno.

For a complete rundown of all events, visit www.LucyComedyFest.com.

JAMESTOWN – A big announcement will be made later today in downtown Jamestown.

Officials with the Lucille Ball-Desi Arnez Center for Comedy will be holding a press conference at noon Wednesday to announce the 2014 Lucille Ball Comedy Festival line-up. The festival is scheduled to run from Aug. 6 to Aug. 10 at various locations throughout the Jamestown area.

Lucy-Desi executive director Journey Gunderson will provide details for this year’s Comedy Festival program – scheduled to take place the first weekend of August.  A highlight of the press conference will be information on who the headline comedians will be for this year’s festival. Last year’s comedians included national acts Bill Engvall and Kathleen Madigan. In addition, Gunderson will provide an update on future plans for comedy in Jamestown.

Today’s announcement will take place at noon inside the Jamestown Gateway Train Station. WRFA will have more details following the announcement on our website wrfalp.com and also on our facebook page.

Bill Engvall

JAMESTOWN – A couple of nationally known entertainers will be making their way to Jamestown this summer to take pat in the annual Lucille Ball Comedy Festival. On Friday afternoon, officials with the Lucy-Dezi Center held a press conference in Jamestown’s Gateway Train Station to announce that Comedians Bill Engvall (ticket info) and Kathleen Madigan (ticket info) will headline the festival, scheduled for Aug. 1 through Aug. 4. descend

In addition, the Comics to Watch (ticket info) showcase of upcoming comedians presented by Pandora and the leads from the Broadway hit “I Love Lucy: Live on Stage” will also make an appearance.

Lucy-Desi Center Director Journey Gunderson tells WRFA that once again, it took a lot of work and effort to put together this year’s line up but in the end, it was well worth it.

“I certainly hoped it would come together this way and that was our intention, but it was so difficult I can not pretend that any of this was easy,” admitted Gunderson. “If you saw how many combinations of line ups we have gone threw over the winter months, thinking we could book someone, having them sit on the offer for a while then getting the news that they are taking a different offer, all of that is a tricky game to play and so we’re just thrilled that we ended up with as great a lineup as we have.”

Kathleen Madigan

One of this year’s headliners – Bill Engvall – is a nationally known comedian who is a headlining member of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. Madigan is a frequent performer on Leno, Letterman, Conan, Ferguson and nearly every other late night talk show and her stand-up show has been featured on HBO, Showtime, and Comedy Central.

In addition to the headliners, Gunderson said this year will once again feature a late-night standup show by the Rooftop Comedy troop in the Lucy-Dezi museum that will be recorded as a live comedy album; Lucille Ball’s former personal secretary Wanda Clark will make an appearance; Gregg Oppenheimer’s Live Lucy Radio Play will once again be recorded; and finally, new this year, is the appearance of the GI’s of Comedy – a group of veterans who are also stand up comedians and who perform before active duty troops and veteran groups around the world.

Between now and August, Gunderson says there’s still a lot of work to do to ensure the festival is a success. A major part of that is promoting the festival, and she’s asking any willing area residents to help serve as ambassadors of the event.

“We definitely need grassroots promotion. One way we can save some money and stay within budget, in terms of advertising, if everybody here today at this press conference was talking this festival up and telling their friends and facebooking and tweeting all of their friends outside of the area, we wouldn’t even need to advertise. And so promotional ambassadors and volunteers for the festival is a great way to participate and its really fun.”

Tickets for the Lucille Ball Comedy Festival will go on sale on April 24th, and can be purchased by visiting www.lucycomedyfest.com or calling (716)484-0800.