On the campaign trail last year, Easton Mayor Sal Panto knocked on city-based comedian Liz Russo's door.

Russo told him she couldn't leave her door open, because she'd just gotten a new cat.

"I know," Panto told her. "His name is Boots."

"I couldn't believe the Mayor of Easton knew I had a cat named Boots - all thanks to Facebook!" Russo said in an e-mail to Easton Patch.

She was sharing that story because her dialogue with Panto eventually led to the creation of something new for Easton: the city's first comedy night.

Sponsored by the Mayor's Office of Special Events and hosted by Russo, "Easton Laughs" arrives Friday at the Riverside Park ampitheater.

"This is the type of show you'd see at the Sands Casino or the State Theater, but it's free and it's in downtown Easton," said Russo, a comic who's performed with people like Dave Chappelle, Jim Norton, and Lisa Lampanelli.

She'll be joined by two New York City comedians, Mark DeMayo and Pete Dominick.

DeMayo, who performs in New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, has appeared on Punchline TV and is also a regular guest on the "Wake-Up Club" on KISS-FM. He's also been on Si-TV’s Latino Laugher, Jamie Foxx's, Laffapalooza Comedy Festival,  and Showtime’s White Boyz in the Hood.

Dominick has performed at clubs throughout New York City, and works as the warm-up comic for The Colbert Report (he's also performed in the same capacity for The Daily Show). He's a regular opener for The Howard Stern Show’s Artie Lange, and was chosen to perform at the "New Faces of Comedy" show at the Just For Laughs Montreal Comedy Festival in 2006.

Russo, who grew up on College Hill and now lives in the West Ward, works as a producer as well as a performer. This fall, she hopes to work with a group of Lafayette College students to produce an all-female comedy show.

It's a project that comes a few months after the comedy world found itself in the middle of a controversy sparked by Adam Carolla saying that female comedy writers were "always the least funny."

""The reason why you know more funny dudes than funny chicks is that dudes are funnier than chicks," he told the New York Post last month.

Russo has a different take.

Comedy "is definitey a male-centered industry," she said. "There are more funny men because there are more men."

Easton Laughs: Friday, July 20 at 8 p.m. (seating begins at 7 p.m.) at the Riverside Park Ampitheater. This show is intended for audiences 18 and over.