Good comedy only looks effortless from the audience, and it turns out ImprovBoston’s seventh annual Boston Comedy Arts Festival has a lot more going on behind the scenes than will be obvious while throwing out scene suggestions.

The seventh annual Women in Comedy Festival arrives Wednesday with some wondering at an article that missed women in comedy almost entirely.

The new show is billed as family-friendly but not aimed specifically at kids – “appropriate for anyone with a sense of humor” is how club associate producer Mac Gostow puts it.

The Stand-Up Sit Down returns Tuesday as a show where you get to hear jokes from three comedians, then get to hear what’s behind those jokes.

If you’re not prepared for Friday’s start of the gift-giving holiday season, at least you can ease into it satirically with The ImprovBoston Holiday Spectacular.

The Stand Up Sit Down returns with three comedians – and a chance to ask those comedians about their joke-writing and artistic process and material.

GoreFest, ImprovBoston’s 12-year Halloween tradition, brings backs its “Gruesome Tale of Penny Dreadful” for eight shows starting Oct. 23.

True fans of comedy will love Tuesday’s Stand Up Sit Down, where the audience hears comedy, then gets to pick comedians’ brains about their process.

Cambridge remains a seriously great place to take in funny science. The 24th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony is Thursday, and BAHFest returns in October.

Improv, sketch and standup comedy acts come to Central and Harvard squares Wednesday through Sunday for the Boston Comedy Arts Festival.