Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival
The Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival is just around the corner and we at Plank are as excited as furrowed-brow arts journalists get (there’ll be a tin of wet food for Mittens and a sliced hot dog in the KD tonight)!
With nearly fifty local, national, and international troupes filling the lineup, Sketch Fest promises to be a smorgasbord for comedy lovers. With the 40th anniversary of Monty Python’s Flying Circus being celebrated this year, there is a mood of festivity in the air - a mood which will only be enhanced by the fact that this year also marks the 5th anniversary of the sketch festival itself. Five years may not seem like that long a time, but compare that to the life span of the average Canadian sketch comedy troupe and perhaps celebrations aren’t that out of order after all.
Sketch Fest launches with a special anniversary party hosted by Eric Toth of the Imponderables and featuring performances by The Understudies, She Said What, and Falcon Powder. There have also been tantalizing hints that cake will be served. Hopefully a professionally baked cake as everyone knows that sketch comedians are disastrously inept in the kitchen. Scott Thompson of Kids in the Hall fame once tried to make cupcakes and screwed up the recipe so badly that he accidentally summoned rainbow sprinkle demons (they were a lot nastier than they sound).
The big change of note this year is a new venue. Replacing the sadly underappreciated and now closed Diesel Playhouse is the grandpapa of independent Toronto theatres, Theatre Passe Muraille. With greater capacity and more prestige than the Diesel cabaret space, Passe Muraille should help bring in bigger crowds and new audience members to the world of sketch comedy - just as Impromptu Splendor did for improv with their inclusion and noteworthy performances at this year’s Summerworks festival.
Returning are the professional development workshops and industry panels that enriched last year’s festival. Given that sketch is a medium that plays second fiddle to traditional narrative in the world of theatre and to standup in the world of comedy, these panels are a rare opportunity for sketch performers to discuss and dissect their industry in a serious manner. Topics this year include “Low Budget Comedy”, “Scenic Improvisation”, and “Writing Sketch Comedy: Concept to Final Draft”, all moderated by well established professionals with fancy resumes.
Having said that, the heart of Sketch Fest is of course the performances, and there is no doubt they will be a treat.
The Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival is on right now and runs through to November 15th. For more information improv yourself here (I know it's not an improv festival, but still I was making a pun, see?)