Tag: Sketch Comedy

I’m sure you’re sitting on the edge of your seat right now just dying to know how the debut performance of Getting Even with Chesapeake turned out, so I won’t keep you in a state of suspense.

Or will I?

HAHAHAHAHAHA Blah blah blooooooooo lalahfjdhfkdakda.

No, I won’t.  It went fine.  We didn’t move on in the competition, but it was fun to be performing sketch comedy again in a non-academically-obligatory kinda way.  It was also great to perform in an non-entirely Humber-based audience.  Helps to shed some objectivity on life in general, as a whole.

Buuuut that being said… congrats to troupes Sketch & The City, Jape and Parker & Seville for moving on to the next round of the contest!

I’m going to go back to Sketch Com-ageddon tonight to catch more of the action because I loooooove sketch comedy! (And because performers get a 4-free show pass.)

Good luck to all you bloodthirsty troupes!

Today is an exciting day.  This evening, I will be performing with my new sketch troupe for the very first time.  They are called Getting Even with Chesapeake and are composed of Ashley Moffatt, Paige McIntyre, Matt Surina & myself.  Ashley, Matt & I had been talking about working together for a long time and we brought Paige on board because she’s a great writer and she and I have been working together on Cat Chatz – so it all made sense!

Consequently, this will be my first time performing in a sketch troupe since the decomposition of LaughDraft earlier this year and the subsequent denial of my entry into the troupe that formed out of the dregs that was LaughDraft – so, I think it’s fair to say I’m pretty damn excited to get back into the swing of sketch comedy with this awesome group of people!  🙂

Getting Even with Chesapeake is making its debut, performing as part of the Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival’s Sketch Com-Ageddon competition with many other awesome troupes from around town as well as a lot of newbies.

It should be a fun time – so feel free to come check us out.    The sketch-dule is RIGHT HERE!

See you tonight!

Comedy in a yoga studio?  It happens.

The Young Geologists, a sketch troupe featuring two of my favorite comedy peoples Erin Rodgers and Gillian English, host a monthly sketch/stand-up show at The Theatre Elusive, whose headquarters appear to be in a yoga studio, given the nice wooden floors and all the mats.

It wasn’t super packed, but what I got out of this space was a sense of community and support among performers and other comics and friends in the audience, which I think many might agree, can be hard to come by in this often competitive field.  Also, just a solid night of comedy – the always hilarious stand-up of Luke Gordon Field, and some great sketches by The Whisky Dicks & The Young Geologists, both troupes I hadn’t yet seen perform, so it was great to finally get to see ’em!

The audience was warm and receptive and most stuck around afterwards to indulge in the complimentary beer, cookies and berries.   It might not be huge, but this show is funny, warm, free and offers a space to perform on a Friday, which is awesome!

I was very pleased to be a part of this show and I look forward to doing it again sometime !   🙂

Maybe finding the right sketch troupe is like finding true love: you can’t force it to happen because it comes when you least expect it!

Or maybe I’m a hopeless 2am optimist.

Either way, this Melba toast & cheese is delicious!

It’s cut.  It’s re-cast.  Re-write this.  Re-write it, but make it like it was before you re-wrote it.  This is where we’re at in Industry Show preparations.  It’s terrible and wonderful all at the same time.  And I wouldn’t give it up for anything.

Well…. maybe money.  Lots and lots of money.

I’m gonna go a bit fangirl for a second.  Please excuse, but I have to contain myself while at school so… here goes:

Um, it’s pretty dang nifty, I’d say, to work in a writer’s room with Dave Foley.  I ugh, how can?  I don’t.  What?  It’s Dave Foley for crying out loud.  My parents hated how obsessed I was with the Kids in the Hall growing up.  I was too young to catch their show when it originally aired, but I would watch re-runs on the early days of the Comedy Network repeatedly.  I would TAPE sketches on VHS, the ones I liked the most.   That feels like so long ago.  I had a pen-pal I met on a KITH fan message board.  A message board!  Do they even still have those?  Other than like, craigslist or kijiji!?!?  She sent me photos of their show in New York and I to her from their show in Buffalo.  She sent me Dave’s autograph.  Holy shit, I just remembered that now.   I used to quote Brain Candy with my friends.  Dina did a great Baxter!   I had a poster of The Wrong Guy on my wall when I was in high school for Pete’s sake.  Most of you probably haven’t even HEARD of the Wrong Guy!

And now I’m working with him in a writer’s room!!!!  Life, you’re being awesome right now!

 

How’s this for criticizing the Western trend of adopting Eastern philosophy?  From Wikipedia:  “This article is about the religious concept. For the American grunge band, see Nirvana (band).”

I thought writing a sketch about yoga would be easier.    Maybe if I myself, achieve maksha, this process will be rendered simpler.  Or moot, probably.


Blah.  Back to work.

Why not start this evening’s writing process with a little procrastination?  I need to re-write one of my sketches from the end-of-year sketch show (which was a LOT of fun, but I don’t think I got to write about it too much, other than about Steve’s injuries) AND begin writing a new sketch to be table-read either tomorrow or in the next few days because, well…today, we began the second day of a two-week process leading up to the anticipated/prestigious Industry Show.

(I made it in!!! OMG OMG OMG!  YAY! I’m so happy!!! And honoured!!! AND STOKED!)

The Industry Show will be taking place Monday May 7th at the Second City Main Stage, (where I have been working for the past 3 weeks) and will have an audience of many  industry-types checking it out.  Some previous Humber grads have gone on to be signed by agents as a result of performing in the show and though I may not be that optimistic/delusional, I see it as being an excellent opportunity (one of hopefully many to come) to be seen, in action, by some key players in the industry.

We’ve been issued a schedule of “10am – ?” for the duration of time leading up to the final rehearsals the weekend before the 7th, which makes having a job pretty difficult – actually, it makes me feel real guilty about having to ask for time off work.   I haven’t seen the people at the Career Centre in what feels like ages and I only started at the Second City not too long ago, so I feel like a real dink asking for this much time off.

Anyway, the atmosphere in the room is really interesting.  We’ve got a bunch of tables forming a square and all 26 of us sitting around the tables, pitching sketches, contributing ideas and being relentlessly mocked by Lorne Frohman, the showrunner who, by the way, keeps telling me I’m loud.  If he thinks that’s loud, he should meet my grandmother on cleaning day.  It’s really interesting because throughout the program I’ve been commenting on how great it would be to get to work with other people from other sections who I didn’t have the chance to work with yet, and now here we are, all collaborating in one room.  It’s a pretty neat environment.

Well, I’ve gone on long enough about this.  Time to get back to work.  No.  Time to eat lasagna, then get back to work.

It’s time to light the lights.

It’s time for #cliché – Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire: A Humber Comedy 2nd Year Section 02 End-of-Year Sketch Show.

We performed the first of our two-night run and, it what seemed like the blink of an eye, it came and went.  An incredibly fun blink of an eye, but it seemed like it went by real fast, is what I’m getting at.

The highlight of the evening was probably the fact that le petit Steve Gignac was actually punched in the face on stage, by accident, by Robit Kyle Woolven.  As they say in show biz, “it’s all fun and games until Steve’s nose is bleeding in the green room.”

Steve is Beavis in this situation.

We perform again tomorrow night at 7pm & you should be there.  Because our show’s hilarious.  Like, really really great.  And if you don’t like it, we’ll sick Kyle on you.

It’s hard to believe we’re currently rehearsing for our end-of year sketch show!

It seems like just yesterday I was sitting in the audience as the second years from last year gave it their all one last time before graduating and/or moving on to the Industry Show. I’m so excited to see everyone’s sketches, the remount of some people’s plays, but most of all — I am stoked to FINALLY see our parody videos we filmed all last semester ago!

  (See: Parody Shoots.)

And, I’m excited to actually put on our show, obviously.  It really is going to be a good one.  We’ve really extracted some of the funniest written scenes, with some of the funniest characters from over the past two years for your viewing and laughing pleasure.  And everyone on the team gets a few opportunities to shine! (…)

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to perform sketch comedy, and as repetitive as I’ve been in saying it, I really miss doing it.  Paige & I also get to showcase some of our dance experience in this show – in two numbers.  So hey parents, all those 15 years of lessons are paying off. (Not literally.  I don’t get paid for this.  But maybe one day it’ll actually pay off.  In this case, it’s just paying off because I’ve been cast in two scenes because I can dance and sing simultaneously.)

Maybe I’m too tired to be posting today.  (Maybe that’s why everything’s in brackets.)

Maybe that five hour rehearsal for 10 minute’s worth of (terribly flawed) stage time really wiped me out.

Maybe it was working til midnight yesterday.

I’m finally caught up with Mad Men.

I need an oil change.

And to do laundry.

Zzzzz…