ZooFest Programming

To help you navigate Just For Laugh’s Zoofest programming, I’ve broken down all the shows by language and genre for you below. The Zoofest website is difficult to navigate so hopefully this will help you choose which shows to see. There are quite a few shows that look fantastic. Shows I’ve seen and personally recommend have a little Annette head beside them:

English

Improv

• ASSSSCAT (UCB): Improv comedians currently working in TV and film are accompanied by a special guest monologist, who tells stories inspired by an audience suggestion. Feat. Horatio Sanz.
• Greatest Concert Ever: With a live backing band, UCB performers portray the greatest musical entertainers of all time. Feat. Horatio Sanz.
• North America’s Best Comic: Fake Stand-up comedians portrayed by UCB performers compete to be named North America’s Best Comic.
• The Bitter End: The Bitter End is a fearless, improvised sitcom about brothers thrust back into each other’s lives.
• The Facebook Show (UCB): Two audience members are randomly picked to get their Facebook page examined and then turned into long form improvisational comedy.
• The Improvised Shakespeare Company: Based on one audience suggestion, they create a fully improvised comedic play, Elizabethan style.
• UCB Will Get You Laid! (UCB): We pair up audience members to go on a blind date backstage during the show while an expert panel of comedians watch and comment on live video coverage of the date onstage.

Music & Dance & Circus

• Amp’d the Music Comedy Show: Explore the funny side of music with some of the hottest acts in comedy, feat. Reggie Watts
• GIRL: GIRL’s music is inspired by the sixties love message and bands such as U2, Joy Division, Coldplay and Arcade Fire.
• Kate Micucci Playin’ With Micucci (UCB): A ukelele-weilding musician who will present a variety of whimsical songs, stories, sketches and suprises. (BE CAREFUL WITH SHOW TIMES. ZOOFEST SITE LISTS 7PM. JFL SITE LISTS 10PM)
• Cognac & Sausages: This aerial comedy show combines aerial finesse with the sublimely ridiculous.
• Tomboy: Band-of-the-future: A 45-minute multimedia cabaret show set with a dystopian future.

Stand-up / Storytelling

• Aziz Ansari (UCB): Parks and Recreations star Aziz Ansari brings his laid-back straight-up stand-up laden with his trademark left-field punches.
• Best of Homegrown Comic Competition: Debra DiGiovanni hosts a line-up of nine promising comics, feat. DeAnne Smith.
• Chris Gethard’s Magic Box of Stories (UCB): Chris Gethard has lived a weird life filled with many weird stories. Now he’s ready to share them as the audience picks stories from his Magic Box.
• Gina Yashere: The first British comic to appear on HBO’s “Def Comedy Jam”
• Jimeoin on Ice: Australia’s Jimeoin’s no gimmicks, no message stand-up
• Marc Maron Scorching the Earth: The Air America host turns every bad memory into pure, universal humour.
• Mini-Gala Bang!: A night of revolving skits and talents
• New Faces of Comedy: Up-and-comming stand-ups. Feat. Sugar Sammy
• Nikki Payne – My Big Fat Donated Kidney: A ridiculous adventure within the health care system.
• Paul Provenza’s Green Room: Festival performers come to chat with Aristocrats’ director and comedy maven Paul Provenza.
• Ross Noble Live: Ross interweaves multiple topics, stories and audience interactions for one hilariously frenzied performance.
• Simon Amstell: An exploration of the self, a meditation on the meaninglessness of existence, death, etc.
• The Alternative Comedy Show: Bold assortment of innovative humour, bizarre characters, unusual approaches and simply out-there ideas.
• Underplayed and in Demand: A unique stand-up show featuring a live mock documentary about the fictional comedy group, Stand-Up Guys.

Sketch

• The Sketch Show: Sketches from the Birthday Boys (USA), Idiots of Ants (UK), The Imponderables (CAN), and Two White Guys (US).
• Uncalled For: This is intelligent, theatrical, free-flowing hilarity that doesn’t bother with vulgarity or cynicism.

Theatre

• Anatomy of a Broken Love Affair: Two short plays: a thoughtful look at a relationship that can’t keep going and a comedy about a relationship the just won’t stop.
• Antoine Feval (Best of the English Montreal Fringe): Chris Gibbs’ one-man tale of deduction and deceit, featuring Victorian England’s most overlooked detective.
• Four Minutes if you Bleed: A play about the parts of our lives we reveal and the parts we keep hidden.
• Lennon Parham: She Tried to be Normal (UCB): A late night DJ takes you into the lives of eight people doing their damnedest just to be normal.
• Mark Watson all the Throughts I’ve Had Since I Was Born: The story of how a famous self-help book changed his life.
• Paradise Lost: Puppets, computer animation, and rock ‘n roll; Milton’s epic poem gets a 21st century face lift.
• The Girl in the Picture Tries to Hang Up the Phone: This one-person show is about a man’s struggle to understand his alcoholic mother’s life and death. Frank, celebratory, humorous, and redemptive.
• The Human Voice: A woman in a closed room has only a telephone and her voice to try and reach a departing lover
• The King’s Conscience: A princely young man battles the demons that haunt him following the mysterious death of his father. He finds solace in rap music and the potential of language.
• The Very Late Show: No rules, lots of suprise guests and a chance to hang out with your favourite comedians after the lights go out.

Variety / Other

• Crash Test (UCB)The format is ever changing, from improv to stand-up to special screenings and one-night-only event shows. Feat. Human Giant’s Rob Huebel and Paul Scheer. (CANCELLED)
• Lady Peasblossoms Sanctuary: A heavily improvised performance art installation combining aerial, dance, theatre and art.
• Silent Disco: Two friends organized a secret party at a Dutch festival, nobody knew.
• The Hills: A Staged Reading (UCB): Comedians perform a staged reading of an episode of The Hills with much more gravitas than it could possibly deserve.
• Whiteman’s Whiskey Comedy Revue: Re-imagines the live-to-air variety shows from the golden age of tv and subverts that once wholesome image into an irreverant and witty night complete with a live band.

Bilingual

Dance

• Dance Animal (Best of the English Montreal Fringe): Ten dancers with one dynamic dance mission: to spread sexy-electric-joy-energy across the globe.
• Metro: A hilarious look at public transportation blending hard hitting street styles with haunting contemporary works.

Sketch

• Best of Bilingual Sketch: Top English and French sketch groups sharing a stage. No info on participating groups.

Theatre

• Café Café: Café Café by Alain Mercieca is about arts, artists, artichokes and how they intersect in a coffee shop in the heart of Montreal.
• Once and For All We’re Going to Tell You Who We Are So Shut Up and Listen: A play that can only be performed by teenagers who are rebellious and play like children but who are sometimes surprisingly adult.

French

Music

• Charleypop & Friends: In his new show, Charlypop invites us to a musical cabaret where beatbox, comedy and music entertwine.

Sketch

• Les grand burlesques: A sectacle of skits that remind us of a time when comedic performances rivalled the greatest of theatrical productions.
• MC Gilles: A showcase of humourous sketches, weird news, funny old-fashioned music, etc.
• Sketchup moutarde!: Sometimes absurd, sometimes plain stupid, 6 comedians/musicians/dancers/ using their talents to crack you up.

Stand-up / Storytelling

• À quoi tu penses: Three answer the age-old question women just love to ask: “What are you thinking about?”
• École nationale de l’humour: 14 comedians collide in a collective show that is sometimes serious, sometimes ridiculous.
• Fabrice Éboué & Doniel Jack’sman: 2 comedians deliver bitchy jokes, quick wit, and fast-paced rap-like delivery.
• Gaydailles Show: A time to reflect on gay and lesbian realities.
• Le Girly Show: Four 27 to 33-year old comediennes with guts and high spirits.
• Jonathan Lambert: He will meet a prison guard with a strange sense of humour, he will work as a human alarm clock in a parking lot, become a magician’s assistant and more.
• Kev Adams: Fresh and tongue-in-cheek stand-up and sketch show
• Le 3 à 4: A talk show for those that enjoy inappropriate text messages and jokes that make you feel uncomfortable
• Les jambons de l’humour: Four comedians offer a fast-paced show–absurd characters, performance, video projection and traditional stand-up.
• Redouanne Harjane: A show in which dark humour and absurdity mingle to denounce the tragic truth about humanity.
• Show XXX: 5 comedians.
• Thomas Ngicol: In A block, Thomas plays characters disappointed by a black Superman and the Cosby Show.
• Tom & Verino: Why must we all learn geometry in school? Why mustn’t we put our elbows on the table?
• Top 5: Five promising comedy newcomers.

Theatre

• Arianna: An Imaginary tale for the whole family which takes place in a world full of mystery and magical creatures.
• 4 Contres Crades (Best of the French Montreal Fringe): A hyperactive bicycle courrier tells tales, funny and cruel.

Variety

• Humour et Magie: A variety show full of humour run by three emerging artists.

Review: Uncalled For Presents: Today is all Your Birthdays

I very much enjoyed Uncalled For’s latest show, Today is all Your Birthdays, an outing that has the look and feel of a longform improv show rather than a sketch show. They deftly wrap their absurdism in themes that run throughout the show, thus indulging their love for the absurd without letting the performance become so. It’s well written, well performed, and a real hoot.

Very recommended!
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ImFest Day 4 (early show)

The early show was fantastic and consistently so. TSC, StoryBox Theatre (Chicago) and Uncalled For each used their 20 minutes in different ways.

TSC crammed the most story into their 20 minutes, with a documentary about a kid going to jail for overreacting to a breakup. Their loose structure allowed for some very smooth storytelling and a very easy rapport with the audience. It was also freakin’ funny.

StoryBox retold the fairytale of Hansel and Gretel, using a much stricter structure. (They have a 45-page glossary of terms!) Within their structure, though, there is a lot of room for players to narrate, play music, or jump into the action themselves. The most important aspect of their philosophy is for the main characters to experience a change. I quite liked their stylized opening and closing.

Interestingly, the main characters in TSC’s story changed much more subtly than the coming-of-age change of Hansel and Gretel, and yet it was just as satisfying. I think a fairytale does require a more obvious change, but the comparison was interesing.

Uncalled For did a long-form where where it was more about the journey than the destination. Each sentence was inspected and prodded for funniness with great success.

Montreal may have a small improv scene, but I am convinced that our top performers can play with the best of them. Tonight, they certainly did.

Sketch Fest 2008, Day 3

Just caught Day 3 of the Montreal Sketch Festival. Uncalled For began the show with a really good set. I think their Fringe show will be even better than last year’s. Their opening cop scene, the explosion monologue, and Anders’ and Matt’s French showdown were the highlights for me.

Best Friends’ Club, featuring Marc and TSC’s Brent, Etan and Dan B. came next with a shorter but great set too. The rawness and poignancy of Dan’s 2-part father video, the wild array of SCUBA acronyms, and Marc’s final bow were all top notch.

It was a fine night of comedy. I think this night of Sketch was better than any night last year. I wish the night had ended right then, because, honestly, the rest was just filler.

As much as I like the guys behind Sour Cream and Chives and liked their ideas, they were unrehearsed, and as much as I respect the stand-up of the later guys, this isn’t a stand-up, video or song revue.

It’s nice that the festival is basically open to all comers, but I hope that next year will see fewer people just trying shit out. Acts need to respect the festival and prepare accordingly, or the festival needs to start laying down the law. I feel like a sourpuss for saying this, because the festival much like the theatre has such a good, open vibe to it, but the commitment and preparation of the first two groups should be standard, not exemplary.

That said, I recommend the festival to all. There is something for everyone, and the out-of-towners coming in are sure to be good.