Glenys Marshall and Maggie Harder make up the comedy duo Small Fish, which has been taking the Ottawa arts community by storm.
Marshall, a musical comedian and producer, and Harder, a producer who also manages events at Art House, both co-write, co-host and perform across a variety of stages around the city.
Since forming in 2023, Small Fish has seen much success, selling out venues like the Mayfair, and performing and hosting at festivals like the Ottawa Fringe Fest and Capital Pride.
Their mission? To create a space where art meets activism, for and by marginalized communities.
(L-R): Maggie Harder and Glenys Marshall. Photo provided.
“We just love to create events and experiences together and laugh the whole way through,” says Marshall. “We both have very similar dreams and complementary skills that I think have made us brighter and better performers than we were alone — it’s pretty much a match made in heaven for us.”
Marshall says that she had moved to Toronto to flex her comedy muscles just before the pandemic hit, and after burning herself out, moved back to Ottawa. She then joined forces with Harder who had been performing comedy in Ottawa, and felt re-inspired by some of the local work and local voices that had emerged after the lockdown.
“We were talking about how there was a space missing in Ottawa for people like us and for the art that we wanted to make,” says Marshall. “[Small Fish] is not going to be a place where you feel like you have to shrink yourself away before you can do the art that you want to do.”
“I think something really special about Small Fish, especially in its creation process, is that we’re curating the audience as much as we’re curating the line-up,” says Harder. “It’s putting out a sort of Bat-Signal to our community and indicating that this is a space of community-minded folks, and that joy is so vital to any kind of activism — there needs to be joy, and I think that’s what we bring.”
(L-R): Maggie Harder and Glenys Marshall. Photo provided.
To prepare for a Small Fish show, audiences can expect a night of tomfoolery, which not only features a muppet-style intro — complete with Marshall’s immaculate key-tar coordination — but also includes two to four guest acts.
“These can be anything,” says Harder. “They can be drag, burlesque, poets, we’ve had a fiddle player, we’re getting a rapper this month — we’ve had any and all variety of acts.”
The show also includes songs, sketch comedy and improv that Marshall and Harder have created together, or solo, and also features a segment called “Tiny Talent,” which is an audience talent show, except all of the talents must be 30 seconds or less.
“I think having that taste of being involved in the show and being part of the show in some ways is more significant than the talent itself,” says Marshall. “It’s a way of connecting with your community and feeling like you could easily be a part of the show as well.”
Small Fish performed at Irene’s Pub on Feb. 26 to celebrate their two-year anniversary. While quite the accomplishment, there is no slowing down for these two.
They will also be performing on March 7-8 at Toronto Sketchfest, March 14-15 at the Great Canadian Theatre Company (GCTC), as well as a handful of Fringe Festivals across the country including the Ottawa Fringe Festival, the Winnipeg Fringe Festival and the Guelph Fringe Festival for Harder’s first ever solo stand-up comedy show.
(L-R): Glenys Marshall and Maggie Harder. Photo provided.
For Ottawa audiences who couldn’t make it to the show at Irene’s Pub, the GCTC show promises to bring all the greatest hits of a Small Fish show.
“This is a showcase of what me and Glenys can do and what we’ve been bringing to Ottawa the last two years,” says Harder. “We usually try to bring something new to every Small Fish show that we’ve done, and a lot of these things actually don’t get to see the light of day again. So, we’ve gone through our stories and all the scripts and characters that we’ve created over these two years and we’ve consolidated them all into one big showcase, giving these pieces new life on the big stage.”
“This is successful beyond my wildest imagination,” says Harder. “I think a lot of my 17-year-old self when I’m doing this project because this would have been 17-year-old Maggie’s dream to be able to do this and see it so tangibly succeeding.”
Part of the Small Fish manifesto is to create a space for yourself and to make your own platform, which is something that both Harder and Marshall wildly advocate for.
“One of the things Maggie and I said was that if there was a space like Small Fish in Ottawa, we would have been there, right?” says Marshall. “If you are feeling like there’s not quite a space for you or there’s not quite an opportunity for you to make the art that you want to make, carve it out.”
(L-R): Glenys Marshall and Maggie Harder. Photo provided.
Marshall says that although skeptical about the Ottawa arts community at first, she has seen a drive and passion in this city that has cultivated a thriving community coming out of the pandemic. Not only has she reconnected with the city, the connection she has with Harder is also very special.
“To be partnered with my best friend, someone who I respect, not only their soul, but their comedy and the art that they make as well,” says Marshall. “There’s no desire for us to leave Ottawa because we see all this fire in the communities that we do get to be a part of.”
You can catch Small Fish at the Great Canadian Theatre Company (GCTC) through March 14-15 at 8pm. Tickets for the performance can be found here, and make sure you hit up the Small Fish Instagram for up-to-date performance information.
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