54 min | Comedy, Drama | Mature Never in Fringe history have I seen such well-portrayed, realistic, and beautifully sexual characters move so elegantly in large Hawaiian shirts. GARY is a fun, sexy, riveting, and driven show about three friends cleaning up the aftermath post a gay uncle’s wake. Dubbed a “Sexistential Crisis”, this show is incredibly […]
60+ min | Comedy | PG Dear David circa Wednesday, If you want to live a happier life don’t go to Duet, or: Pas de deux. It pains me to tell you this because the predominantly female cast performs the material to the best of their abilities, and Richard Kaulbars can sell a line like […]
50 min | Comedy, Travelogue | Mature Brooklyn-based playwright and Fringe veteran Martin Dockery overlays a trip to Chernobyl, Geoff Dyer’s book Zona, and the film Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky into a solo show about the search for human creativity. All three of these pieces are quests in one way or another to find the […]
60 minutes |Comedy | Play |PG A rather sophisticated story with sweet perspective shifts. Well Isn’t This Super… exhibits an impressive maturity by Dead Unicorn Ink while their irreverent edge remains firmly intact. In the amusing opening sequence, a Tinder hook-up reveals itself to be the set of a superhero movie. The production shifts between the […]
By David Currie (with Vanessa Lynn Turpin) Imagine your perfect hour away from your telephone and/or children. What does that look like? Would you visit a dance show, a drama, a comedy, or something captivating but practically impossible to put into words the next day!? This is the imagining that bound together the packed audience of […]
Kevin McDonald of Kids in the Hall fame is in Ottawa this weekend to lead a one day workshop on writing sketches through improvisation. Participants will also have the opportunity to be on stage with Kevin later that night in front of a real live audience. Pretty amazing, eh? Organized by Crush Improv, the workshop is […]
Aaron Hill is a producer and comic who runs Sunday Night Standup, 8pm Sundays at Pub 101. I totally bombed at the first Swizzles Comedy Night held back in early January, 2016. As I recall, there were four to six people in the audience, and no one seemed to know quite what to make of […]
Improv is like dancing. No one wants to be the only one doing it, but once a few people start, only the hardest of hearts can hold back. Something similar is happening in the Ottawa improv scene as new troupes continue to spring up, adding to the diversity of the local improv landscape. These days, […]
Having just completed a long stint of convalescence due to a severe injury, I have come to appreciate the power of laughing at shit when it goes horribly wrong. Thanks to the wealth of comedy specials on Netflix (and painkillers…lots of them), I was kept from going stir-crazy while the rest of you schlepped about […]
This week on Apt613 Live, we hear from Chris about Shanghai Nights, a music and comedy showcase that takes place the first Thursday of every month and what it takes to conquer your fear and become a stand-up comic. Tune in to Apt613 Live on Tuesdays from 6pm on CHUO 89.1FM.
Ottawa native and standup road warrior Jeremy Hotz will be airing his grievances on Saturday February 13th at the National Arts Centre as part of his International Man of Misery Tour, presented by Just for Laughs. Fans of comedy will recognize Hotz’ signature stance: sideward facing, chin leaning on hand and furrowed brow. He has […]
We spoke with with Brandon Hackett, who is part of the Touring Company of the storied improvisational comedy troupe The Second City. Hackett, with the rest of the Touring Company, will be in Ottawa tonight performing The Best of The Second City, which features some of the best-loved sketches from the company’s long history, as well as […]
The award-winning musical Avenue Q will return to Ottawa June 17-20 thanks to Toto Too Theatre Company. The director, Michael Gareau, reveals that the show will deliver a Canadianized performance (with the help of 11 cast members and 32 puppets), promising to be hilariously entertaining, potentially offensive but relevant to the harsher realities of life […]
If you’ve ever found yourself walking about this city and thinking something the lines of, “I’m simply not laughing anymore,” you might be in for a surprise treat this weekend. Why? Because this weekend will see a veritable explosion of stand-up comedy in the form of Comedy Explosion, a pre-Ottawa Explosion explosion of comedy! Featuring […]
These days, with so many things going on around us, how many of you have time to treat yourselves to a good laugh? Well, you can begin by making plans to attend Crush Improv’s Fifth Anniversary Show this Friday at 8pm. I’ll even pause a few moments while you call/text/email/holler-at/tweet that person you’re crushing on. […]
