Script Tease Theatre Passe Muraille (16 Ryerson Avenue) May 28–June 3, various times $15–$20 Here’s how a Script Tease works: Ten playwrights submit the first two pages of a new play. Those pages are sealed in individual envelopes. Over the course of a week, three performers from the renowned improv theatre company The National Theatre [...]

On the internet, at least, there’s been no bigger Canadian comedy success story to date than Picnicface. The troupe’s eight members, who honed their technique playing regularly on stage in Halifax, are often cited as the successors to ’90s Toronto-based comedy stars The Kids in the Hall. Picnicface’s biggest claim to fame, the over-the-top Powerthirst [...]

Never accuse Toronto sketch troupe Approximately 3 Peters of not giving back to the comedy community. Winners of the peer-voted Sketchiest Sketch Troupe Award at last November’s Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival, the Peters organized the second edition of the Sketchiest Sketch Show, which took place at Comedy Bar on Saturday. According to Ian MacIntyre (the [...]

Jerry Seinfeld Comedy Tour Sony Centre for the Performing Arts (1 Front Street East)May 4, 7 p.m., May 5, 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. In the half hour before Jerry Seinfeld took to the stage at the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts, where he performed three shows this past weekend, Sinatra hits flowed from [...]

In many ways, Bret “The Hitman” Hart is the last of his kind. When professional wrestling ushered in a new era of in-your-face attitude and increasingly grey morality in the 2000s, he was the dyed-in-the-wool hero who refused to sacrifice the integrity of his character in the face of a shifting culture. And for his [...]

The end of 2011 was a tumultuous time for The Boom. The veteran Toronto sketch troupe had parted ways with their producer, who was also a cast member (the split resulted from what the cast diplomatically refers to as a “personality clash”) and was on the verge of leaving their long-time home at Supermarket after [...]

Toronto’s Michael Balazo has been in Halifax since November 2011, working as a writer on CBC’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Since he left town, he’d stopped posting on his satirical blog, Toronto Sun Cover Reviews, where for years he’d been writing select reviews of the covers of, in his words, “Canada’s most reactionary/hysterical newspaper.” [...]

Potted Potter: The Unauthorised Harry Experience—A Parody by Dan and Jeff Panasonic Theatre (651 Yonge Street) February 11 to March 25 $29.95 to $99.75 Much like heart attack–inducing burgers and pounds of poutine, there’s something about a seven-part epic of magic, destiny, and good vs. evil that just begs to be ingested in a fast-paced, [...]

Strip Comedy I (Heart) Jokes Sunday February 5, 9 p.m. (post Super Bowl), $5. Laugh Sabbath Laugh Sabbath Thursday February 16, 9:30 p.m., $5. There’ve been a lot of changes at Comedy Bar since the Bloorcourt performance venue opened in 2008. Much of that is due to a series of upgrades, like a luxurious wrap-around [...]

The ladies are all dressed in black, but the mood is definitely jovial, and it’s one shared by the packed house. Everyone here for WDWMKR’S Irish Wake has come to laugh, and the ladies throwing it for themselves wanted it that way; they’ve decided to call it quits while everyone still remembers their all-female comedy [...]

Phillips & Crown Holiday Climax Blowout Spectacular!!! The Flying Beaver Pubaret (488 Parliament Street) Friday, December 30, 7 p.m. $10 in advance, $15 at the door Phillips and Crown has been lauded in the past for their quirky little operettas; a previous show, Our Lives Work, has been occasionally staged, usually for small, one-night-only performances. [...]

TALK: Nine candidates kicked off their campaigns for the federal NDP leadership position yesterday, and interim federal Liberal leader Bob Rae has called for open memberships to rebuild that party, which will meet in January to discuss how to do that. If Canadian politics seem particularly chaotic right now, then perhaps you’d be interested in [...]