How did you get involved with the Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival?

Toronto Sketch Fest is the one place where we can expose our material to a new audience, and bring people out to our shows that go on the rest of the year. It’s always a great opportunity for us to meet other comedians, and expand our audience. This is our second year being featured in the festival, and we couldn’t be any more excited! We all got haircuts!

We would love to get the chance to see Two Kids One Hall. We are all huge fans of Kids in the Hall, but then again, it’s hard to find a sketch comedy troupe that isn’t. We’re also hoping on seeing some of the new and upcoming troupes that are featured on the roster this year.

We’re all really excited for the material we put together for this year’s sketch fest revue. We always aim to mix as many different types of humour into our shows as we can, and this set has a good mix of physical comedy, musical comedy, straight-dialogue humour, and theatrical sketch. As always, it wouldn’t be a Good Game show without a little touch of absurdity, but there’s really something for everyone in this show. This year we’re putting an emphasis on variety, and feel like this might be our best sketch fest set yet (that kinda rhymes).

Too many to choose just one… Pizzeria Libretto and Dakota Tavern are some favourites… you can often see us at The Lakeview having a few drinks or some coffee before checking out a show or event at Sketch Fest. Ossington Village is one of our favourite places to hang out during Sketch Fest events, since it’s walking distance from both the Lower Ossington Theatre and Comedy Bar.

The Queer Comedy Collective is performing at this year’s Sketch Comedy Festival at the Lower Ossington Theatre on November 9 at 10PM. They are the next troupe we profile in our series.

How did you get involved with the Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival? 

Andrya, a member of our troupe, was out somewhere doing something entertaining in front of an audience or some such thing, and someone from the Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival gave her his card. “It’s hard to find Queer sketch comedy troupes,” he wept. So we invited Sketch Fest to our pre-Pride show at Bread ‘n Circus in June, after which, we filled out all necessary paperwork.

What other troupe’s show at this year’s Festival do you most want to see?

Cory, Punch in the Box and Picnicface

Why should we come to see your show?

Scott from Xtra called it ‘cheerfully deranged.’ It’s bratty but good-natured. Sarcastic and stinging but you’d still want to be its friend. It’s not the bully of sketch troupes. Oh yah, and we’re the only Queer sketch troupe in Canada.

What is your favourite place on Ossington? If you haven’t been to Ossington, where do you most want to go?

Want to eat at Pizza Libretto and Campagnolo. Or, just want to walk up and down Ossington and be mistaken for cool people.

Susan from the Queer Comedy Collective sent me over lots of videos, so check one out here:

Gallery TPW tops the Art category as Best Independent Art Gallery citywide and for Queen West.  Show & Tell Gallery won the same category for Dundas West.

Not surprisingly, our neighborhood had a few Citywide Winners in the food category: Pizzeria Libretto for best pizza, The Dakota Tavern for best bar and pub, The Lakeview for best diner/greasy spoon. All three are also the tops in the Dundas West neighborhood. Pizzeria Libretto, The Lakeview and The Dakota are repeat winners in these categories – they were voted Toronto’s best in 2010.

2011 is a good year for The Dakota Tavern, which won a second award as the Best Blues Club city-wide.

There are many more winners now that they’re awarding every category in every neighborhood, so to see if your favourite is there, just look up Dundas West or Queen West. Congrats to all the winners!

Crepes and More remains closed for their extended vacation, with the sign in the window saying they’ll return September 8.

The Dakota Tavern’s weekly Sunday bluegrass brunch will not happen this Sunday, September 5.

As per their twitter feed, Pizzeria Libretto will close this Monday for Labour Day. Also as per twitter, Goed Eten will be closed Saturday and Sunday, and Salt Wine Bar is closed Sunday and Monday.  Jonathan + Olivia are also closed on Monday.

If you know of any other closings, let us know, and we’ll keep updating via our twitter account.

Here’s hoping he runs for mayor….. and loses.