The roster of Calgary comedians is a mighty fine one: listing Sarah Adams Andrew Phung and Amanda Brooke Perrin only scrapes the surface. Unfortunately the list of opportunities for locals to score big gigs on home turf have been far more limited. That’s the gap YYComedy’s here to fill for the third consecutive year.
“You do open mics and amateur nights and you get better at those” says Harry Doupe a co-founder of the festival. “You do some regular nights. Then you’re in the scene and maybe you’re co-heading. You’re headlining one-nighters then you’re headlining clubs. But in town there’s really nothing beyond that. That chain doesn’t change at all. Right now the biggest thing that most Calgary acts are looking forward to is being a background extra on Hell on Wheels.”
Doupe’s in a prime position to recognize the challenges of the industry: he’s been doing standup for over three decades having performed at Expo ’86 and the 1988 Winter Olympic Games and opened for Tragically Hip and Weird Al. In fact only a single day passed following his final year as producer of the Comedy Awards before Cory Mack — another co-founder of YYComedy — pitched the festival idea to him based largely on the Calgary 2012 celebrations and anniversaries for many major venues in town.
“Everything sort of came together at once saying ‘right place right time’” says Doupe. “If all those didn’t point to doing it then it never would’ve.”
The exceptional serendipity of it all certainly hasn’t slowed. Brian Posehn of Mission Hill Mr. Show and The Sarah Silverman Program will be giving his first performance in the city. It’ll also be the local debut for DeAnne Smith who recently won the best female standup category at the Canadian Comedy Awards. Then to top it all off there’ll be the legendary return of Mike MacDonald who underwent a liver transplant last year. But all that stuff about promoting local acts wasn’t just talk.
“We didn’t want just another person who’s been around for 30 years on the show with Mike MacDonald” says Doupe. “We have those places available but we wanted something more special. So [Calgarians] Brittany Lyseng and Doug Mutai are opening that show.”
That commitment to supporting the local scene is emphasized by the High River Benefit show at the Wales Theatre in High River. Last summer was obviously a terrible one for festival organizers and the YYComedy crew were among that lot: Doupe notes that they weren’t sure if their two biggest shows could happen because of the flooding (the shows did go on although two others were cancelled because of an unrelated train derailment in Inglewood) . This year YYComedy’s raising money for the worst-hit area.
“Once the Wales Theatre was washed out we wanted to make sure that we could go in and do something for the community. It’s only now just reopening — we’ll be one of the first shows in” says Doupe mentioning that proceeds from the event will go towards Rowan House Emergency Shelter.
Wales Theatre is one of 15 venues that will host shows between September 29 and October 4: in Sled Island style the festival will be occupying everything from large spaces like the Jubilee Auditorium and the University Theatre to smaller joints such as Broken City and the Loose Moose Theatre. It’ll be a packed few days but Doupe — who lives in B.C. when he’s not in town organizing of the festival — thinks it’s all worth it.
“Anything that happens in town that presents Calgary folks in a brighter light than there is so far is good” he says. “Any additional opportunities to raise the stature of the local scene can’t help but help.”
YYComedy Festival runs September 29 to October 4 at various venues.
