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Sketch Comedy in Philadelphia – May 16th through May 22nd

Few things make us happier than seeing (or hearing) all the love Philadelphia’s sketch comedy community has been getting from national comedy festivals and this past weekend at Montreal Sketchfest 2016 The Flat Earth added a few more accolades performing in the closing night “Best of Fest” show and winning “Best Newcomer” (a.k.a. The Bag of Beer). Philly Sketchfest congratulates Jacquie Baker, Vincent DiCostanzo, Rich Lee, Adam Siry, Matthew Schmid, Molly Silverman and director, Paul Triggiani of The Flat Earth on all their accomplishments this year (including runners-up for Producer’s Pick at Toronto Sketchfest) and thanks you for putting Philadelphia in the conversation when it comes to sketch comedy.

 

Adventure Friends Baby Steps and Tim Butterly LargeNow please enjoy this week’s listings, with special attention for the May 20th Philly Sketchfest Presents Showcase at The Adrienne Theater Playground!

First at 8:30pm, it’s Adventure Friends with Baby Steps hosted by Tim Butterly of Comedy Central’s Delco Proper.

A Galaxy Uncherished Logo WideThen at 10:15pm, it’s the triumphant, one-night only, encore presentation of House of Solitude’s, “A Galaxy Uncherished” with special guests One Idiot from the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York City, performing in their critically acclaimed, lost play from Tennessee Williams, “What The Horse Saw”.

More details plus everything else sketch in Philadelphia below…

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News Sketch Comedy in Philadelphia

Sketch Comedy in Philadelphia – April 25th through May 1st

If you’re looking for some sketch comedy this week and you live in Philadelphia you have two options – Wednesday & Thursday night. You want more? What if we told you that the shows on Wednesday & Thursday are actually ‘revues,’ where multiple comedians are on the same bill so it’s almost like you’re getting to see eight mini-sketch shows? You’d say we’re playing with semantics? We’re just trying to be positive… What’s that? You’re also asking if we get paid by the word to write these intros? Not money, but we do enjoy spreading the word about Philly’s sketch comedy community… right, right, more of those semantics you don’t want. You’d like us to just get right to it then? FINE. Even though it’s a light week for sketch these two shows boast some of the most impressive line-ups in recent history including the PREMIERE of a brand-new comedy showcase and the RETURN of Philadelphia’s most beloved sketch comedy revue…

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Sketch Comedy in Philadelphia – April 18th through April 24th

Now that we’re are all caught up from Philly Sketchfest 2016 we’re ready to return to this website back to some regularly scheduled content highlighting all the sketch comedy taking place in Philadelphia on a weekly basis. We’re also excited to announce here that we’ll be posting more articles and interviews with Philadelphia-based sketch groups as well as becoming the official home of the “My First Sketch” podcast hosted/created by Josh Higham. That’s good news. Some might say great, but we like to think of it as leaving ourselves room to grow. So what’s happening this week already, right? Well word on the street is that you have a hot date with sketch comedy on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday & Friday. Check out the events below to see exactly who’ll be taking you out on the town each night…

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Q&A with Jacquie Baker, Adam Siry, Molly Silverman & Matthew Schmid of The Flat Earth

Tonight at 8:30pm, Philly Sketchfest Presents will host sketch from the two Philadelphia groups that performed in the 2016 Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival, Spirit Animal and The Flat Earth. The entire event is hosted by comedian Alyssa Al-Dookhi and ticket proceeds will help them recover some of the costs associated with their trip. Philly Sketchfest sat down with Jacquie Baker, Adam Siry, Molly Silverman and Matthew Schmid of The Flat Earth to discuss what it’s like performing comedy on the road, their experience at this year’s Chicago Sketchfest and their upcoming (and second consecutive) appearance in March at the 2016 Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival

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News Sketch Comedy in Philadelphia

Sketch Comedy in Philadelphia – February 15th through February 21st

A very exciting week for us here at Philly Sketchfest. We have our February showcase taking place this Friday, February 19th with sketch from Spirit Animal & The Flat Earth and stand-up from Alyssa Al-Dookhi at 8:30pm and then at 10:00pm it’s a brand new set of sketch from The Prince entitled, ‘Whole Human, Whole Horse’ directed by Maggy Keegan with stand-up from Joe Bell!

We’re also hard at work behind the scenes sending emails and updating our site in effort to release the names of the groups from Philadelphia & North America who have submitted and been accepted into this year’s 2016 Philly Sketchfest! Once they’re all sent out, we’ll update here. We’ll also be updating to let you know about our festival revue shows that feature both festival performers and up-and-coming local sketch groups! There is simply so much to do and so little time, so let’s get started by telling you about our February showcase at the Adrienne Theater Playground as well as sketch shows taking place all over Philadelphia this week…

Philly Sketchfest Presents – Spirit Animal & The Flat Earth with stand-up from Alyssa Al-Dookhi
The Playground at Adrienne Theater – 2030 Sansom Street (1st Floor on left), Philadelphia, PA 19103
Friday, February 19th – Doors at 8pm and Show at 8:30pm / Tickets – $10
Template_11x17_vertPhilly Sketchfest is proud to host the two sketch groups who represented Philadelphia at this year’s Chicago Sketchfest, Spirit Animal & The Flat Earth. They’ll be performing their sets, in full from Chicago for this one-night only event! The entire block of comedy will be hosted by stand-up comedian, Alyssa Al-Dookhi who will also perfrom! Follow Alyssa on twitter @TheDookness and her website – thedookness.tumblr.com.

Spirit Animal is the quirky, reference-filled sketch comedy duo of Shannon DeVido & Kristin Finger!

The Flat Earth is a Philly Improv Theater (PHIT) Sketch House Team formed in 2012. They have been accepted into and performed at the Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival (2015 & 2016), San Francisco Sketchfest (2015), and Toronto Sketchfest (2015 & 2016). The Flat Earth is Jacquie Baker, Vincent P. DiCostanzo, Rich Lee, Matthew Schmid, Molly Silverman, and Adam Siry. They are directed by Paul Triggiani (Secret Pants).

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Philly Sketchfest Presents – The Prince’s ‘Whole Human, Whole Horse’ with stand-up from Joe Bell
The Playground at Adrienne Theater – 2030 Sansom Street (1st Floor on left), Philadelphia, PA 19103
Friday, February 19th – Doors at 9:45pm and Show at 10:00pm / Tickets – $10
The Prince Whole Human Whole HorsePhilly Sketchfest is equally proud to host, The Prince for a full-length show entitled, ‘Whole Man Whole Horse’ directed by Maggy Keegan! Comedian, Joe Bell will be hosting the show and performing stand-up!

The Prince is a sketch comedy duo featuring Frank Farrell and Jamie Glasheen. They were accepted into and performed at the 2014 Philly Sketchfest and have also performed at ‘Hey, We’re Cool‘ at L’etage, Philly Improv Theater (PHIT), and Good Good Comedy.

Joe Bell is a Philadelphia based comedian. He regularly performs stand-up and is the co-host of ‘Senior Pancakes Drunken Voyage,’ an audience-interactive, stand-up drinking game. He can also be seen performing live comedy as a part of various Good Good Comedy productions such as ‘Eat Your Beats’ and ‘Five Dollar Comedy Week.’ Joe is also an animator, producing shorts that can be seen monthly at ‘The Phone It In Film Festival‘ and his YouTube channel. Fore more, follow Joe on Twitter – @JoeBell.

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News Sketch Comedy in Philadelphia

Sketch Comedy in Philadelphia – February 8th through February 14th

In one week, we’ll be announcing the line-up of performers, workshops and panels taking place at Philly Sketchfest 2016! Also next week, it’s Philly Sketchfest Presents’ February showcase with two shows taking place at the Adrienne Theater Playground on Friday, February 19th. First at 8:30pm, we’re celebrating the Philadelphia groups that made it into this year’s Chicago Sketchfest with Spirit Animal & The Flat Earth performing sketch and stand-up from Alyssa Al-Dookhi! Then at 10:00pm it’s a brand new set of sketch from The Prince entitled, ‘Whole Human, Whole Horse’ directed by Maggy Keegan with stand-up from Joe Bell! Check back on Monday for our festival line-up and check out below all the great sketch happening in Philly this week…

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Sketch Comedy in Philadelphia – February 1st through February 7th

Happy February 2016 everyone! We’re absolutely thrilled February is here because that means that in a few short weeks, we’ll be announcing the line-up of performers, workshops and panels taking place at Philly Sketchfest 2016, March 31st through April 3rd. If you haven’t heard, we’ve extended our submission deadline by 48 hours making today the final day to get your sketch group in on the festivities. But that’s not all we’re up to in February as Philly Sketchfest is also presenting two new sketch showcases! Both shows take place on Friday, February 19th with our 8:30pm showcase featuring sketch from Spirit Animal & The Flat Earth who will performing their sets from the 2016 Chicago Sketchfest with stand-up from Alyssa Al-Dookhi. Then at 10:00pm it’s a brand new set of sketch from The Prince entitled, ‘Whole Human, Whole Horse’ directed by Maggy Keegan with stand-up from Joe Bell.

Philly Sketchfest is also a proud sponsor of the 2016 Bechdel Test Fest celebrating Philadelphia’s women and trans comedians at the Christ Church Neighborhood House. You can find out about all the sketch groups performing in it after the break…

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Sketch Comedy in Philadelphia – January 4th through January 10th

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2016! Yes, we are still celebrating because there is so much to be happy about. On New Year’s Day we opened up submissions and announced the dates of our upcoming 2016 Philly Sketchfest taking place from March 31st through April 3rd. You can submit here until we close out the submission process on January 31st. We’re also thankful to everyone who came out and enjoyed our January showcase featuring the American Breakfast Reunion Show with Your Mom and our 17 group sketch event, Sketch Hangover – The First Sketches of 2016. Our never-ending thanks to the performers who spent their New Year’s Day with us including, American Breakfast, Your Mom, Adventure Friends, Barbara Bush, Dog Mountain, High Dramma, HoagieFist, House of Solitude, ManiPedi, Mean Wendy Band, Patric Writes Sketches, The Burgundy Boys, The Flannel Chucks, The Flat Earth, The Incredible Shrinking Matt & Jacquie, The Prince, Until Pluto, and WGRA Radio Theatre. Let’s do it again next year! If you missed your first opportunity to see sketch comedy in 2016, you are in luck. There are no less than six sketch comedy shows occurring this week and we can’t wait to tell you about them…

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2015 Year In Review – Courtney Painter of Barbara Bush and Dog Mountain

This week Philly Sketchfest will be taking a look back at the year 2015 through the eyes of the writers, performers, directors and producers that make sketch comedy in Philadelphia a reality. Every single day of the week, you will find Courtney Painter living and breathing comedy in Philadelphia. She writes and performs with the ‘first ladies of comedy’ in Barbara Bush and this year, was asked to join PHIT Sketch House Team Dog Mountain as both a performer and writer. She’s the lead house manager at PHIT and wrote multiple shows for the Black Friday Comedy Marathon including a sketch show written with the children she takes care as a daytime Nanny along with writing partner, Jolie Darrow. And to think it all started just over a year ago, with a submission to sketch comedy game show, Iron Sketch offering to be in as many groups as we would allow her to work with. She’s that driven and it’s not just talk; Courtney simply does. You can see Courtney tomorrow night with Dog Mountain and the rest of the ‘first ladies of comedy’ in Barbara Bush, on New Year’s Day, as they perform their first sketches of 2016 at our Sketch Hangover! In the meantime, please enjoy Courtney’s look back at Philly sketch in 2015…

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2015 Year In Review – Kathryn Amrhein of Barbara Bush

This week Philly Sketchfest will be taking a look back at the year 2015 through the eyes of the writers, performers, directors and producers that make sketch comedy in Philadelphia a reality. Kathryn Amrhein is a Philadelphia-based writer, performer and one of the ‘first ladies of comedy’ in sketch group, Barbara Bush. She is also the sole reason that this website exists in a functional and update-able manner. We’re not going to shy away from it. Prior to a few months ago, this website’s home page hadn’t been updated in almost three years. And the sub-pages? Just a mess. When our new production team came on board, this website was our number one priority moving forward. But how do you internet? That’s when Kathryn arrived. Kathryn’s passion for sketch and her talent in web design/coding enabled everything we wanted in this new website with plenty of room to grow. Kathryn’s given a lot, continuing to entertain us as a comedian and working hard in her free time to allow us to celebrate it here. So when you see her, you thank her and you tell her how much you appreciate her talent and hard work. In fact, you can do it tomorrow night when Kathryn and the rest of the ‘first ladies of comedy’ in Barbara Bush tomorrow night, on New Year’s Day, as they perform their first sketch of 2016 at our Sketch Hangover! In the meantime, please enjoy Kathryn’s look back at Philly sketch in 2015…