We’ve been getting a lot of questions about SketchFest NYC in 2012, including submission deadlines and info, and we’ve been putting off answering for a while until we could officially announce this: there won’t be a SketchFest NYC in 2012.
Don’t worry, nothing bad has happened, and in fact, we were extremely excited and pleased with the overwhelmingly positive response to our 2011 Festival. However, sometimes… Life happens. And a good portion of the staff have had babies, are getting married, or moved to other coasts, meaning we don’t quite have the focus we need to make the 2012 Festival as big as we need it to be… Which is EVEN BIGGER than the last Festival.
So while there won’t be a SketchFest in 2012, there definitely will be one in 2013, and we promise that it will be bigger, and better than ever before. Stay tuned…
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Last night at the Tell Your Friends premiere, we had a awesome reporter for Back Stage come by to check out the event. He interviewed several of the cast and crew, er, backstage before the screening, and the first two videos just got posted, as well as a full recap. You can check ‘em out below:
As always, we also have these linked on our YouTube channel, so won’t you check that out, too?
[From Left to Right: Kurt Braunohler, Leo Allen, Rob Paravonian, Kristen Schaal, Liam McEneany, Victor Varnado, Christen Finnegan. Photo credit: Lindsay Aikman/Michael Priest Photography.]
Last night, SketchFest NYC was delighted to present the New York City premiere of Tell Your Friends! The Concert Film! at the Paley Center for Media. And now, we’ve got the photos to prove it! Check out the full gallery below, and we’ll have video of the post screening discussion soon!
Here’s more video from the 2011 Festival, with four sketches from Seeder & Lee! And be sure to head over to the SketchFest NYC YouTube page to subscribe!
SketchFest NYC is proud to present the New York City premiere of “Tell Your Friends! The Concert Film” at the Paley Center for Media, followed by a post show discussion with the cast (and some other people):
Kristen Schaal, Correspondent, The Daily Show; Comedy Central Presents: Kristen Schaal; The Late Show with David Letterman; HBO’s Flight of the Conchords
Kurt Braunohler, IFC, MTV, Sirius XM, and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Christian Finnegan, Are We There Yet?, and his one-hour Comedy Central special, Au Contraire!
Leo Allen, Cocreator/Costar, Jon Benjamin Has A Van; Writer, Saturday Night Live; Comedy Central Presents: Leo Allen
Neal Brennan, Cocreator, Chappelle’s Show; Cowriter, Half Baked; Director, The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard
Jon Glaser, Creator/Writer/Star Adult Swim’s Delocated; Writer, Late Night with Conan O’Brien
Victor Varnado, Director, Tell Your Friends! The Concert Film!; Star/Director, Comedy Central special, The Awkward Comedy Show
Moderator: Liam McEneaney, Tell Your Friends! The Concert Film!; Showtime Special Caroline Rhea & Friends; VH1′s Best Week Ever
Thursday, September 22, 2011 – 7:30 pm ET
Tickets: $10 Members/$15 General Public; OR! Use the code ‘SKETCHFEST’ without the quotes, and you’ll get tickets for only $8!
More Info Here: http://www.paleycenter.org/2011-fall-tell-your-friends/
Here’s more video from the 2011 Festival, with two sketches from Paul Thomas‘ one person show Comedogenic! And be sure to head over to the SketchFest NYC YouTube page to subscribe!
Hey gang! Over the next few weeks, we’re going to be putting up a ton of video from the 2011 Festival. Kicking things off are some clips from one of our buzzy solo shows, Meghan O’Neill‘s ‘Fraidy Cat. And be sure to head over to the SketchFest NYC YouTube page to subscribe, friend, or whatever it is you kids are doing these days!
Missed SketchFest NYC this year? Want to relive it in audio form? Well, this weekend you’ll get your chance!
The good folks at Sirius XM’s Raw Dog Comedy Channel were at the Festival, taping every single show and panel… And will be broadcasting a two hour long “Best of SketchFest NYC 2011″ special this weekend. You can listen to it at the following times:
Saturday June 18th at 9pm East / 6pm West
Sunday June 19th at 10pm East / 7pm West
Raw Dog is Channel 99 on Sirius XM, well, everywhere, because it’s satellite radio. Give it a listen, and see if you can hear all the physical comedy! Seriously though, thanks to the folks at Raw Dog for hanging out the entire four days of the Festival, and putting this awesome special together – we can’t wait to hear it.
Visible boners, and sketches that never actually start.
Every year, there’s trends that I notice in the sketches we see at SketchFest. One year, it’ll be something clear like closing with white-boy rap numbers. Another, it’ll be more subtle, like a phrase that permeates half the sketches we see. This year, there were two trends I noticed in SketchFest NYC, and they ran the gamut:
The first was visible boners. Whether it was a photoshopped penis sticking out of someone’s head, or a raging member knocking over furniture, there was a proliferation of penis jokes on stage.
The second was sketches that never start. Meaning, a group would begin their show… But the show would never really begin, cycling through various ideas, before settling on what the show was truly about.
If I was to venture a guess as to why these trends showed up, I might look towards the fact that on one side, you have the crass, base, shock humor of a sexual organ exposed on stage; and on the other side, the cerebral view of sketch comedy as an art that can be dissected, and devoured whole while being scathingly commented on. The most accessible of jokes, and the least accessible, sometimes at the same time.
That all said, there’s something I want to stress: I love that these trends show up each year, because it says we’re doing something right. Rather than getting disparate groups who have no connection to each other, no shared language, we’ve scoured the country and found thirty-six groups – most of whom have never met before – all speaking the same dialogue in different ways. And more than that, each time, despite being similar types of jokes, they all nailed it in different ways, through their own points of view. That’s exciting not just to watch, but also for the future of the form.
Anyway, pretension out of the way, this was a great year for the Festival – a step forward in many ways, and a realignment in others. We had huge crowds, great press turn-out, and even a standing ovation. But when it comes down to it, the main feedback we heard this year was what we set out to get in the very first year: that everyone had a great time. That SketchFest NYC feels like an exciting party, a relaxing weekend for the sketch comedians who work so hard on stage.
Luckily, we had an amazing staff and volunteers who made all this seem easy and effortless, while I know they were all working their butts off for four solid days. Plus, of course, our wonderful sponsors who made all of this possible. Without them, we literally would not have a Festival. Of course, thank you to the groups and performers who donated their time simply because they love doing sketch comedy; and lastly, to the audiences who came out to see shows, we hope you liked them enough to check out more sketch groups throughout the year, before coming back to SketchFest NYC. You won’t be sorry.
We’ll see you in 2012,
Alex Zalben
Executive Producer
SketchFest NYC
Here’s pictures from Day 4 of SketchFest NYC 2011. All photos are by Tracey B. Wilson:
