Toronto, start your comedy engines

As a Torontonian, my only complaint about what’s being offered up to me comedy-wise in the coming month is how to schedule in minor annoyances like keeping up with laundry, doing dishes, and sleep.

The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), while not being heavy on the comedy fare, does allow us a few delicious morsels by way of the world premiere of the Ricky Gervais film The Invention of Lying on September 14 (he’ll be present for it), as well as An Afternoon With Chris Rock that same day.

The schedule for the Toronto Improv Festival is now live, so that takes care of my life from Sept 17-27.

And those who couldn’t score great tickets for Louis CK in October? He’s just added a third show, September 24 (which is more of a first show, as he correctly points out on his blog). For the record: Louis has sold about 3,000 seats so far for his Toronto shows so far, and will hit 4,500 if (when) this last one sells out. 9 months ago, he did 4 shows here, selling a total of 1,600 tickets. So yeah, things are going quite nicely for him.

Within driving distance of the city you’ve got your Joan Rivers and your Russell Peters.

And there’s all the regular happenings at Comedy Bar (I highly recommend Sunday Night Live), Absolute, Yuk’s, and the brand new Second City mainstage show Shut Up And Show Us Your Tweets (I would pay to sit in on the show-naming brainstorming sessions).

I can’t even begin to think about October, with David Cross, the JFL Comedy Tour, and a ton more.

I’m exhausted just thinking about it all. Happy, but exhaused.

About the Author

Sharilyn Johnson is the author of the book Bears & Balls: The Colbert Report A-Z. Called "one of the city’s most discriminating comedy critics” by NOW Magazine, Sharilyn has been covering comedy for longer than she cares to admit. She served as the comedy reporter for Winnipeg's Uptown Magazine for five years, and was the host of the radio show Laugh Tracks for three seasons. Her work has also appeared in the Toronto Star, the Winnipeg Free Press, The Apiary, and on CBC Radio's national comedy programs LOL and Definitely Not the Opera.