What, exactly, is Laugh Out LIVE!?
According to its tagline, there’s a little something for practically everyone.
Think “Saturday Night Live meets Whose Line Is It Anyway? meets The Price is Right meets your granny’s ’70s porn collection.”
What more could you ask for?
“This December show feels like it’s going to be the best one we’ve ever done,” says Ira Pettle, who runs the comedy troupe alongside Dave Francis and Rebecca Mason. “As soon as our November Cornucopia show ended, the next day, Dave, Rebecca and I got together and we actually came up with the plan for December, which is something we had never done before.”
Now in its second season, the show is a mix of improv, stand-up comedy, sketch comedy, and even game shows. For its holiday installation—dubbed Resting Grinch Face: A Wintersphere Comedy Event—there’s plenty of content that offers a wink at local audience members, but visitors will gain some insight into life in the resort too.
“I think visitors could really enjoy that we do have such a loving local audience base that go to our shows,” Mason says. “We do perform content that locals enjoy, but the tourists will be in on it as well and get to know what it’s like to go to a show full of locals and what we talk about and what makes the locals laugh. That adds depth to the experience for visitors.”
With one “sneak preview” under their belt at the Whistler Racket Club on Dec. 14, the group is looking ahead to its two marquee shows at the Whistler Conference Centre.
The first will take place on Thursday, Dec. 22 and the other is set for Dec. 29. They will feature local guest actors Julie Farr and Brandon Barrett (also a Pique writer and editor), alongside featured stand-up comic Brandon Smith.
(Be prepared for another special cameo appearance featuring someone familiar to most Whistlerites.)
“The whole vibe of Laugh Out LIVE! has always been a comedy variety show,” says Francis. “We have a lot of different sections. We have stand-up, sketch, and improv and gameshow giveaways. We have video segments. We’ve tried to keep it pretty fast-paced, like five minutes per bit.”
For the actors, part of the appeal is the connection the show fosters with its audience.
“What I really love about Laugh Out LIVE! versus doing a play or something is the audience, because we are always interacting. Improv, by its nature, requires audience engagement, right? Then we have game shows where we bring people up and it really feels like the audience is another member of the troupe. I think that is the huge difference between a more theatrical presentation and, for me anyway, it’s one of the most fun parts about it,” says Barrett.
Looking ahead to the new year, the troupe hopes to stage fresh, new shows regularly at different venues around Whistler.
“We’re touring the show around and because of that, we don’t necessarily know where we’re going to be,” Mason says. “We’re hoping to do at least one show a month and maybe there will be some preview shows and satellite shows that we do around town. The best way to figure out where we’re going to be next—because sometimes we don’t even know that—is to stay in contact with us.”
You can do that on Facebook by searching Laugh Out LIVE.
Tickets for the upcoming show, meanwhile, are $28.41 at showpass.com/laugh-out-live.
