Audible presents
The 17th Annual SF Sketchfest
SF Sketchfest celebrates the 17th annual San Francisco Comedy Festival January 11-28, 2018, with more than 200 shows featuring top comedic talents performing in 15 venues across the city. The 18-day festival features major comedy stars and the best up-and-coming comedians from around the world for non-stop entertainment including sketch, stand-up, alternative comedy, music, improv, films, tributes, live podcasts, workshops, and panel discussions.
Brava Theater Center will host the following 14 shows:
Jan 12, 7:30pm
Animaniacs 25th Anniversary: Songs and Stories
It's time for Animaniacs! The beloved show turns 25, and SF Sketchfest is proud to celebrate it with an evening of stories, songs and general tomfoolery with three of the massive talents behind the show -- Rob Paulson (Yakko, Pinky, Dr. Scratchansniff), Maurice LaMarche (The Brain) and the man responsible for the amazing wordplay and music in the show, Randy Rogel.
Jan 12, 10pm
The Allusionist
The Allusionist is an award-winning podcast about language and how and why we humans use it the way we do. It's fun. It's informative. It's...funformative? Steady on there with the portmanteaus, please.
Jan 13, 4pm
Superego
Superego: Forgotten Classics is a bold interpretation of the great works of literature. So bold in fact, nobody at Superego even bothered to read them. In each episode, they will improvise a famous work of fiction, one with which they're not at all familiar. They'll be given only the book's title, its first and last lines, and the names of its characters. The rest is up to them. Past reimagining include Wuthering Heights, The Red Badge Of Courage, Stranger In A Strange Land, and Stephen King’s The Stand.
Jan 13, 7:30pm
Worst First Chapter
Literature lovers take notice! Literature haters take notice! The "authors" of this show have written an intentionally awful first chapter to a terrible book that doesn’t actually exist. They will then read it out loud for you, the audience, to pick a best worst "winner."
Jan 13, 10pm
Workjuice Improv
SF Sketchfest wouldn’t be complete without the WorkJuice Players, and this year is no exception. The cast of perennial favorites will take to the stage, sans scripts, and improvise a show based on monologues by a very special guest. The players have mesmerized audiences around the world and will bring their incredible wit and hilarity to San Francisco for one show only. This is long form improv at its best!
Jan 19, 10pm
Totally Looped
Old movies, new dialogue... that’s Totally Looped! In this hilarious movie-centric live show, Hollywood’s funniest improvisers dub new dialogue to old movie clips they haven't seen in advance. The visuals are vintage Hollywood, but the characters, dialogue and situations are all created live on the spot based on audience suggestions. Created and directed by Vince Waldron, Totally Looped’s all-star cast includes Joe Liss (Curb Your Enthusiasm), Maribeth Monroe (Workaholics), Laraine Newman (SNL), Rick Overton (Veep), Cole Stratton (Rifftrax), and Gary Anthony Williams (Boston Legal). Totally Looped has played public and corporate shows across the U.S and the UK, including a four year run at Second City/Los Angeles. This is the show’s sixth appearance at San Francisco Sketchfest.
Jan 20, 4pm
Doughboys
Doughboys, Feral Audio's cult podcast about chain restaurants, presents a special live recording. Join hosts Nick Wiger aka Burger Boy and Mike "Spoonman" Mitchell for what's sure to be a rousing and combative discussion about America's true national pastime: eating.
Jan 20, 7:30pm
Birthday Boys / The Reckoning
The Birthday Boys are bringing their bizarrely brilliant sketch comedy to SF Sketchfest with a jam packed* show! One of the most accomplished groups to come out of the Upright Citizens Brigade, the Boys have credits ranging from writing for the MTV Movie Awards to starring on Portlandia and everything in between. Their eponymous sketch series, executive produced by Bob Odenkirk, aired for two seasons on IFC and is now available to stream online. With improv comedy by The Reckoning.*jam sold separatelyThe Reckoning played to packed houses and critical acclaim at iO Chicago for over a decade and toured across the country with their singular brand of long-form improvisation. Hailed as “hands-down, the best in Chicago” and “a versatile rock band” of improvisers, they are known for their unpredictable shows and forms, as well as experimentation and innovation as ensemble. The members who now call Los Angeles home bring the Reckoning’s unique style to the iO West Mainstage every Thursday night at 10pm.
Jan 20, 10pm
The Black Version
An all African-American cast of seasoned improv specialists from the world-famous troupe The Groundlings asks the audience to suggest a popular film title and then performs the "black version" of that movie. And with experienced and talented performers like Nyima Funk, Daniele Gaither, Gary Anthony Williams, Cedric Yarbrough, and creator Jordan Black in on the fun, audiences are sure to see off-the-cuff comedy at its best. The cast's stellar credits range from "Saturday Night Live" and "Mad TV" to "The Boondocks" and "Reno 911!"
Jan, 26, 7:30pm
The Improvised Shakespeare Company
The Improvised Shakespeare Company, founded in 2005, entertains audiences around the globe and sells out their recurring limited engagements in New York and LA just from word of mouth and email “advertising”. The ISC has been featured at festivals and events around the county, including Outside Lands in San Francisco, where Sir Patrick Stewart famously played with the group. The company performs a two-act fully improvised play in Elizabethan style using the language and themes of William Shakespeare, inspired by one audience suggestion (a title for a play that has yet to be written). “Set aside your preconceptions about Shakespearean theater. It’s not all pretentious, puffy-garbed players trained to speak foreign English at the Raised Hand School of Acting. IO Chicago’s rollicking hit show “Improvised Shakespeare” is smart and knowing enough to delight Elizabethan drama fans and charming enough to win over the most avowed Anglophobes. – Centerstage Chicago
Jan 26, 10pm
Mortified
For over 15 years Mortified has been a unique grassroots storytelling sensation with shows all over the country, the world, and seen on Netflix's documentary, "Mortified Nation". Witness adults sharing their actual, embarrassing, and hilarious diaries, letters, songs, poems, and more in front of total strangers.Performers range from professionals to to total amateurs, all in the noble pursuit of self degradation. Share the shame.
Jan 27, 4pm
Gravid Water / Zoo Zoo
SF Sketchfest welcomes the return of the ever-popular Gravid Water, which has sold out every one of its appearances at the fest thus far!Gravid Water has been playing at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York and LA since 2004. In those cities, top improvisers and actors, from Broadway, "30 Rock," "Conan," "Saturday Night Live," and beyond, perform in scenes from Stoppard to Sophocles, and everything in between. The actors know their lines, and the improvisers improvise, with no prior knowledge of the scenes. The show is created and directed by Stephen Ruddy.
Jan 27, 7:30pm
Invite Them Up
Invite Them Up was a long-running and super fun comedy show that took place at Rififi in Manhattan. It has since been resurrected for SF Sketchfest and the Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival. Eugene Mirman and Bobby Tisdale welcome their comedy friends for a night of great stand-up.
Jan 27, 10pm
Theme Park
The Theme Park Improv Show's improvisers take a single suggestion of a theme from the audience, and wing an entire set of fast-paced long-form scenes and characters, based on stories from a special guest monologist. After a streak of sold-out shows, they return to SF Sketchfest with a stellar lineup: Rachel Dratch (“Saturday Night Live”), Michael Hitchcock ("Best in Show"), John Michael Higgins ("Pitch Perfect"), Jessica Makinson ("Halfway Home"), Oscar Nunez ("The Office") Cole Stratton (Pop My Culture podcast) and Janet Varney ("Burning Love"). This will be a show you won’t soon forget!