MTL Sketchfest with GILLIAN BARTOLUCCI (TO), JON BLAIR (TO), and BIG OL MESS (DENVER)

GILLIAN BARTOLUCCI (Toronto)

Gillian Bartolucci is a comedian, actor, and CSA-nominated writer. She has written for CBC’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes, showcased for JFL42 New Faces: Characters, and currently performs with the Second City Toronto. Her past solo revues have received critical acclaim including Best in Venue at the 2022 Hamilton Fringe Festival for Something Small, Something Sweet, and was nominated for Best Solo Performance by My Entertainment World for The Weight of It All.

JON BLAIR (Toronto)

After bringing the house down at last year’s Sketchfest, solo sketch comedian and former Best of Fest winner Jon Blair went to the back of the theatre to stand perfectly still until this year’s festival needed him again. We spotted him really early on and were like “hey” but he’s been really committing to standing perfectly still back there and pretending we didn’t notice him even though we clearly all noticed him. We didn’t really know what to do so we just started leaving food there overnight and coming back to find it gone in the morning, which is why now there’s that rumour about a ghost in the theatre (there’s not a ghost, it’s just Jon eating the food at night). At Christmas we decorated him, kind of half as a joke and half as like “we want to involve you in Christmas” but he didn’t start moving around even from that. Now he’s back for Sketchfest 2025 and we don’t know what he was thinking about this whole time but hopefully it was a whole bunch of brand new one-man sketches and monologues!

BIG OL’ MESS (Denver)

Big Ol’ Mess is a sketch comedy group from Denver, CO. They have performed in shows and festivals across North America, with appearances in New York, Toronto, Philadelphia, Portland, and Washington D.C. Big Ol’ Mess shows have a loose, improvised feel that will leave you saying “that was so dumb, I loved it”.