Uncalled For's slippery-smooth stream-of-consciousness sketch comedy stylings have won them the top prize at this year's Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival! They will return to Toronto in for an encore show at The Second City in February 2009. Awesome!
MainLine Theatre
3997 St-Laurent
Montreal
Tickets: $6
Upstanding citizens! With a New Year comes new responsibilities. And what funnier responsibility can there be than participating in the made-up justice system of Uncalled For Improv at MainLine Theatre/Courthouse? This Saturday January 10th, Uncalled For is urging you to exercise your civic duty and take part in the Biggest Trial Of 2009. You, the audience, are not merely the spectators: you will also be called upon to be the jury, the bailiff, the witnesses, the experts, and the answer to an improvised legal puzzle that you will help to create. Presiding over the bound-to-be-bloodthirsty legal battle with an iron gavel will be our Special Guest Judge: the Right Honorable Jeremy Hechtman.
This is the first major comedy/legal event of 2009. With more expertly-handled truth than A Few Good Men, less testosterone than Twelve Angry Men, and twice as much Pauly Shore as Jury Duty, Uncalled For's brand new TRIAL BY JURY will be sequestering people for one night only!
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Bouncing off the walls, smashing funnybones, performing open-heart surgery on audience members and making it all up as they go along - fueled by audience suggestions, Uncalled For harnesses the awesome forces of improvised comedy and creates an entirely new show every single performance. From short sketches to improv games to long-form storytelling, it's all there, and it's all spontaneous.
Uncalled For was born in 1980, 1981 and 1982. Equal parts Anders Yates, Caitlin Howden, Matt Goldberg, Dan Jeannotte, Mike Hughes, Nic Wright and Amanda Walsh, the troupe is just as comfortable on land as they are underwater.
Having performed at venues as varied as Montreal's Comedyworks, Rouyn-Noranda's Petit Theatre, the Hudson Village Theatre, the National Arts Center in Ottawa, Kingston's Theatre 5, and the Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon and Edmonton Fringe Festivals, the troupe can truly say that they are Intercity Champions.
The members of Uncalled For began performing improv together at John Abbott College in late 1999. Beginning in 2003 and continuing every year since, Uncalled For has presented increasingly experimental and popular improv comedy spectaculars at Fringe festivals across the country, starting with just Montreal and gradually expanding as far as Edmonton.
In 2005, Uncalled For took over the helm of the Montreal Fringe's Late Night Talk Show, The 13th Hour. Producer Knot Brunswick brought in hosts Zack Winters and Sweet Sweet Jimmy Priest, special intern Rufus O'Hallahan, and Uncalled For's own Caitlin Howden and the show soon became a must-see event. Thanks to 11-second dance parties, the thrill of the money wheel, and a never-ending stream of celebrity Fringe guests, Zack and Jimmy have since been hosting not just The 13th Hour, but the pre-festival Fringe For All and the closing night Frankie Awards ceremony every year since 2005. Clips from the 2008 edition of The 13th Hour are available on youtube here.
The summer of 2006 saw Uncalled For producing Real Time by Matt Alden at the Toronto Fringe, starring Caitlin Howden and Dan Jeannotte, stage managed by Matt Goldberg. The show received rave reviews and was so popular that it was held over for several additional performances at the Diesel Playhouse in Toronto and later picked up for a one month long engagement in Rochester, New York.
Over the last few years Uncalled For has also been writing and performing their own scripted material in addition to improvising. Their first ever scripted sketch comedy show, Ugly Is Forever - featuring Dan Jeannotte, Mike Hughes, Anders Yates, William Ward, Don Anderson and Stephanie Breton - played at MainLine Theatre in the spring of 2006, followed by a two-man performance by Dan Jeannotte and Anders Yates titled Difficult and Full of Hardship at the first annual Montreal Sketch Comedy Festival a few months later. Uncalled For's Fringe Festival sketch comedy debut came with 2007's Thunderspank! - starring Matt Goldberg, Christine Ghawi, Caitlin Howden, Mike Hughes, Dan Jeannotte, William Ward and Anders Yates - which gained rave reviews and won the Frankie Award for Best English Language Script.
Uncalled For is currently performing their latest sketch comedy masterpiece, Blastback Babyzap, featuring Matt Goldberg, Dan Jeannotte, Vanessa Matsui, William Ward, Nicolas Wright and Anders Yates. At the 2008 Montreal Fringe Festival Blastback Babyzap was the top-selling show in the entire festival, and went on to win the coveted Just For Laughs Best Comedy prize along with co-winners The Cody Rivers Show presents: Stick To Glue. The Toronto Fringe Festival followed, where Uncalled For were placed on the cover of Eye Weekly, which placed Blastback Babyzap at the very top of their Best of Fest list, out of 146 shows. Blastback Babyzap is currently playing at the Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal.
In 2008, Uncalled For reached an important long-term goal, and finally achieved a combined weight of 900 pounds. They have their sights set on hitting the 1000-pound mark by mid-2009.
Dan Jeannotte is a graduate of John Abbott College 's Theatre Workshop, where he performed as Cliff in Cabaret, Sheridan Whiteside in The Man Who Came To Dinner and Seymour in Little Shop Of Horrors. He has written and produced a one-act play, lived in Europe, and starred as an extra in Gothika . In the 2003-2004 season, Dan was a member of Kingston Improv, ignoring the feelings of jealousy this ignited in the other members of Uncalled For.
email: dan@uncalledforimprov.com
Anders Yates is a graduate of Concordia University in Montreal with a bachelor’s degree in Communication Studies. In 2007, he travelled to Tokyo to perform on stage in the cult musical comedy Forbidden Zone, and he has recently made his cable television debut in the IFC series The Business. While Anders is currently involved in documentary filmmaking with Montreal’s Rotating Planet Productions, he is also an avid writer and aspiring clown. Anders is the tallest member of Uncalled For.
email: anders@uncalledforimprov.com
Mike Hughes is currently working on creating a new work for the stage. Recently Mike worked with InterKunst, a touring theatre company based in Berlin. This past summer he also wrote and directed his first show (Always Lost Never Found), as part of Gravy Bath`s New Classical Theatre Festival. Some theatre companies that Mike has worked with include the aformentioned Gravy Bath (a compnay he co-founded in 1999), Geordie Productions and the Montreal Young Compnay. Mike was recently challenged to an arm wrestling competition where he surprisingly defeated his much bigger opponent. He credits this achievement to using a combination of power and technique. At the same time.
email: mike@uncalledforimprov.com
Caitlin Howden began her improv career in high school, competing in the Canadian Improv Games. She joined Uncalled For in 2000 and has been growing as an improviser, and as a human being, ever since. A graduate of John Abbott College's Theatre Workshop in Montreal, she has also studied at Ryerson University's Theatre School in Toronto. For many years to come, Caitlin will continue doing what she loves, which is making people laugh, then beating them and stealing their shoes.
email: caitlin@uncalledforimprov.com
Matt Goldberg recently graduated from McGill University, having studied Political Science and Theatre. He directed Tom Stoppard's Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth in an excellent run at the McGill Players' Theatre in 2003. Matt has performed in numerous shows, including The Real Inspector Hound at McGill Players' Theatre, The Importance of Being Earnest at the University of Wales, and Godspell at Montreal's Centaur Theatre. For the past two years, he has coached the John Rennie Improv Team for the Quebec Improv Games, who were Quebec Champions both times. Matt now looks westward, as he plans to pursue his MA in theatre at the University of Guelph. Matt is the fastest member of Uncalled For.
email: matt@uncalledforimprov.com
Nic Wright has been voted the most reclusive tennant in his building five months in a row. He has several allergies and addictions that keep him sweating nights and weekends. Last year, in addition to writing copy for The Brick's sizzling new ad campaign, he starred in the IFC orginal comedy entitled 'The Business' for which he shared a 2007 Gemini nomination with his co stars for best ensemble cast. Although Nic is trained in over three forms of deadly martial arts, he remains a disgraceful dancer. Nic is passionately against BILL C-10. Seriously...it's a disgrace...like his dancing.
email: nic@uncalledforimprov.com
Dan
Anders
Mike
Caitlin
Matt
Nic
There are approximately 3.8 billion improv games currently in existence worldwide. Many of these games are played by Uncalled For regularly. Useful lists of improv games can be found here and here.
Here is a list of games that Uncalled For prefers to play offstage:
Played like regular poker, but without any real money or chips. Instead, bets and raises are made using objects and concepts that players do not actually have legal ownership of, such as the world supply of rubber, the laughter of children, or Sweden.
An endurance challenge to see who can balance a book on their head for the longest while performing various tasks, i.e. performing in an improv scene, tying their shoelaces, strolling down the boardwalk, etc.
For two players at a time, though often played as a tournament, with winners of respective challenges facing off against eachother. Players stand only on one foot, and when ordered to do so by the referee, begin hopping around, still on one foot, attacking eachother. The first player to allow any part of their body other than the designated foot to touch the ground loses.
A co-operative billiard game for two or more players, the object of speed pool is to sink all the balls on the table, in any order, as quickly as possible. Turn rotation works just like in regular pool, except stripes or solids (or even the 8-ball) become irrelevant and it only matters whether or not you sink a ball or if you scratch.
Just like playing catch with a frizbee, football, tennis ball or anything else, except there must be at least 4 objects in play simultaneously. Catching all objects without passing or dropping any of them is called "Hitting the Big Time" and gives one instant celebrity status.
Two players stand on either side of a circle. They are each given a superball on the end of a string. The first player to cause the other one to choke to death on the superball wins. These are the rules to Distance Jump.
This game has become quite popular since Uncalled For invented it, you can learn more about it here.
These guys have been doing improv in Montreal together for nearly 15 years, so in nine years their troupe will still be 9 years older than ours.
These improv buddies of ours herald themselves as Montreal's low-carb comedy troupe, which I guess makes us Montreal's trans-fat improv troupe.
We only made it in to the 2004 Montreal Fringe when at the last minute the Feldmans pulled out and gave us their slot. They've been very supportive and friendly since, even when we told the media that we'd had them kidnapped to see if it would generate more publicity (it didn't).
Our friend Dave runs a record label called BolderStone Records, which makes us cool by association in a High Fidelity kinda way.
These guys are so pro it's sick. Mike was in their award-winning film Toutouffe, every frame of which is like a golden flower dipped in honey.
Peter is amazing. He's multi-talented in a way that goes beyond just the hyphen in singer-songwriter.
Clyde's is one of our favourite venues back in Montreal's West Island. The place is like a barn taken over by pillaging warriors. It's gloriously debauched. Caitlin's there often enough to deserve her own engraved stein.
Fringe time is the best time of year for Uncalled For. The Fringe is a place where you can perform whatever the hell you want, which is how we got in. These are Fringe Festivals that we have performed at in the past or are scheduled to have performed at in the past.
Our workshops are based upon individual and group exercises built around story and relationships. Students are given the chance to express themselves and interact with their peers in a variety of creative situations, helping them to realize the uniqueness of their imaginations and the thrill of group storytelling.
Uncalled For workshops provide students with the exciting opportunity to perform, improve self-confidence and explore the give-and-take dynamics of teamwork, all in an atmosphere of cooperation and fun. Teachers can use the workshops to gauge the students' interest in drama and improv, possibly leading to clubs, after-school activities, or theatre classes.
For schools that have improv clubs who are looking to polish their skills and expand their repertoire of games, we can also provide more advanced workshops. For schools involved in the Canadian Improv Games, they can lead to regular coaching sessions.
Of course, Uncalled For is also available for performances at school events, fund-raisers, and as an engaging introduction to improvisation for larger groups of students. Feel free to get in touch with us at contact@uncalledforimprov.com.
"Not only are these Montrealers astoundingly quick to come up with fertile scenarios, they're hip and funny enough to keep the punchlines coming at jackhammer speed." "comely near-perfect improv comedy wonderfulness." "The cast filled the crowd with roaring laughter." "These rascals are tight, clever and charismatic." "The funniest piece of improv theatre I've ever seen [...] just plain f***ing hilarious." "Wow - They were really, really ridiculously good." "Like a funhouse football team." "Uncalled For had me bent over for most of the side-splitting show." "Tell your mother: this is one improv show you won't want to miss!"
"Flat-out brilliant... a highly-polished, side-splitting comedic gem... the hilarity doesn't stop." "Ferociously creative, and playful like a motherf***er." "The funniest talk show you'll never see on TV!" "Uncalled For never spends one second too long on any joke [...] An absurd, caffeinated, schizophrenic, fun(ny) stream of consciousness." "Let's call it what it is: a wacky, inspired celebration of off-kilter comic wit [...] the time/space continuum better watch its ass."Blastback Babyzap is the latest sketch comedy show by critically acclaimed Montreal sketch and improv troupe Uncalled For. The top-selling show at the 2008 Montreal Fringe Festival, Blastback Babyzap went on to win the Just For Laughs Best Comedy prize along with co-winners The Cody Rivers Show presents: Stick to Glue. At the Toronto Fringe Festival, Babyzap was ranked by Eye Weekly at the top of their Best of Fest list and appeared on the cover of their festival edition. Moving seamlessly from scene to scene in a raucous ride down a stream of consciousness, tearing down walls and folding them into comedy-origami, Blastback Babyzap brings you fresh, salty-sweet original excitement!
3997 St. Laurent, near Duluth
Montreal
See The Cody Rivers Show presents: Stick to Glue at 8:00pm at MainLine any of these nights AND Blastback Babyzap for the special combined price of $15 (+$2 tax and service charge)!
Having been splashed onto the cover of Toronto's EYE Weekly, who placed them at the very top of their Best-of-Fest list, Uncalled For's Blastback Babyzap is returning to Montreal to perform at the Just For Laughs Festival! Moving seamlessly from scene to scene in a raucous ride down a stream of consciousness, tearing down walls and folding them into comedy-origami, Blastback Babyzap brings you fresh, salty-sweet original excitement! Believe.
"Flat-out brilliant... a highly-polished, camp-filled gem... not to be missed." "Ferociously creative, and playful like a motherf***er."
William Ward is a long-time theatre performer and a graduate of Concordia University's Communication Studies program. Upon graduating he began working as a freelance filmmaker, but found the producing of corporate training videos to not be the most inspiring of creative outlets. So in 2005 he started collaborating with his friends in Uncalled For and began writing and performing sketch comedy shows. Since then Will has been having the time of his life, as he's always been a big fan of the kind of absurd satire so typical of the average Uncalled For sketch. Also being able to create such fun and stimulating material with one's good friends is a huge bonus.
Vanessa Matsui is a graduate of the Concordia University Theatre program where she co-founded the award-winning feminist theatre company Waking the Girl Productions. Notable film credits include Singularity, which premiered at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, Summer House and The Factory, starring John Cusack. Vanessa recently jumped to the role of writer/director with her first short film, Callback, which won the audience award for Best Short at the 2008 ACTRA Montreal Film Festival. This summer Vanessa will be shooting the pilot Process and the film Reverse Angle. In September she is off to Tokyo to star in the Canada-Japan co-production Bloom. She can also be seen weekly as an all-star improvisor at Theatre Ste-Catherine. Vanessa is thrilled to be a part of the wonderfulness that is Blastback Babyzap. Her mother is also delighted that she is not playing a prostitute.
Dan Jeannotte is a graduate of John Abbott College 's Theatre Workshop, where he performed as Cliff in Cabaret, Sheridan Whiteside in The Man Who Came To Dinner and Seymour in Little Shop Of Horrors. He has written and produced a one-act play, lived in Europe, and starred as an extra in Gothika . In the 2003-2004 season, Dan was a member of Kingston Improv, ignoring the feelings of jealousy this ignited in the other members of Uncalled For.
email: dan@uncalledforimprov.com
Anders Yates is a graduate of Concordia University in Montreal with a bachelor’s degree in Communication Studies. In 2007, he travelled to Tokyo to perform on stage in the cult musical comedy Forbidden Zone, and he has recently made his cable television debut in the IFC series The Business. While Anders is currently involved in documentary filmmaking with Montreal’s Rotating Planet Productions, he is also an avid writer and aspiring clown. Anders is the tallest member of Uncalled For.
email: anders@uncalledforimprov.com
Mike Hughes is currently working on creating a new work for the stage. Recently Mike worked with InterKunst, a touring theatre company based in Berlin. This past summer he also wrote and directed his first show (Always Lost Never Found), as part of Gravy Bath`s New Classical Theatre Festival. Some theatre companies that Mike has worked with include the aformentioned Gravy Bath (a compnay he co-founded in 1999), Geordie Productions and the Montreal Young Compnay. Mike was recently challenged to an arm wrestling competition where he surprisingly defeated his much bigger opponent. He credits this achievement to using a combination of power and technique. At the same time.
email: mike@uncalledforimprov.com
Matt Goldberg recently graduated from McGill University, having studied Political Science and Theatre. He directed Tom Stoppard's Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth in an excellent run at the McGill Players' Theatre in 2003. Matt has performed in numerous shows, including The Real Inspector Hound at McGill Players' Theatre, The Importance of Being Earnest at the University of Wales, and Godspell at Montreal's Centaur Theatre. For the past two years, he has coached the John Rennie Improv Team for the Quebec Improv Games, who were Quebec Champions both times. Matt now looks westward, as he plans to pursue his MA in theatre at the University of Guelph. Matt is the fastest member of Uncalled For.
email: matt@uncalledforimprov.com
email: nic@uncalledforimprov.com
Will
Matt
Dan
Mike
Anders
Vanessa
Nic
A: The invention of the telephone is commonly credited to Alexander Graham Bell, who built the first such device in 1876. Shortly thereafter, the action of communicating over telephones was referred to as placing a "call". To signify the opposite of such a call, or an "uncall", if you will, we have chosen to place a "no smoking" or "no parking" style circle and cross-bar over a telephone receiver. The resulting image is our logo. Hence you may derive it as an illustrated representation of the name Uncalled For. Did we really need to explain it to you?
A: Well, when you think about it, all of the events of our lives may in fact have already been mapped out well before we were born. Perhaps there is no such thing as free will, and we are all merely pawns in an intergalactic game of chess. As far as we know, however, yeah, the whole thing is made up right there.
A: Probably not. Unless... no, probably not.
A: Uncalled For is generally accepted to have gotten its start back in 1999 when Dan, Matt, Mike and Amanda first performed improv together along with a few other teammates. Of course it wasn't called Uncalled For back then. In fact, there have been many names associated with the team over time. For starters, 1999 saw us as "The First And Last Carbon Based Improv Team", which you can adorably abbreviate as TFALCBIT, if you like. In 2000, Anders joined, some other people left, some other people joined, and the sum total was named "8 People" in a fit of creative energy. Caitlin hopped on board in 2001 and 8 People suffered a numerical crisis, promptly and unofficially renaming themselves "The Improv Team Without a Name". In 2002, the team toyed with the idea of calling themselves "Akimbo Couch," and quickly saw the error of their ways. Finally, for the 2003 Montreal Fringe Festival, the name "Uncalled For" was settled upon, and there was peace in name-town.
Fringe Festivals, though, require you to also provide a production company name. In 2003, we narrowly escaped being called "The Production Company Without a Name" by making a drunken pact with Fringe producer Jeremy Hechtman to call ourselves "Upstart Firefly Productions". In 2004 we field-tested "Carpe Burn Productions", but in the end, as of 2005, our production company name is also, simply "Uncalled For". You were asking about names, right?
A: Amanda is dividing her time between Toronto and L.A., though she often hangs out on your TV or local indie cinema screen. Hey, why is Amanda so special that you can't just enjoy the improv that the less successful ones of us are making anyway?
A: We just got out of a long-term relationship, so yes, but we're not really ready for commitment just yet. Right now we're just looking for something meaningless and physical.
A: Yes, for real. Send a helicopter to contact@uncalledforimprov.com. We'll be there.
A: Our artistic director, Yefgeny.
A: We'd most likely all be the hooker. Except for Mike. He'd be the ball.
A: No.
A: Sorry about that, we sometimes get anxious when performing in freefall.
A: We're not really sure. Actually, hey, if you're reading this, Guy Who Updates Our Website, could you call Matt? We're pretty sure you owe him some money.
A: We're glad you asked that. As a matter of fact, we do. Matt's super power is that he fills awkward silences. For instance, if the American president and the Soviet Premier are reaching an impasse in negotiations to prevent an imminent nuclear war and things get kinda tense and quiet, Matt's there like a flash to save us from an atomic apocalypse with a useful comment that puts all at ease.
Anders' super power is that he can reach anything, no matter what the distance. This he accomplishes not with super-stretchy arms, but rather with well-placed editing, so that we only ever see him reach out of frame from one point of view and just reach into frame from another.
Caitlin has the power of Enhanced Nudity, which means that she is capable of becoming so naked that people around her suddenly just get naked too, embarrassing evil-doers to no end.
Mike has a defensive super power, which is that he is more-or-less adaptable to any situation. For instance if he were suddenly stuck in a world made entirely of salt, he'd manage okay. It wouldn't be great but he'd get by.
Dan's super power is that he's always late. So whenever one of his arch-nemeses tries to destroy him by placing a bomb that will go off at exactly the time he's expected to show up for work, Dan escapes unharmed.
Amanda's super power is special. Although she's not currently performing with Uncalled For, we like to remenisce about the times when we worked together because Amanda has the ability to stop time. For real. The very FABRIC of time. How handy is that?
Here is a handy list of our favourite Quebec liquor stores:
If you'd like to be updated about Uncalled For's upcoming shows, and what we've generally got cooking in the metaphorical pan, join our wicked-cool mailing list. No need to worry about spam or chain letters or bulky attachments either - this mailing list has been certified as 100% un-annoying. You wanna know when we're putting on shows, and that's what we'll tell you. Nice and simple.
Want us to do a show for you? Want us to liven up your next party? Want us to break someone's legs? The great thing about Uncalled For - aside from their nearly-supernatural entertaining skills – is that they will do almost ANYTHING if the price is right.
Uncalled For is for hire – whether you want us to play at your bar, your barbecue or your bar mitzvah. We've performed at birthday parties, fashion shows, daycares, high schools and cabarets. If it's a full-out improv show you want or just a few games, we can tailor our performance to fit your needs.
Call Anders at (514) 952-4059
or write to Uncalled For at contact@uncalledforimprov.com.
As an improv troupe, Uncalled For grabs suggestions from the audience at every opportunity we can. But we don't want to stop once the show ends. Let us know what you think of this website, what you'd like to see in upcoming shows, or what hair-beard combos you'd like to see on our players. We'd love to hear from you at contact@uncalledforimprov.com.
