The Third Time Is The Charm For Newfoundland's Mom's Girls

Newfoundland sketch comedy troupe Mom's Girls previously applied twice and were accepted twice to perform at the Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival. This year thankfully (with COVID restrictions lifted) they are actually performing in the big city for the first time.

"Two years ago we were supposed to be there and then last year we got in but it was mostly online," member Allison Kelly says. "So they just showed a couple of videos we made of our sketch shows. This is our first time going to a festival as this particular troupe."

Kelly says Mom's Girls formed in 2018 after Kelly, Andie Bulman, Elizabeth Hicks and Stef Curran wanted to create an all women sketch show. The debut show in Christmas 2018 was "really cute" consisting of seven sketches.

"I think we've really come a long way in terms of the length of our shows and our ability to maintain the audience's interest for that long," she says. "We write so much, we edit a lot and we rehearse very diligently. We try and make it a fulsome theatre experience as well."

Kelly also says the chemistry between the quartet was quite apparent despite only knowing Curran, Hicks and Bulman by name only.

"I would have to say it was really magical," she says. "There's something special about making friends through work, through creating this thing together. Now the four of us, they're like my best friends. Partially because we get a lot of work done together and partially because we're in a four-way marriage.

"We have to be very good at communicating because when you're trying to make something everyone's ego are involved. Everyone's aesthetic tastes is involved and we really try to function on the best idea wins."

Citing Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a "pillar of women being funny with the boys," Kelly also says the chance to do sketch comedy with her colleagues liberates her from being boxed in.

"For me personally, being an actor and being cast in other people's work you don't really have a say in what you do," she says. "But when it comes to sketch there's something really freeing about writing characters for yourself that maybe nobody would ever see you as."

While each of the foursome bring their own talents to the table, sometimes the biggest hurdle is getting the seed for a great piece of comedy to the finish line, watching it blossom before an audience.

"You can find people who are idea generators," Kelly says. "They are like, "This would be funny, this would be funny, this would be funny, this would be funny.' But they can't sit down and complete a sketch. We're all at varying levels of idea generators. I'm not the best one I will say that, the girls are better than me. I'm pretty good at executing the writing of a complete sketch.

"The great thing about sketches is they're current, so the world is always generating material for you. You're just paying attention to what's going on on a big level in the world but also the minutiae of your own day is also a great source of comedy. Because even in the worst moment of your life, part of your brain is psychotic as a sketch comedian. 'This could actually be pretty funny if we twisted it.'"

Mom's Girls have kept busy the last few years including creating a six-episode children's series entitled Tales From The Floordrobe for Bell's Fibe TV. Last summer a planned show entitled I Know What You Did In Dildo Last Summer was nixed but didn't stop the group from creating material during a writer's retreat prior to the then slated performance. Plans are also in the works for shows in St. John's this summer and hopefully a return for some shows at Perchance Theatre, an outdoor theatre in Cupids known for hosting Shakespeare plays.

This week though Mom's Girls will bring fun, silliness and song to their two Toronto shows.

"Something we love to do is ride the line between political satire but it's actually just a celebration of people like us making comedy," Kelly says. "We always have a parody song sketch or an original song sketch. We have a sketch where we play babies and then there's another sketch where we play old British men. So there's a pretty big variety."

Finally, what do their moms think of Mom's Girls?

"Sometimes they like it and sometimes they hate it," Kelly says with a laugh. "Sometimes what we do is quite wholesome and our sketches are honestly pretty family friendly. But we also have a late night version of ourselves where the jokes are more raunchy. I think that's where the name comes from, it really sums us up as being pretty wholesome women and also having a wild side to us."

Mom's Girls will perform March 10 and 11 at the Comedy Bar Mainspace.
For ticket and schedule info visit torontosketchfest.com.