The line-up for
this year’s edition of the Just For Laughs Festival, which runs from July 13 to
August 1, just keeps on expanding at a break neck pace. And this past Monday
(June 13), festival COO Bruce Hills and his team of programmers and organizers
invited the media and special guests to the café of the Monument National
Theatre to unveil its third wave of performers to this ever-increasing line-up.
And it just keeps
on getting more and more interesting.
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| Just For Laughs COO Bruce Hills |
To start off, Hills
announced that after a two-year absence, actor/comedian Seth Rogen returns to
Just For Laughs. This time, he will not be hosting a gala; instead, he will be
hosting a special premiere screening of his newest film “Sausage Party” on July
30 at the Imperial Theatre, nearly two weeks before its official release on
August 12. Co-written by Rogen, and regarded as the first-ever R-rated computer
graphics animated feature, “Sausage Party” includes the voice talents of Rogen,
along with Bill Hader, Michael Cera, Kristen Wiig, Jonah Hill and Salma Hayek,
and tells the story how a rebellious sausage leads a group of various supermarket
products in a quest about their existence, and what really happens to them when
they end up in a customer’s shopping cart.
Comedian (and
recent best selling author) Aziz Ansari brings himself and the cast of his
latest TV series – “Master of None” on Netflix – for a special panel discussion
about the series on July 30 at the Grand Salon of the Hyatt Regency Hotel, as
part of the JFL ComedyPRO Series. Ansari will be accompanied by fellow cast
members Noel Wells, Kelvin Yu and Alan Yang, and will give a behind-the-scenes
look at the series, which deals with a 30-year-old New York-based actor who
can’t decide on what he has to do in his everyday life, let alone decide what
his career path will be.
And two more recent
developments have been announced regarding the festival’s flagship galas at
Salle Wilfrid Pelletier of Place des Arts: Russell Peters, who will be doing a
special guest appearance at Howie Mandel’s gala, will be hosting his own gala
for one night only on July 30. And 18 years later, actor and Broadway veteran
Nathan Lane (who has been recently onstage in “It’s Only A Play”, and seen in
his semi-regular role on the hit TV series “Modern Family”) returns to Just For
Laughs to trod the boards as host “The Nathan Lane Showstopper Gala” on July 28.
For those fans of
improv comedy, they will be happy to learn that the master if improv himself,
Colin Mochrie, will be back at Just For Laughs with two separate shows. First,
he teams up with master hypnotist Asad Mecci for a unique spectacular called
“Hyprov: Improv Under Hypnosis” on July 30 at the Cinquieme Salle of Place des
Arts. Mochrie will perform acts of improv comedy, only this time under the
influence of hypnosis, along with 20 willing volunteers from the audience, with
the top five volunteers matching their “hyprov” skills with Mochrie. Then on
July 27, Mochrie and his “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” co-star Brad Sherwood
present an evening of the type of top notch improv comedy that have made them
famous with “The Colin and Brad Show” at the L’Olympia on St. Catherine Street
East.
Besides hosting the
much-anticipated CW gala, Howie Mandel will present a screening of his
documentary “Committed”, which chronicles the 14-year struggle of aspiring
comic Vic Cohen, as he tries to make it in show business. The screening, which
also includes a Q&A session with Mandel, takes place on July 28. And
British James Mullinger, a favorite with Montreal comedy audiences, will
present a special preview screening of his upcoming autobiographical feature
“The Comedian’s Guide to Survival” on July 29. Mullinger will be present at the
screening, along with co-stars Mike Ward and Mark Murphy. Both screenings will
take place at the Cinema du Parc.
For more
information about these and other Just For Laughs shows, or to purchase
tickets, go to www.hahaha.com.
(This article originally appeared in the June 18 edition of the Montreal Times)
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