“Pi’s Phucking Phunny Celebration of Comedy” is bringing a triple bill of laughs

by Emma Shular on April 25th, 2024 at 6:05 AM

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Featuring three unique shows for one night only, Pi’s Phucking Phunny Celebration of Comedy is a mini comedy festival of sorts. Three chances to LOL in one night: what could be better than that?

The first two shows bring emerging and established comics to the stage in back-to-back sets. If standup comedy isn’t your thing, the third and final show will be an improv story presented by the Tightrope Impro Theatre. It’s all taking place on May 4 at the newly-opened Little Mountain Gallery in Gastown.

Comedian and actor Kwasi Thomas is the curator and host for the first two shows of the night. He says that with the event, he hopes to represent where comedy is right now.

“I did take some special care to make sure it was going to be a solid lineup,” he says via phone.

Kwasi Thomas.

Thomas says that the biggest struggle he had with the lineup was booking so many local comedians for one single night.

“In the past, most comedians would congregate in the same place, so it was easy to get in touch with people—but now everyone’s got their own shows,” he explains. “The only real challenge was wrangling everyone for the same two shows on the same day—but it’s been great. Everyone’s shown a lot of excitement.”

At this point in his career, Thomas says he mainly wants to help newer comics succeed.

“A large percentage [of how acts were picked] was me really, really hoping to give these guys a little bit of shine so they can be in the eye of the public a little bit more,” he says. “Who do I want other people to see and who do I want other people to know about?”

This show isn’t the first one Thomas has curated in his career, but he acknowledges that he’s very excited about it for a number of reasons.

“It’s been really fun to be in charge of the lineup and be in charge of this chunk of something that I’m so passionate about,” he says. “I’m really, really excited about presenting the newer lineup to a crowd of people, and things to that effect. And then of course I’m very very excited to work with the more established heavy-hitters on the second show.”

Thomas says that he hopes this show promotes a “positive expansion of comedy,” and that it influences more theatres in Vancouver to do similar festival-like shows.

“Comedy isn’t new, but the way we’re approaching this festival, putting everything all in one day—that’s a new twist on it,” he says. “So hopefully we’ll be able to get more of those.”