TOSketchFestBlog
TOsketchfest kicks off the 2025 Learning + Fun Series with an informative virtual presentation with the TOsketchfest team, and guests from Newfoundland and Labrador Sketch Fest, Philly Sketchfest and Austin Sketch Fest.
Submissions for TOsketchfest25 are open from October 1 – November 10, 2024. Creating a festival submission is a job. Sure, there are the forms and submission fees to navigate, but that’s just the END of a submissions process.
How do you write about your work?
Do you have great photos?
Does your video submission do your work justice?
We thought we’d bring a few festival programmers together to talk a bit about what their festivals are looking for, and to offer tips and insights on what you can do to make your festival submission shine.
WHAT MAKES A GREAT FESTIVAL SUBMISSION?
Date: Wednesday October 9, 6:00-7:00pm Eastern Time
Location: Virtual Session – Zoom
Program Length is approximately 60 minutes
Cost: FREE
Our Guests
Paul Snepsts
Paul Snepsts (he/him) is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of The Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival. Paul is a passionate advocate for writers and performing artists in comedy. He has fulfilled roles as Canadian talent scout for JibJab Inc., sat on adjudication committees for The Tim Sims Encouragement Awards, The Canadian Comedy Awards, and was Vice President of The Canadian Association of Stand-up, Sketch and Improv Comedians. In his 20 years in working comedy Paul has watched a LOT of festival submissions.
Stef Curran
Stef Curran (she/they) is a comedian and writer based in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador and is the Director of Communications for the newly formed Newfoundland and Labrador Sketch Fest. Curran has been performing for over thirteen years but has concentrated her focus on comedy over the last six years. Curran has done comedy outside of Newfoundland and Labrador, including Toronto Sketch Festival and Chicago Sketch Fest at Stage 773, and virtually reaching audiences all over the world on Tik Tok (rawstefc) where she produces short comedic sketches for 28,000 followers. Curran, along with Mom’s Girls, has co-written and acted in Tales from the Floordrobe, which is a children’s TV show funded and available now to watch on Bell Fibe, TV1, and will be starring along Mom’s Girls member Andie Bulman in the new Bell Fibe show Casting which will be airing this fall.
Josh Higham
Josh Higham is a producer with Philly Sketchfest. He is the creator and host of My First Sketch, where he interviews sketch comedians from all over North America. In Philly, he works on the bi-monthly shows, Cutthroat Sketch, Cavalcade, and the soon-to-debut Theme Park. Most recently, he performed sketch comedy under the moniker Mean Sparkle.
Carolyn Kelleher
Carolyn Kelleher (she/her) is the Creative Director of Austin Sketch Fest and a writer-director-producer-comedian-and-self-proclaimed-multi-hyphenate in Austin, Texas. Carolyn regularly performs stand up, sketch, and improv comedy with troupes Folxxx and (B Iden Payne nominated) Mother Wound.
