TOSketchFestBlog
TOsketchfest is thrilled to publicly acknowledge the contributions of our 2025 live festival Programming Committee. This dedicated group of comedy professionals—Tim Blair, Aurora Browne, Alia Rasul, Alessandra Vite, and Ken Hall—generously lent their time and expertise to help shape our milestone 20th anniversary lineup. Watching over 150 festival submissions, they provided thoughtful recommendations and engaged in lively discussions to curate a festival that truly showcases the best in sketch comedy. We’re so grateful for their contributions!
Alessandra Vite
Alessandra Vite is a comedic writer based in Toronto. She began her career improvising with The Second City and was a member of their National Touring Company. She went on to write for the popular CBC Radio show “Because News”, and wrote for the 27th season of “This Hour Has 22 Minutes”. Alessandra is a seasoned sketch writer and performer, being the head writer and performer of the Canadian Comedy Award-winning sketch troupe “The Sketchersons”. She has also performed at JFL42 with her award-winning sketch troupe “The Flirty Boys”. She was also featured in the Montreal Just For Laughs festival with her Sonar Network-produced podcast, “Shh… I’m Watching A Movie”. You can also catch her selling butt eggs to vampires on FX’s “What We Do In The Shadows”.
Ken Hall
‘Ken Hall is a Dora Mavor Moore Award nominee, Canadian Comedy Award winner (Best Breakout Artist) and multiple CCA award nominee, including, Comedic Artist of the Year.
Ken plays the lovable Herb and provides motion capture as the body of Pogo in Netflix’s THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY and has appeared in numerous film and television roles including two seasons as, Jeff The Grey, on TBS’s hit series PEOPLE OF EARTH and has appeared as a guest on CONAN.
Ken is also one-half of the critically acclaimed, comedic clownprov duo, 2-MAN NO-SHOW, with his comedic soulmate, Isaac Kessler, and has had the pleasure to work for CIRQUE DU SOLEIL.
Ken co-created & co-instructs a 6 week course on creative play, aptly named, Brunch!, at Sweet Action Theatre as well as, SpeakEasy, a course that combines public speaking and play theory. Ken also teaches Public Speaking at The Second City – a course he created and developed, as well as Clownprov at Bad Dog Theatre. In his spare time, he teaches Storytelling at CB PRO and improv at The Social Capital Theatre and with The Assembly. Ken was awarded the Frank McAnulty Award for Faculty Instructor of the Year 2019 at The Second City.’
Aurora Browne
Aurora Browne is an alumna of The Second City Toronto and best known to audiences as one quarter of Baroness Von Sketch Show.
Alia Rasul
Alia Rasul is a comedian based in Toronto. She is a member of the Tita Collective, an award winning group of Filipina theatre artists. Additionally, she has recently published her first collection of poetry Super Important Filipina Thoughts. She co-produced and wrote a short documentary 15 Ways My Dad Almost Died which is currently streaming on CBC Gem. She is currently the managing artistic director of Bad Dog Comedy Theatre.
Tim Blair
TIM BLAIR is a comedian and a founding member of the acclaimed comedy troupe, TallBoyz II Men. Together with Bruce McCulloch from Kids In The Hall, they created the multiple Canadian Screen Award-winning sketch show, TallBoyz. A seasoned live performer, Tim excels in stand-up, sketch, and improv. He’s an alumnus of Second City’s House Co. and has showcased his talent at festivals like Just for Laughs Toronto and the NBC Breakout Festival in Chicago.
Find the 2025 TOsketchfest Festival Lineup here!
Each year, TOsketchfest assembles a committee of industry professionals—often festival alumni or those with deep-rooted experience in the comedy community—to help shape our lineup. As the festival continues to grow, we remain committed to reviewing and evolving our programming principles to reflect the needs of our community. We actively seek to include diverse voices and perspectives to ensure a festival that is vibrant, inclusive, and representative of today’s comedy landscape.
To all past and present committee members: thank you for your time, insight, and dedication. Our festival wouldn’t be the same without you!
