The 22nd annual Just for Laughs comedy festival wrapped up here last weekend with some deal-making and a Sunday night gala hosted by Tom Arnold.
At the end of a festival featuring a strong showing for Canadian talent, Caribbean-born and Toronto-based Gilson Lubin walked away with a development deal with Spike TV. He bested 10 other stand-up comics—all selected based on their performances throughout the festival—in Saturday night's first-ever "Spike the Mike" contest.
A few days earlier, Lubin had been the runner-up in JFL's annual competition of young Canadian stand-ups.
"I just came to Montreal to meet some people and maybe make some connections, but I did one better than that," said Lubin, who is about to turn 28 and will now have the opportunity to create or even host a show on Spike TV. "It's fantastic."
Festival attendees said that Lubin, who currently has no management or agency representation but is drawing strong heat from various sides, convinced them with his charisma and his smart material (about such things as his upbringing, his unusual name, and cross-eyed ex-girlfriends).
"He's the kind of guy you want to invite to a dinner party," said Maureen Taran, who runs her own New York management firm, the Taran Company. "He's someone people will want to spend time with—whether on stage, on the big screen, or on TV."
Fellow Canadian Nikki Payne, who performs in a Toronto sketch troupe with Lubin, also left Montreal with a deal, as she picked the bicoastal Don Buchwald & Associates as her agency and Los Angeles-based Judy Apperson and Toronto-based Mark Breslin as her co-managers. Payne's energetic act centers around her upbringing with a speech impediment in a Nova Scotia trailer park.
Industry insiders also trudged out in droves once again for JFL's "New Faces of Comedy" showcases, which this year featured 19 up-and-coming stand-up comics who strutted their stuff in two shows hosted by festival veteran Adam Ferrara.
The main standouts were Jon Fisch and John Wessling, who were each close to deciding between several offers by management groups and agencies by the end of the festival. John Viener, Marina Franklin, Rodney Laney, Canada's Rob Pue, London's Hal Cruttenden, and Eddie Pence were other "new faces" who drew industry attention.
British comic-ventriloquist Nina Conti was a last-minute addition to "New Faces of Comedy." She presented one of the most unusual acts the showcase has seen over the years as she engaged in an onstage dialogue with her monkey hand puppet and ended with a surprise twist.
Industry turnout was also strong for JFL's annual show called "The Masters": established stand-ups who have well-developed voices but have so far been overlooked in the hunt for sitcom deals. In that showcase, Ross Bennett, Bill Burr, and Ted Alexandro earned particularly strong reviews from industry members and the general audience, with DC Benny and John Morgan also attracting attention.
Other stand-ups who had well-received sets at JFL included Tammy Pescatelli, Ireland's Tommy Tiernan, Adam Ferrara, Greg Fitzsimmons, Jim Gaffigan, Mitch Hedberg, Dane Cook, and Jay Malone—who won JFL's young Canadian stand-up competition—as well as U.K. comics Stan Stanley and Simon Evans.
"Tommy has a very strong and distinct voice," said one network executive after Tiernan had won a standing ovation at a gala performance.
Pescatelli (NBC's "Last Comic Standing"), who was discovered at JFL two years ago, once again attracted attention with a strong audience reaction to her act revolving around her upbringing in an Italian family, with observers suggesting she could be ready for bigger TV projects.
A Musical Receives Applause
Among alternative stage productions at the festival, "Evil Dead 1 & 2: The Musical" garnered rave reviews and created industry buzz, with agents and development executives expressing interest in possibly working with creators George Reinblatt and Christopher Bond, as well as the cast, which included lead Ryan Ward, Alexandria Galante, Danielle Meierhenry, Matt Olmstead, Kylee Evans, and Mike Nahrgang. In addition, live-event producers in North America, Europe, and Australia were looking at potentially booking the musical for their home markets.
Actor-director Bill Paxton was so impressed with Nahrgang, according to festival organizers, that he immediately signed the actor for a role in the golf movie "The Greatest Game Ever Played," a drama Paxton is currently directing.
In other industry news emerging from JFL, young Canadian comic Ryan Belleville, who debuted at the festival last year and was back this year with stand-up sets and a movie role in JFL's film segment, has signed as a series regular on the new Fox sitcom "Related by Family," from writer-producer Victor Fresco. The show revolves around a blended family and two very different teenagers forced to live under the same roof when their parents remarry. Belleville plays the boyfriend of one of the teenagers.
The cast and creators of the Fox animated series "Family Guy," which returns to the network's schedule next year, won over Montreal crowds with live, onstage readings of series episodes.
In a press conference that also included the show's voice talent, such as Seth Green and Mila Kunis, creator and executive producer Seth MacFarlane said, "We were all shocked," referring to Fox's decision to resurrect "Family Guy" due to popular demand after the network had canceled the show two years ago.
Asked about possible plotlines for the 2005 season, "Family Guy" voice actor, writer, and executive story editor Alex Borstein ("Mad TV") said, "People will be exploring their sexuality and some marriages may be in jeopardy." Added MacFarlane: "And one family member may go on a reality TV show."
Tim Allen visited Montreal to return to his stand-up roots by hosting two evening galas. Allen said he'd just wrapped Revolution Studio's November release, "Christmas With the Kranks," and expects to start production in the fall on Disney's remake of "The Shaggy Dog," which he's producing with partner Matt Carroll.
While he expressed little interest in returning to a regular stand-up schedule again, Allen said he is considering a return to TV in one form or another. "I often think about it, but I'm not sure if I don't want to do more-educational programs" as opposed to sitcoms, he said, adding that he is currently assisting in trying to get an entertaining science show on the air somewhere.