The Kids in the Hall's Kevin McDonald hosts a laughter-filled weekend at The Improv Centre this August
Canadian comedy legend will perform a just-announced evening of improv and standup sets, plus teach two writing and performance workshops
Kevin McDonald. Photo by Kevin Patrick Robbins
THE KIDS IN THE HALL are pretty well synonymous with sketch comedy in Canada—the troupe assembled in 1984 shot to fame with the release of their eponymous TV show, which aired from 1989 to 1995 on CBC (as well as on HBO and CBS in the U.S.).
One of the legendary group’s founding members, Montreal-born actor and comedian Kevin McDonald, will be making a pitstop in Vancouver this summer for two days of laugh-centric programming at The Improv Centre.
On August 24, he will present Unhinged with Kevin McDonald from 9:30 pm to 11 pm, a hilarious evening performance that will be divided into two parts. In the first half, McDonald will deliver standup comedy sets that The Improv Centre’s mainstage ensemble will then use to create spin-off improv scenes. During the second half, all the performers will join together for an all-out improv show.
Aside from his years of touring and filming with The Kids in the Hall, McDonald has amassed an impressive acting resume that spans the role of Pastor Dave in That ’70s Show to voice acting for Disney’s Lilo & Stitch and Nickelodeon’s Catscratch. The same weekend as his performance, he’ll be teaching some of those skills to small classes of students in a pair of workshops at The Improv Centre.
On August 24 (before his nighttime performance), McDonald will lead a performance-based “Sketch from Improv” workshop in which students will learn how to transform improv scenes into full-fledged polished comedy sketches. In a second “One Line Premise” workshop on August 25, the focus will be exclusively on writing; each student will bring a sketch-comedy premise to the table (for example, “What if a guy was $10 short of being a millionaire?”) and explore how to structure it into a full scene with a developed storyline and characters. Both workshops will take place from 10:30 am to 2:30 pm, with a maximum capacity of 16 participants.
The Kids in the Hall is composed of five members: McDonald, Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Mark McKinney, and Scott Thompson. The troupe got its name from 1950s comedian Sid Caesar, who famously blamed bad jokes on “the kids in the hall”—a bunch of eager young writers who would loiter around the studio where he filmed his TV sets. 
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