Cannabis Comedy Festival in the Six
The Cannabis Comedy Festival is Toronto's largest comedy festival with a focus on cannabis and stand-up comedy.
The Cannabis Comedy Festival has had the pleasure of hosting amazing comedians from all over North America and the lineup features some of the best up and coming comedians who have been seen and heard on JFL, CBC Comedy, Sirius XM and more!
The Performers
The lineup consists of 6 performers from across North America. Each one brings a unique voice to the stage with a myriad of perspectives. There's B.C.'s Che Durena whose star is rising on the Toronto scene, Colorado's Luke Gaston who was recently a finalist in the 2018 Comedy Works’ New Faces Competition, Lianne Mauladin who has been featured on on ABC, Bite TV, iChannel, Sirius XM Radio, CBC and Rogers TV and local Hisham Kelati who is known for his vivid and engaging storytelling. Also on the bill is Ben Bankas who has been doing comedy in clubs all across the city such as Yuk Yuk’s Absolute Comedy, Underground Comedy Club and the night's headliner: Bryan O’Gorman; the "Professional Weirdo".
Comedy and Cannabis
Curious about how stand up and cannabis go together we reached out to Lianne Mauladin to ask if weed lounges make for good comedy venues. "Well, that varies. Usually the crowd is pretty chill." she says, "The rule is if you can get an audible laugh from a weed room audience then you've got a good joke there!"
The old trope that stoners are flighty and not paying attention doesn't hold water with Mauladin "One thing I think most comics notice is that the weed room audiences want comedians to be real. By that I mean they would much rather you come out and throw around some barely developed jokes, and share unpolished funny thoughts than to hear you stand up there and deliver your regular predetermined material. I don't know what it is but it is definitely a thing. Perhaps people in the weed rooms prefer to be part of the creative process instead of just passive observers." Catch Mauladin along with the rest of the featured performers this Friday night and if you get hooked on this "gateway" comedy festival you can get more at the monthly The Merry Janes of Comedy (the longest running all female comedy show in Toronto.)