Amanda was born in the States? Add it to the list of things you don’t know about her. An American (and now Canadian) who came to Canada as a pre-teen and went on to study Canadian Studies in University (along with her degree in English and Drama). She knows more about Canada than most Canadians I know. Did you know the Blue Jays had a female mascot named Diamond for several years? Amanda was her! She worked cruise ships for Royal Caribbean, yup. Worked in an office in Monaco. Taught in Korea, yes she did. Was Communications Coordinator for a major pizza company for 7 years. This list is long.

I met Amanda where many Toronto comedians can be connected like a game of “6 degrees from Kevin Bacon”, we met at Tony and Tina’s Wedding. There we hustled our butts off staying in “character” and improvising 10 shows a week during the summer of SARS. That’s probably 30 hours of improv a week if you’re doing the math. Twelve-ish years ago Fearlessly funny sketch troupe “Shame is Right!” was buzzing in Toronto, she created that with a few others who have all gone on to have equally impressive successes. If you want their names look them up, we’re talking about Amanda here, not them (but they were truly great).

Second City Toronto snatched her up and put her in the touring company. Second City Chicago snatched her up and put her on another cruise ship. A Fifty Shades of Grey Parody called “SPANK!” snatches her up and she tours with that show for 3 years. During this time she writes a few successful theatre shows, and manges to be in a few others – yes while also on tour. One of which brings Randy and Evi Quaid out of hiding. She tells me they were very nice in person.

More theatre across Canada, some films, and TV; A Handmaid’s Tale, Designated Survivor, Frankie Drake, Bajillionaires, Good Witch, Dino Dana, Odd Squad she goes on and wins a bunch of Broadway World Awards and picks up a Canadian Comedy Award this year for her performance in “A Gay Victorian Affair” which currently has over a million views, (https://agayvictorianaffair.com). That happens on the same night that the musical that she has been co-creating on for 4 years (“Little Black Dress: A Fearlessl Funny Girls Night out musical – https://www.littleblackdressthemusical.com) launches at the CAA theatre on the other side of town. It continues to tour North America. She’s on to other projects. Currently she’s launching “Clothewap” a show that I hear is really special and fantastic.

Her parents are artists, musicians and fierce business people, her sister does animation, her brother designs theatre lights and her husband is a well established comedian and now hit podcast producer.

She also makes a mean spinach dip, like dumbly good, ask her for the recipe. – DALE BOYER

What ‘hood are you in?

It’s called a few different things – Cast Loma…Wychwood…Some call it the Annex but that’s often up for debate…Dupont and Christie is my intersection anyway!

What do you do?

I’m an Actor, writer, producer, radio co-host and a director for commercial casting.

What are you currently working on?

I am so glad you asked!!! I’m so happily working in and on a show that I co-wrote with the amazing Dale Boyer. It is happening at The Textile Museum of Canada, at 55 Centre Street during Theatre Christmas, aka The Toronto Fringe.

We examine the seams of empath among women, the high cost of fast fashion and the stories our bodies tell.

It’s a show, a swap, and free admission to one of Toronto’s greatest and most unique museums, The Textile Museum of Canada. This is the world premiere and it will take place at the Toronto Fringe – July 3-13 at The Textile Museum of Canada.

We are inviting members of the audience to bring bags of used clothing to serve as fodder for improv within the performance. After the performance, these garments will be donated to Sistering and Dress for Success.

Where can we find your work?

Links:

BUY TICKETS HERE: https://fringetoronto.com/fringe/show/clotheswap

http://www.amandajbarker.com
http://www.clotheswapshow.com
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2144639/
https://agayvictorianaffair.com
www.releasethestars.ca

The post “A Day in the Life” with Toronto Creative Amanda Barker appeared first on Toronto Guardian.

I’ve always loved that analogy. And for the most part, that’s a pretty accurate summary of Canadian showbiz. Very few comedians manage to make a name for themselves here at home. We have a weird habit of not recognising our own until they’ve appeared in a string of Judd Apatow movies or made their way onto the cast of SNL.

But there are those rare few Canadian comics – those larger than life personas who somehow break through that barrier and connect with an audience coast to coast. From Antagonish to Abbotsford (or any other geographically separate cities you’d care to name here for flavour).

Two summers ago I was wrapping up another hectic week in Montreal, home of the world-famous Just for Laughs festival (also one of just a few name brand institutions in Canadian comedy, by the way). It’s arguably the biggest comedy festival in existence. And for those of us in the business of funny, it’s an annual pilgrimage. It’s summer camp for comedians.

It was my last night at the festival, and I witnessed something I never thought possible in Canadian comedy – a crowd of 115,000 people watching a comedian on stage. 115,000 people – that’s about 5k shy of the entire population of the city where I was born.

That night, Sugar Sammy was playing to an outdoor crowd of Montrealers and comedy fanatics from across this land who swarmed into the middle of the city all to watch him.

I realized that night that Sugar Sammy is one of those few names. For every audience member or family friend who has ever asked me “hey, have you ever met Russell Peters??” or every small town Canadian who has ever thrown a Ron James joke at me, there’s an instant recognition when you mention Sugar Sammy.

And he hasn’t just figured out that recipe for success here in Hollywood North – Sammy’s been spreading the sugar to audiences all over the map. On network tv specials, festivals far and wide, and comedy clubs in nearly every corner of the globe. He’s played to packed audiences in places where, not long ago, there was no comedy at all.

There’s something to be said about relatability. To be able to connect with a crowd in South East Asia with the same style of comedy you might perform for a corporate gig somewhere in middle America, or at a comedy club in the UK – that’s borderline unheard of. It’s absurd. But it can be done. Sugar Sammy can work a room of any size. Oh and he performs in multiple languages too (beyond just the requisite English and French that most Quebecois comedians can boast).

And before he played to that crowd of 115,000 that night in Montreal. Or appeared on that coveted Just for Laughs lineup oh so many times – that’s where he got his start. Montreal. A notorious breeding ground for some of Canada’s funniest.

We recently sat down with Sammy on “Inside Jokes”, a weekly radio show I co-host (helmed by Sandra Carusi, who you may have read about in recent Guardian pieces) It’s a strangely off-colour show considering the fact that we broadcast on a pseudo-conservative Talk Radio station. And every week we sit down with Canadian comics (and yes, American ones too) and take listeners inside the world of standup. What it’s like on stage and in the green room. And how and why these big names and notorious characters ended up choosing such a bizarre thing to do with their life.

For the most part it could be said that the majority of comedians are just wired a little differently than everyone else. We’re a little “off”, it’s no secret. With Sammy, it’s clearly all out of pure love. He lives and breathes comedy. Motivated entirely and undeniably by a die-hard love of the game.

We asked him what the difference was between playing a sold out theatre somewhere in the Eastern hemisphere. Or a comedy club in L.A. Or a festival gala taped for Canadian television. None, as far as he’s concerned.

“I sometimes come home (to Montreal) and I’ll pop into these random shows” he told us “and just work on stuff. I just show up. In these regular rooms and on these shows that make up that scene. And just work on jokes. And I love it as much now as I did when I started. If there’s a handful of people in the room and I get to be on stage, doing what I do – I love it”

And though his relentless touring schedule takes him to places far and wide, Sugar Sammy is undeniably ours. He’s a Canadian comedian who made it big but kept his roots here at home.

In fact, at time of writing he’s currently on a 12-city tour across Canada. Under the Just for Laughs banner, Sugar Sammy is hitting the stage along with two other festival favourites – Alonzo Bodden and Gina Brillon. As the 2017 “Just for Laughs Comedy Tour” makes its way across the country.

We talked to Alonzo and Gina on the air too (which you can hear HERE). And if you haven’t seen Sugar Sammy on stage yet, here’s your chance to do it without fighting your way through a crowd of 115,000 Montrealers.

The tour will also wrap up here in Toronto with a show at our own Massey Hall. Tickets and tour dates are available right here, courtesy of our friends at Just for Laughs.

It’s a good reminder to Canadians, just how much funny comes from this country. Comedy might just be our biggest (and certainly our best) national export. And Sugar Sammy is a good inspiration to upcoming comics in Canada that one day, maybe, with the right blend of talent and tenacity – it is possible. You might just make it after all.

Or at the very least, you could get recognised at your local Loblaws.

The post Sugar Sammy: Canadian Famous appeared first on Toronto Guardian.

A bridge burned in Canadian radio is one that’s nearly impossible to rebuild. Relationships stick. Rumours travel. The notoriously impossible to work with are remembered and reviled at water coolers across the land. And friendships tend to be lifelong.

Which brings me to Sandra Carusi. I’ve been working with Sandra for just shy of a decade. I first encountered her in the summer of 2008, when my own budding radio “career” landed me in southern Ontario, after an education in Ottawa. And a 2-year run working for a local radio and TV affiliate back in my hometown. I was then just a novice in this racket, only a few years fresh from college and not yet embittered or emboldened by the brutality and mayhem of this snake oil trade I love so dearly.

I was a full-time copywriter, still finding my voice. Sandra was a radio sales rep. And a notorious one at that. Carusi made bank. She represented the big dogs – from luxury car dealers to top tier restaurant chains, popular night clubs helmed by shifty characters and eccentric entrepreneurs with wads of cash – and just about every advertising venture in between. She was bold and blunt, and didn’t take much shit lying down. That was my very first impression of Sandra, aka “The Cruiser”. And a decade later, not much has changed.

I spent 3 years writing for Sandra and her clients, at a cluster of Rock, Talk, News and Country stations on the AM and FM dials, in Hamilton and Toronto. They were ratings behemoths, and Carusi was on the front lines spreading the good word to anyone with an advertising budget.

Cruiser wasn’t one to pull many punches in the boardroom, or out on the street. If a client or a colleague was off the mark, she wasn’t hesitant to step in. If I was late on a deadline or blew it entirely on a brief (although I rarely did, by the way) I was guaranteed to hear about it. “What the f*ck, you didn’t even include XYZ about the new Lexus? That’s gotta be in there! Can you get on that? They’re gonna be pissed!”

But Cruiser always had something I have often found rare in radio, especially on the business side of things – a true, unwavering passion. She wasn’t just in it for the almighty dollar (although, she’s not shy about mentioning that bottom line. She knows the way the business works) And she’s got a sense for money that many in the sales pit always tended to envy. But she was and is someone who truly, madly, deeply loves and understands radio – and on this, we had an immediate connection. A common ground, between a real sales shark (I use that as a term of endearment) and a weird kid with a way with words. This was our bond. We both live, breathe and instinctually understand the dog eat dog world of Canadian radio.

During those early days, I was also embarking on another new career path – standup comedy. By day, I was writing 30 second spots for car dealers, fast food chains and craft breweries across the GTA. By night, I was opening up my veins and exposing my fragile ego to mixed reviews in dive bars, comedy clubs and coffee shops scattered all over Toronto. What I didn’t know at the time was that Sandra Carusi had once had her own beginnings in comedy – cutting her teeth on stage years earlier before embarking on her decorated career in the die-hard boiler room that is radio sales.

Eventually, I made the move to the Toronto radio dial under a different corporate umbrella. So for the time being, Sandra and I parted ways in the 9 to 5 world. But standup would become the other shared love that brought me and the Cruiser back together just a few years later. She had kept track of my trajectory in comedy, and reached out one day to book me on a fundraiser show on the Toronto waterfront. I was a few years in, still a little green behind the years – but I had 15 polished minutes and an old connection.

We became fast friends and colleagues again. And a new collaboration was underway.

It’s true beyond a shadow of a doubt that great radio, like great comedy, can often be born out of life’s biggest hardships. So when Sandra found herself faced with a Cancer diagnosis, she faced the news like a true comic voice – she spun it into material. She took to the stage again, revisiting the world of standup she had drifted in and out of over the years. Writing and performing again. When she found herself spending long days in a hospital room, enduring the barrage of treatments her Cancer had brought on, she passed the time by watching clips and specials from her own favourite standups. And exploring new voices in Canadian comedy. And she found living proof that the old adage that “laughter is the best medicine” had some serious truth to it. For Sandra, comedy was a saving grace.

So she launched a podcast, taking listeners into the green room – interviewing the best and brightest in upcoming Canadian comedy talent, and delving into Toronto’s thriving standup scene. “Inside Jokes” is the evolution of Sandra’s rekindled love of comedy. The podcast became a radio show, picked up by the network brass at Corus (our old alma mater) and airing weekly on AM640 (Toronto’s Talk Radio). Sandra Carusi, against all odds, was back in the game – making the transition from the boardroom to the broadcasting booth. Her illness propelled her to become a personality – and fight back against her illness, one punchline at a time.

When I left the 9 to 5 world a little over a year ago, to embark full time on my own standup career (after 6 years of grinding it out night after night) – Sandra invited me into the studio. And there we were, on the mic again. I became Sandra’s on-air sidekick and a producer to help her pull the strings. I took on a new roll as the Roz to Sandra’s Frasier, if you will. Working with co-producer Vince Tedesco and a crew of radio interns and engineers every week – back in our old stomping grounds. With our shared history in radio and our own ventures as podcast producers, and my permanent residency in the Canadian comedy landscape, we teamed up to hit the air and promote Canadian comedy every Sunday on the air. Sandra turned her ongoing battle against Cancer into a whole new stream of content. A war which she’s tackling with all the grit and determination (and stubborn determination) that I have always come to love and admire about this dynamo.

Cancer isn’t an easy enemy to conquer. Like just about anyone, I’ve seen family members and friends succumb to this ruthless disease. Last year alone, the comedy community lost two brilliant young voices to the rigours of Cancer. I published my own eulogy to comedian Josh Haddon right here in the Toronto Guardian.

But Sandra’s on an upswing. And if I know her as well as I think, she’ll ultimately have the last laugh. Even Cancer was kind of an idiot to pick a fight with the Cruiser. Trust me, I’ve pissed her off myself and she’s no pushover.

To aid in her fight against the diagnosis, and help cover the costs (and a laundry list of life changes) brought on by the illness, a ragtag band of friends and peers have put together a special fundraiser event in Sandra’s honour this Friday night at Toronto’s famous Phoenix Concert Theatre. Featuring a star-studded cast of comedians, live performers and a few famous faces for radio. With the help of Toronto jocks Dean Blundell and Todd Shapiro (Siriux XM), and featuring live comedy from Frank Spadone (Just for Laughs) and The Doo Wops (with John Catucci of You Gotta Eat Here) and performances from Country recording artist Dani Strong and Simone Deni of Love Inc.

Tickets are available right here and through the Pheonix Concert Theatre.

The post The Cancer Fighting Comedy of Sandra Carusi appeared first on Toronto Guardian.