The Portland Sketch Comedy Festival first began in 2017 as the brainchild of Ted Douglass and Shelley McLendon.
Both have a deep love of live sketch comedy, and have been a big part of Portland's sketch comedy scene for years. Both had travelled to other cities with their respective sketch troupes to take part in festivals such as The San Francisco Sketchfest, The Chicago Sketchfest, Seattle Sketchfest, and NYC Sketchfest. Both found these festivals to be a total blast, and both wanted to create a destination sketch comedy festival in Portland. So Ted sent Shelley a text in 2016 and said, "Let's put on a sketch comedy festival!" And it was made so. And it was a hit. The annual festival took place in July at The Siren Theater each summer from 2017-2019, and brought in huge crowds and out of town troupes like The Groundlings (LA), Kasper Hauser (San Francisco), and The Defiant Thomas Brothers (Chicago) as well as troupes from Austin, New York, Toronto, Seattle, and Vancouver, BC. It also showcased Portland's own spectacular sketch comedy scene with troupes like The Aces, Nacho Gold, D&D and Lone Wolves. It showed no signs of slowing down and then in 2020... we all know what happened. The Portland Sketchfest made its triumphant return in 2022 and it was glorious. And now we are back for our 5th year and we couldn't be more excited! Stay tuned for show schedule and tickets! |