On Valentine’s Day in 2021,Baruch Porras-Hernandezstood in Kerouac Alley in North Beach and faced his first live audience in nearly a year. The San Francisco writer and comedian had grown accustomed to Zoom performances, but now people had gathered in person to see him, and the eyes staring at him over KN95 masks conveyed both excitement and deep fear.
“It was hard to make them laugh, but they were there because they were so hungry for someone to make them laugh,” recalled Porras-Hernandez. “A well-crafted joke wasn’t landing with audiences who were terrified that they were going to die, so I had to just be myself and get vulnerable and be terrified with them. Like, ‘Oh my God, we all might die — and I haven’t touched a dick in months!’ I had to find the comedy where I could.”
Up until the final days of 2021, Porras-Hernandez planned to bring his signature blend of raunch and pathos to “Donde Esta Mi Comedy?,” a showcase of queer Latin American comics he curated for SF Sketchfest 2022. San Francisco’s homegrown comedy festival, originally scheduled for Jan. 7-23, was supposed to mark its 20th anniversary with a triumphant return to in-person programming following its 2021 virtual edition. Plans included tributes to Cheech & Chong, Laraine Newman and David Alan Grier; a roast of Bruce Campbell; a stand-up set from Maria Bamford; and much more.
Omicron had other plans.
SF Sketchfest postpones 2022 festival due to COVID
On Dec. 30 — just a little over a week before Triumph the Insult Comic Dog was to host an event featuring “Weird Al” Yankovic, among other first-day festival events — organizers announced that they werepostponing SF Sketchfest由于Covid病例的激增无限期。这是一个不幸的发展，可以说是最少的 - 也许是因为，近两年进入大流行，大家都可以用笑声。
所以本月通常致力于旧金山的所有东西都搞笑，一个城市，一个城市，一个有一个历史上丰富，不尊者和深深的喜剧场景，纪事表明问：究竟是什么在绝望时喜剧的作用？一切都很可怕的时候有什么好笑的？
“Humor is something I’ve personally really leaned on in traumatic times,” said actor and SF Sketchfest co-founder Janet Varney.
她于2001年开始组织了大卫欧文和科尔斯特朗顿的首届第一节，当时所有三个都是旧金山州立大学的素描小组成员。值得注意的是，美国在美国的第一版最长的喜剧节，于2002年1月在9月11日之后持续了4个月。
“We definitely talked about how we felt moving forward with that (first) festival, and came to the conclusion that people need to laugh now more than ever,” said Varney, “which sounds so cheesy, but we really felt that way.” She actually went to a friend’s show in San Francisco the very evening of the Sept. 11 attacks, she recalled, and found the sense of community there immensely comforting.
Ultimately, they decided to go ahead with the festival. “And then we sold out every show,” Varney said. “Robin Williams came, and there was this huge groundswell of support from The Chronicle and other media, and it just felt like the city itself kind of validated that desire to keep comedy alive in San Francisco.
“我们仍然是因为那个。”
While organizing last year’sFestpocalypse!, SF Sketchfest’s live-stream fundraiser in lieu of an in-person 20th anniversary celebration, it became important to “communicate that this is not flying in the face of the heartbreak of COVID, but meant to be a release valve,” Varney said, “because there is something just so intoxicating about laughing with people.”
SF Sketchfest delivers real laughs with virtual Festpocalypse! show
对于Kerri Kenney-Silver，“喜剧就是我的生活。”艾美被提名的喜剧演员，为她的工作“国家”和“雷诺911！”来称呼幽默是“应对机制”。
喜剧演员,我们中的许多人是非常黑暗的人, and it’s no secret that (comedy) often comes from a dark place. It’s what I do to get through the day, and it often flies out of my mouth at inappropriate times,” explained Kenney-Silver.
On Dec. 23, a “Reno 911!” special premiered on Paramount+ that saw Kenney-Silver’s beloved, beleaguered deputy Trudy Wiegel and her fellow officers on a hunt for the leader of QAnon — a premise that is, just a year after the 2021 Capitol riot, inherently both hilarious and bleak.
“我合作了（”雷诺911！“Co-Creator）托马斯列侬自从我16岁以来，这就是我们的语言，”她说。“这是我们庆祝的方式，这就是我们如何委托。这就是一切。“
Caty Borum Chattoo, a professor at American University and the executive director of the Center for Media & Social Impact in Washington, D.C., sees the past few years as a study in how comedians have innovated technologically — like the rise of “front-facing,” or solo, social media monologue-based comedy — as well as thematically, as with comics who have built followings around topics like mental health issues, which just a decade ago might have been taboo. (Local performers Wonder Dave and Kristee Ono, for example, were set to host a live version of their“心理健康喜剧时间”podcast at this year’s SF Sketchfest.)
“We have always needed comedy as a source of catharsis and resilience and meaning-making, and as a way to find hope and optimism in dark times,” said Chattoo, who is also a co-director of the Yes, And … Laughter Lab, a pitch program aimed at comics from marginalized communities. She mentioned the popularity of shows like “Ted Lasso” and “Schitt’s Creek” as an example of what she calls civic imagination: comedy helping viewers to envision a better, kinder world.
Chattoo also noted the powerful social critique that often bubbles to the surface in comedy during turbulent times.
“我们知道，在9月11日之后，在美国对穆斯林犯有仇恨罪，如果你仔细看，你也看到了穆斯林喜剧演员的起义。这不是一个意外，“她说，指着”好穆斯林，坏穆斯林“播客与Tanzila”Taz“艾哈迈德和扎哈拉Noorbakhsh,或者2013年纪录片“穆斯林即将到来！”随后是穆斯林美国漫画团队，因为他们巡回了美国南方。“穆斯林喜剧社中有伙计们会告诉你，他们开始做喜剧作为一种谈论伊斯兰恐惧症的方式。”
在政治和经济波动面上，其他漫画诬陷他们的行业令人惊讶的僵局。
“当事情倒闭时，人们喜欢笑，”演员和喜剧演员·菲尔拉尔斯说，一位成就的语音演员和“疯电电视上的原始演员成员之一”。Lamarr计划在今年的SF Sketchfest在“黑色版本”的地下面的地下室执行，并指出，被认为有趣的是“无论如何不断地转移。”
“I remember at the beginning of the Trump era, I did a puppet parody show where I was doing (the voice of) Donald Trump … and then by 2018, everyone just sort of flinched when I did that voice. You can’t even parody Trump anymore; it’s too triggering.”
他补充说，对大流行有趣的是“每个人都在处理同样的事情，这是如此罕见。
“你可以为Covid写一个笑话，世界上每个人都会得到它。”
“无论世界上发生了什么，我认为亚洲AF的创造者，亚洲人表演者的流行艺术秀的创造者，Chomi说，亚洲的创造者总是会有一个空间。崔已经将展示给SF SketchFest和附属的旧金山喜剧节集团群体，近年来，Asia AF计划在SF SketchFest 2022上进行三次表演。
相反，自2月2020年2月20日以来，崔将不得不等待他的第一个现场表演。在大流行期间，亚洲AF搬到了在线格式，并于2021年5月举办了一个亚裔美国太平洋岛民遗产月份展览和筹款，筹集了超过2,600美元停止亚洲仇恨在仇恨犯罪危害亚洲人的罪行中。
崔说，这是一种“转变为有机会捐献一个人的机会，这是一个糟糕的事情。”“只要它以一种尊重手头的局面的方式完成，人们需要走到一起笑并有一个突然的时刻。”
So what’s next? Locally, SF Sketchfest’s founders are at work rescheduling the festival for when it’s safe to gather again. In the meantime, alongside the sadness and frustration, Varney noted that the pandemic has also given rise to a renewed sense of purpose.
“There have been times where I’ve definitely thought, looking at people on the front lines, ‘Where does my work fit into this? Am I doing enough?’ I’ve had feelings of guilt, like, ‘I can’t believe I’m going to record a podcast right now.’ ”
But over the past months, she has been heartened by people thanking her for her work. “Hearing ‘something you are part of helped me get through it’ is very addictive,” she said. “It’s a tremendous feeling that anybody is able to connect with what I do in a way that might feel important.”
事实上，喜剧演员重新思考他们通常的角色和表演方式是在该行业中使这个如此有趣的时间的一部分，说据说。展望未来，她看到“这座巨大的肥沃的基础，为已关闭并关闭了很多几个月的人。
“这就是创造了许多喜剧的方式：喜剧演员进入他们的家园并在黑暗中寻找。”