The Snowed In Comedy tour is now in its 14th year of coast-to-coast Canadian laughs and will be the biggest comedy tour in Canada in 2023, performing in 70 cities across the country.
The tour stops in Moose Jaw for one night only on Thursday, Feb. 23 at 7:30 p.m. in the Moose Jaw Cultural Centre’s Mae Wilson Theatre.
Tickets are available from Sasktix.ca or from the Cultural Centre Box Office.
Snowed In will present four internationally successful comedians in 25-minute sets. Moose Jaw’s performers will be tour founder Dan Quinn, Paul Myrehaug, Damonde Tschritter, and Erica Sigurdson.
In 2022, the tour was forced to face down challenge after challenge, from ever-changing provincial health restrictions to performers testing positive for COVID-19 to the disaster in B.C. that cut roads and flooded venues. They did it, but it was difficult.
With the tour’s reputation growing, and with help from some viral TikTok videos from last year’s sets, 2023 stands to be a substantial improvement.
MooseJawToday.com chatted with veteran comedian Tschritter about special moments in his career, his time with Snowed In, and his visits to Moose Jaw.
Tschritter’s career has taken him to comedy festivals across North America. He’s shared the stage with dozens of other comedy legends and had his TV specials aired on CTV, HBO, Comedy Network, and Comedy Central.
He’s the only Canadian in 35 years to win the Seattle International Comedy Competition, the largest of its kind in the United States, and he was awarded the Gold Medal Performance for top comedic act at the 2010 Winter Olympic games in Vancouver.
Interview with Damonde Tschritter
How long have you been with the Snowed In Comedy tour?
“Hmm, I have been with Snowed In since… 2015? 2014, 2015? Whenever the first time was that we expanded and went past B.C. If you want confirmation of that, I’ll tell you what, just find out when Deadpool came out, because I went to see that movie on, like, the second night of the tour.” [Editorial note: Deadpool was released in 2016]
Have you enjoyed being with Snowed In?
“I love it! It’s my favourite tour of the year. You get to go with a couple of other comics and you’re doing theatre shows across the country. It’s the best comedic thing you can do — best way to do comedy is in a theatre.”
How many times have you visited Moose Jaw?
“It’s hard to tell, because the COVID stuff took out, I think, two of our tour stops there. So probably five or six times? … And I love it, like, last year was the first time back since 2019 … And I was up third, and when I finished I was saying goodbye for the night and someone in the crowd was like, ‘Hey, you can do longer!’ And I said Nah, I gotta go, and then everybody cheered and asked me to stay. So, I got an encore, basically!”
How do you get on with your fellow comics?
“Well, Paul Myrehaug, who’s closing the shows this year — hilarious guy, one of my oldest friends in comedy, I’ve known him for years, met him when he was starting out — we do a podcast together called The Microdose Podcast. … The idea is that you’re getting a little dose of Damonde and Paul every week. … Every Wednesday it’s a brand-new episode and you can listen and laugh for an hour.
“Erica Sigurdson is probably the funniest woman in Canada right now … and one of the funniest comics in Canada. … She’s very in-demand right now, so for her to come on this tour is big. I've known her for years.
“Dan Quinn, known him since I started doing comedy. He was one of the first people I got to know, and there was even a point where he was a semi-roommate. … And he’s the guy who put together this tour … And now he’s probably the best showrunner/promoter of shows in the country. … He’s brilliant.”
You’ve performed at many, many comedy festivals, what’s your favourite part of that scene?
“Oh, festivals are like, a comedian’s high school reunion, or something like it. … The most fun thing about a comedy festival is you run into all these other comics that maybe you haven’t seen for years, or maybe you’ve heard about them and admired them but you haven’t worked with them yet.
“All of a sudden you’re like, Oh, I didn’t know I would be on with Arj Barker or Trevor Noah or … you know, Zach Galifianakis. He’s there with you and you’re doing a little show in a basement and then two years later, he’s the guy from Hangover.
“The first time I met Flight of the Conchords, it was at a small comedy festival and I was the host. I was opening for them and didn’t know who they were. And there were, like, 22 people in the venue.”
Can you share a funny story from an encounter like that?
“Oh man, so, my first time getting to headline, where I was, like, the main guy on the show. … I finished my show, and the host came back out, everybody was cheering and I thought, Man, I’m fantastic at comedy. And the host said, ‘We got a special guest here who’s gonna come up,’ and I thought, Who’s going to go on after me? And I had a bit of an attitude, like, I thought I was good.
“Then Robin Williams walked past me, said ‘Good show, kid,’ and went on stage and destroyed for 40 minutes, he was in the crowd, he was doing all these things. I was erased from memory.”
What should Moose Javians know about the Snowed In Tour coming here?
“People in Moose Jaw should know that this show coming here is rare. You could probably get just one of these four comics to come and do a show if you were lucky.
“It’s just non-stop great comedy, so, you don’t get shows like this often. … The people doing this show, what they do for a living is stand-up, and it’s all new, so everybody who came to the show last year — come back, it’s a completely different show, you’re going to laugh about a whole new bunch of stuff.”
