david owen – Spinning Platters

Spinning Platters presents “How Did I Get Here?” Episode 10 with David Owen, Co-Founder of Sketchfest

Spinning Platters presents “How Did I Get Here?” is available most everywhere you enjoy podcasts. You can find us and subscribe here!

In this installment, I got to speak to SF Sketchfest co-founder David Owen about, well, how to put on an underground comedy festival, and what do you do when it’s no longer underground. We talked about his first production, his first festival, how he met Cole Stratton and Janet Varney, the other two founders of the festival (SPOILER: It’s Talking Heads related, just like the name of this podcast), and how they are handling things when it’s entirely unknown when the festival will be safe to play out again.

SF Sketchfest is doing a virtual live read of Plan 9 From Outer Space just in time for Halloween with Kat Aagesen, Maria Bamford, Bobcat Goldthwait, Dana Gould, Jean Grae, David Koechner, Tim Meadows, Laraine Newman, Oscar Nunez, Bob Odenkirk, Jonah Ray, Paul F. Tompkins, Janet Varney, Baron Vaughn, plus musical accompaniment by Eban Schletter. Well, just before Halloween. October 29th to be precise. Tickets can be purchased here!

SF Sketchfest’s archives have also been opened up for rental, and those shows can be found here!

If you have any feedback about this episode, feel free to email me at dakin@spinningplatters.com. If you like what you heard and want to help support this thing, feel free to Venmo me whatever tip you feel is adequate @Dakin-Hardwick. And, most importantly, please go to SaveOurStages.com to find out what you can do to help independent promoters and venues weather this COVID crisis so we have shows to go back to when this pandemic is over. Thanks for listening!

Spinning Platters Interview: Janet Varney, Cole Stratton, and David Owen, Organizers Of SF Sketchfest

This is the 13th year of the SF Sketchfest, and it seems to be getting bigger every year. The event’s founders, David Owen, Janet Varney, and Cole Stratton tooks a few minutes out of their day, busily putting together another epic line up, in order to chat with me. Tickets for all dates go on sale on December 15th, and you can find a full line up of festivities here:

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Spinning Platters Interview: David Owen, Janet Varney, and Cole Stratton: Founders of SF Sketchfest

In 2002, three Bay Area comics organized a festival featuring some of their favorite local sketch groups. They dubbed it Sketchfest, and it was a success. The next year, comedy legend Fred Willard joined the event, and every year subsequent year, the event became bigger and bigger. This year’s festival has grown to 2 1/2 weeks long, and features the biggest line up yet, featuring the likes of Eddie Izzard, Amy Poehler, Wil Wheaton, Barry Bostwick, and scores of other people so famous that even your grandparents know who they are. (You may need to ask your grandparents who Barry Bostwick is)

SpinningPlatters had the opportunity to chat with founders David Owen, Janet Varney, and Cole Stratton about the evolution of the festival, the struggles of putting it on every year, where to grab a burrito, and a whole ton of hypothetical situations that were good fun to ask. Be sure to go to SFSketchfest.com to check out the line-up and purchase tickets.

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