Letterkenny Live in Austin

April 15, 2020 — does any­one remem­ber that day? 

No, it’s not Tax Day, it’s anoth­er impor­tant date. That was the date the orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled Let­terken­ny Live was set to land up the laneway at Para­mount The­ater in Austin. But, the pan­dem­ic stole our hopes and dreams for watch­ing a live ver­sion of the Cana­di­an cult hit TV show, now in its 10^th sea­son (with promis­es of more sea­sons ahead). 

Luck­i­ly for us (and me per­son­al­ly), March 23, 2022 is the day the resched­uled Let­terken­ny Live show came to Para­mount Theater…and what a thrill it was.

As a hard­core Let­terken­ny fan who for­tu­nate­ly has cul­ti­vat­ed a pod­cast inter­view­ing comics far and near, I am very lucky to have inter­viewed a good major­i­ty of the cast — K. Trevor Wil­son (Squir­re­ly Dan), Mark For­ward (Coach), Nathan Dales (Daryl), Michelle Mylett (Katy), Jacob Tier­ney (Glen), and exec­u­tive pro­duc­er Mark Mon­te­fiore, so I already had my buck­et list items relat­ed to Let­terken­ny checked off. I vowed to not do any research on what to expect dur­ing the live show, want­i­ng to ensure that I learned right along with the sold out audi­ence at the Para­mount Theater.

If you’ve read this far, there will be spoil­ers the rest of this arti­cle, so either ​“pit­ter pat­ter” if you don’t want spoil­ers, or stick around and keep on reading. 

Our emcees for the soirée were STOOOOR­RTT (Tyler John­son’s Skid char­ac­ter, Stew­art) and his loy­al com­pan­ion Roald (Evan Stern). Was the bass dropped? Yes. Were there dance moves? Yes. Did the crowd get pumped? Absolute­ly! The ener­gy start­ed at one lev­el and quick­ly moved up to the next lev­el (die hard fans know this is a show ref­er­ence). The live show was a true vari­ety show. 

Since the cast fea­tures 2 work­ing come­di­ans, we were treat­ed to standup com­e­dy sets by both K Trevor Wil­son and Mark For­ward. In the video depart­ment, a bloop­ers reel was shared show­ing beloved scenes from the past 10 sea­sons where var­i­ous cast mem­bers broke char­ac­ter. We also got a sneak peak at the first spin­off of the show. Shoresy is set to debut in May in Cana­da on Crave TV, then in the US on Hulu. 

The stage set­tings were per­fect. The icon­ic fruit stand is depict­ed as is a closed bath­room stall next to the lock­er room. With plen­ty of room in between for danc­ing and the standup per­for­mances. The show was large­ly com­posed of most­ly orig­i­nal sketch­es inspired by scenes from the TV show. The audi­ence was treat­ed to Riley and Jonesy being taunt­ed by Shoresy from a closed bath­room stall, and lat­er being tor­tured by Coach rem­i­nisc­ing about his dear­ly depart­ed Barb. 

One of the best parts of the var­i­ous taunt­ing sketch­es (and much cred­it goes to the tal­ent­ed writ­ing staff for get­ting this nailed per­fect­ly) was the cus­tomized taunts for the Austin audi­ence. Giv­en the nation­wide tour, that’s a lot of research and effort the cast and crew have put into mak­ing sure each city’s audi­ence gets a tai­lored expe­ri­ence. There were sev­er­al sketch­es set at the fruit stand (a ref­er­ence to the TV show’s fre­quent rest­ing spot where Wayne, Katy, Daryl, and Squir­re­ly Dan reflect on life). One of the funnest thing to watch with the sketch­es was every time actor Nathan Dales (Daryl) would break into laughs. Whether script­ed or spon­ta­neous, the effect was to make the audi­ence love the sketch even more. 

The final sketch of the evening was also in front of the fruit stand and it was a reprise of one of the most clas­sic bits of the show. If you’ve watched the shows, then you will no doubt know what I mean when I say ​“the cho­rus of yes” episode. Yes, yes, yes, YEEESSSS (Sea­son 2, Episode 3 if you need a refresher). 

All in all, the live show deliv­ered superbly. If you’re lucky enough to live in a city with the live show, grab your tick­ets and see it! You will not be disappointed.

Fol­low Letterkenny

• Web­site (for tour infor­ma­tion) — www​.let​terken​ny​.tv
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