ATHABASCA – One of Canada’s premier sketch comedy groups is turning ten this week, and they’re hoping Athabascans will come out to celebrate with them.
Marv n’ Berry has been writing, performing, and touring across the world for 10 years as of April 10, and the quintet is excited to bring their own unique brand of comedy — “outrageous, raunchy, and surprisingly smart” — back to the Nancy Appleby Theatre for another show.
“We pride ourselves on performing in Alberta’s two biggest, most important cities: Edmonton, and Athabasca,” joked Chris Borger ahead of the group’s April 12 performance in town.
Marv n’ Berry’s Best Of show will kick off at the Varscona Theatre in Edmonton April 10, before hitting the road and driving to member Nikki Hulowski’s hometown of Athabasca for a follow-up performance two days later.
“It’s great to be able to come back here. When I was younger, I had this idea that I was going to go out into the world and never come back to Athabasca,” said Hulowski.
“It’s really exciting to be able to share this with so many people, and it’s exciting as well because the Nancy Appleby is such a wonderful theatre space that doesn’t get utilized enough.”
Hulowski got her start in the acting world at Edwin Parr Composite School, where she credited her teacher Bruce MacDonald with inspiring an early love of the stage.
“He got me really excited, and when he was in Athabasca for such a long time he really built up that program. He encouraged a lot of us to come home and to bring our art back home as well,” she said.
“Part of that is also trying to honour the legacy that MacDonald left with such a fantastic art scene.”
Marv n’ Berry pulled from all 10 years for their anniversary show, with skits ranging from their very first performance at the experimental Bonfire festival to their most recent run.
“We were all improvisors with Rapid Fire Theatre, and we all signed up to do a written show. It was kind of this new crazy thing to work with scripts and we had this immediate, awesome chemistry,” said Borger.
“Over the years, we’ve really refined our sketches and learned how to work with each other, and we’ve leaned into what our secret skills all are.”
Hulowski and Borger are joined by Quinn Contini, Mike Robertson, and Sam Stralak, and the group is well accustomed to Athabasca. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the troupe came through town roughly once a year, a habit they restarted last spring.
“I love Alberta’s small towns; the people are chill and you can feel like you can maybe push some boundaries. It feels like there’s less of a fear of offending someone in smaller towns,” said Borger.
“It’s more of a friendly type of humour like you have with your friends, instead of a more corporate type of humour you would get within Edmonton or Calgary.”
The troupe sat down to pick their favourites for the show, only to realize a show involving every cast- and fan-favourite sketch would run for over five hours. Instead, each member ranked their favourites, cutting the number of sketches down to 16, from 60-plus.
“Some are just for us, because we love them. Some are for our audience members because they’ve requested them over the years, and some are in there because they’re award winning sketches,” said Hulowski.
“It’s like you have 600 babies, but you can only keep 15 alive,” said Borger.
The show, which is adults only, will start at 7 p.m. with tickets available through Eventbrite, A select number of tickets include dinner at Neighbours Pub, which Hulowski cautioned sell out quick every time.
“They’re really going all out this year, everyone was talking about how fantastic it was last time,” she said.
