Comedian Pete Zedlacher, who’s toured with Snowed In Comedy Tour for 10 years, is looking forward to smooth sailing for the festival after a couple of years of mayhem.
Hurdles included having to perform in two venues pretty much simultaneously in Victoria in 2022 due to reduced capacity of theatres. (Half the cast performed in one venue, then switched to the other right after their sets).
“Knock on wood, I just jinxed it right there. Something will always come up, like we’ve had water main breaks at one of the venues, and we had to postpone one year. It happens when we have 70 shows across Canada, something is going to happen.”
Trials make for quirky stories and are all part of the package of a tour that gets “bigger and more exciting every year,” Zedlacher said.
Hitting Vancouver Island next week with shows in six different communities, the independent comedy tour is a Canadian success story, started by Dan Quinn as a way to pay rent while snowboarding with his friends. It’s since expanded to be performed in Australia, the U.S., France, and Switzerland.
“I think most importantly for a standup comic is to go out and live an interesting life and experience things and then come back and report to Canada what’s going on out there,” Zedlacher said.
A lot has been going on in the core cast’s lives this past year. Just for Laughs winner and tour founder Dan Quinn recently got married, Paul Myrehaug and six-time Canadian Comedian of the Year nominee lived in Europe half the year, and Zedlacher, who has been nominated five times for Comedian of the Year, said he worked a lot in the United States this past year. Erica Sigurdson, a regular on CBC’s The Debaters, will also join the ranks. All their experiences contribute to a show that has a little something for everyone while finding the funny in Canada, said Zedlacher.
“It’s definitely a Canadian tour, we’re all proud Canadians,” he said. “We’re Canada’s biggest and best comedy tour, we’ve been saying that for a few years and we haven’t gotten any pushback on that so we think that stands,” he said with a laugh.
Considering how much of Canada Zedlacher has seen, it’s special that he said Victoria stands out to him. He said the Royal Theatre, where their show will be hosted in Victoria, is the tour’s “crown jewel” and the first time he played there was at the Just for Laughs Tour 15 years ago.
“I remember being on that stage and going, ‘Oh if I could play this theatre all the time, this would be a dream come true.’ And shortly after that I started with the Snowed In Comedy Tour and we do it every year now, so dreams do come true.”
“I like to walk behind the curtain and hear the rumbles from the audience, knowing that behind there are 1,400 people waiting. That always puts me in the right frame of mind.” Even 27 years into comedy, it still makes him nervous but, he knows if he’s “not nervous before a show, it’s not going to be great.”
“I look forward to it all year long, like literally,” Zedlacher said, speaking to the tour as a whole. “We work hard all year long to get that brand-new set.”
Snowed In Comedy Tour comes to the Sid Williams Theatre in Courtenay on Tuesday, Jan. 16. Visitsnowedincomedytour.com/tour for ticket infoemation.