The Templeton Philharmonic

Going from sketch comedy to writing a site-specific, period murder mystery may not seem like the most natural transition, but for Gwynne Phillips and Briana Templeton—collectively known in sketch comedy circles as the Templeton Philharmonic—it was actually a fairly logical move. Their new production, Sockdolager, takes place in 1920s Toronto, and will be staged at the Campbell House Museum. It’s a dark comedy about a decadent party that quickly turns bad.


“We’ve always had a fascination with the ’20s, and in our sketch comedy, we always try to incorporate Edwardian costumes and things like that,” said Templeton. “We got in our heads that it would be interesting to do something in a museum or a historical house, and the people at Campbell House were kind enough to let us run around it.”

Sockdolager isn’t just site specific. It also has a unique structure. The audience will be split into three groups, each of which will be guided through the house separately, seeing the scenes in a slightly different order.

“There are a few scenes that are in different orders, depending on who you follow through the house,” said Phillips. “Let’s say you and I went to the show together, but got put in different groups. We may not see the exact same show.”

“While it’s a large grand house, some of the rooms are smaller, and we love the idea of making it a different experience for each person,” added Templeton.

According to Jess Grant, one of the play’s co-directors, the play’s unusual setup presented some challenges in the blocking process.

“What’s tricky [is] trying to maximize the experience for each audience member,” Grant said. “’Will they be able to see this? Will they miss this? Which corner should we stand in?’ It’s kind of making me go ‘Argh!’”

Jess Beaulieu, the play’s other director, says that timing the play has also been difficult.

“It’s challenging because we need to communicate to the audience so they know where they’re going, while also maintaining a sense of mystery,” said Beaulieu. “We’re also trying to time out the individual scenes, so that when each one ends the next one starts. Some of the scenes are a little short right now, so we’re working on adding some lines, improvising a little.”

Templeton and Phillips say the play’s two directors, who are both comedians with a theatre background, bring unique perspectives to the show.

“Jessica Beaulieu has been really involved in stand-up comedy, where Jess Grant has a really strong background in improvisation,” said Templeton.

For Phillips, handing her project over to a director was a new experience.

“I tend to want to direct and write and everything,” she said. “I have an image of how I want things to go. This was the first time I’ve ever written something and handed over to the director. It’s actually been surprisingly easy.”

In addition to having two directors and two writers, the cast of Sockdolager also contributed a lot to the show.

“The show is a collaborative effort, and we also wanted to incorporate an improvisational element into the show,” said Phillips. “Everyone in the cast are great sketch comedians and great actors.”
- Torontoist

Templeton Philharmonic, sketch duo Gwynne Phillips and Briana Templeton
How would you describe your comedy?
It’s like the party scene from Eyes Wide Shut but without the sex, nudity, masks or secrecy.
This is the 17th annual award. What were you doing at 17?
Reading the life-affirming Seventeen Magazine. As there’s no Twenty-Five Magazine, we’re very lost; we have absolutely no clue what to wear or how to make boys like us.
Comedy hero?
Ingmar Bergman.
Ideal audience member?
You! Yes, you! Reading this NOW Magazine article on the subway/at home/your present location.
Last movie that made you laugh out loud?
Picnicface’s Roller Town.
Where do you want to be in five years?
We’d love to be highly successful comedians and own a quaint hobby farm where we’d make jam and keep bees.
Where don’t you want to be in five years?
Covered in jam and murdered by bee-stings.
If you win, how will you spend the $5,000 prize money?
We’d pick up some jazzy new blazers. We’d also use it to pay off student debt, keep us afloat in the food and shelter department, help us tour, fund larger-scale creative projects and start a website. But first: jazzy new blazers.
- NOW Magazine

Templeton Philharmonic, sketch duo Gwynne Phillips and Briana Templeton
How would you describe your comedy?
It’s like the party scene from Eyes Wide Shut but without the sex, nudity, masks or secrecy.
This is the 17th annual award. What were you doing at 17?
Reading the life-affirming Seventeen Magazine. As there’s no Twenty-Five Magazine, we’re very lost; we have absolutely no clue what to wear or how to make boys like us.
Comedy hero?
Ingmar Bergman.
Ideal audience member?
You! Yes, you! Reading this NOW Magazine article on the subway/at home/your present location.
Last movie that made you laugh out loud?
Picnicface’s Roller Town.
Where do you want to be in five years?
We’d love to be highly successful comedians and own a quaint hobby farm where we’d make jam and keep bees.
Where don’t you want to be in five years?
Covered in jam and murdered by bee-stings.
If you win, how will you spend the $5,000 prize money?
We’d pick up some jazzy new blazers. We’d also use it to pay off student debt, keep us afloat in the food and shelter department, help us tour, fund larger-scale creative projects and start a website. But first: jazzy new blazers.
- NOW Magazine

Last night I took in a one-act site-specific double feature of The Loyalists in Victoria Memorial Square and Sockdolager at Campbell House, though the two have literally nothing in common apart from being set in Toronto in some century other than this one. I started off the night with The Templeton Philharmonic at Campbell House before sprinting southwest to catch the 9pm Loyalists.
The marketing on Sockdolager is in need of some Prozac because its darkly leering oddball tone makes the show seem entirely less digestible than it really is. The actual play, though decently dark, is not in the least bit unenjoyable and the acting calibre truly remarkable. Sockdolager is, essentially, a simple story about dissatisfied people at a dinner party. The production starts off in the cramped Campbell House lobby as a hectic scene plays out in and around the audience, the characters descending from upstairs and bursting through the front door, assembling to dine. From there, sardonic narrator/valet Miguel Rivas charms, cracks wise and taunts while explaining how this evening of “spying” is going to go down. As a group, we observe a wonderfully awkward dinner, each character revealing exactly who they are in nuanced, perfectly timed little glimpses (debutante Adeline’s desperate grasps for the storytelling spotlight, mousy Edith’s chronic nosebleed, Cecil’s complete lack of couth). Then you follow a servant with a sign: The Songbird (Ely Henry’s clueless musician), The Pickle (Kat Letwin’s grumpy cook), or The Moon (Rivas) and they lead you to whichever of the three subsequent simultaneous scenes you’re to see next.
As a member of the Moon group, I was disappointed not to be with Letwin, knowing her to be a phenomenal improviser, but unlike most site-specific shows, the role of audience guide in Sockdolager isn’t very important (also, Rivas is fantastic, so no complaints here). Once each group arrives at their destination, the guide takes off to go participate in another scene (Letwin is needed in the kitchen scene all three times it runs; Rivas’s character Roland is needed upstairs in the bedroom before he can retrieve his group). Once everyone’s seen all three scenes, the whole audience and cast reassemble in the ballroom for the denouement.
That last scene is too long but otherwise the script is sharp and fun and appropriately nagging in its underlying points about class disparity, jealousy and fundamental loneliness. Each of the central scenes has its strength. The parlor scene between estate heir/misguided artist Felix Sweetman (played fantastically ebullient and achingly sad by Roger Bainbridge) and his childhood friend/silver thief Cecil Struthers (Kevin Dowse- boisterously manipulative) was the first I saw. Quick-witted and interestingly layered, it’s a showpiece for the excellent Bainbridge, but he walks all over Dowse (who is a standout in the earlier dinner scene then fades slightly against the brightness of his co-stars). The weakest scene is probably the second one I saw, wherein Shanda Bezic’s selfishly simple ingenue Adeline engages in an awkward and ill-advised tryst with Robin Toller’s deceitful Percival Feathers. Luckily, this dull and overblown exchange happens in the kitchen where Kat Letwin’s downtrodden Mrs. Griggs is attempting to cook dinner. A master of the exasperated look and muttered insult, Letwin easily steals the scene even before she enters into an absurd dream sequence in which she unleashes an impressive jazzy voice and hypothetical character confidence. Here she’s able to improvise a little, interact with the audience, showcase her spot-on French-Canadian accent and generally prove why she’s considered one of the most versatile-meets-awesome young performers in Toronto.
Finally our group moved upstairs to where playwrights/Templeton Philharmonic founders Briana Templeton and Gwynne Phillips play the heart of the matter. Phillips’s restless Edith Sweetman (wife of Felix) is rummaging through the guest room and mocking Maud Silverthorne (a former famed acrobat, their guest of honour, and Felix’s mistress). When Maud enters, the two have it out in spectacular fashion and it’s immediately apparent why the writer/actresses did this piece. They’ve written themselves the best roles and the best scene in the play, and both are brilliantly suited to their parts. Phillips gets a little crazy as Edith loses it later on, but in their confrontation scene she’s excellently conflicted. But it’s Templeton who easily steals the whole shooting match. The My Theatre Award winner is simply exceptional (and the reason I decided to attend, despite the problematic marketing). Her Maud demands attention, but, by god, she earns it. She’s showy and commanding but when Edith corners her she breaks down into a snivelling shell of her own postures. It’s a truly stunning performance in a production which isn’t exactly lacking in acting talent.
Sockdolager is weird and twisty and uncomfortable but it’s also la - My Entertainment World

Theatre in Toronto gets interactive with this darkly comedic production from the Templeton Philharmonic.

If you’re looking for a laugh-filled evening and interactive theatre experience with the added luxury of air conditioning, get yourself to Sockdolager before it’s too late! Hilariously funny with a touch of twisted macabre, this performance offers each audience something a little different every time.

Boasting a different ending at every performance, audience members are invited to bring their ticket back and see the performance as many times as they’d like (space permitting!).

Created by the Templeton Philharmonic (the spectacular duo of Gwynne Phillips and Briana Templeton), this dark comedy is performed at the historic Campbell House, a beautiful historic home that seems out of place in downtown Toronto.

Taking place in “Toronto the Good,” the scene is set at a party hosted by society girl and Hollywood hopeful Adeline Sweetman, and her hilariously inartistic artist brother, Felix.

Other guests include a dry-witted valet, a Ponzi-scheme-entangled business man, a sleep-deprived musician, a wannabe film producer, the sensual trapeze artist Bombyx Mori, a disgruntled cook, and Edith, the nosebleed-prone wife of Felix.

Every member of the cast did an absolutely fantastic job in this performance, although my favourite may have been the valet Roland, played by Miguel Rivas. I may or may not have been yelled at by him while attempting to follow what turned out to be his sneaky ploy to see how closely people were paying attention to his instructions.

The two creators also really proved their talent with Philips doing a great job of portraying the neurotic, stick-in-the-mud Edith, while Templeton stood out for her role as the sultry Bombyx Mori.

This duo actually won the Best Comedy Duo Award at the LA Comedy Festival, an impressive feat that really showed how great their chemistry and comedic timing has proven to be.

Without giving too much away, the way the performance works is that the audience begins as one group, watching the actors have drinks in the dining room. Then the audience separates into three different groups.

Each group follows their actor/guide, and is privy to a scene involving two of the actors in mini-sub plots that contribute to the overall story. Each group of three rotates to see each scene and everyone comes together again in the ballroom where things wrap up in a crazy way.

I would highly recommend Sockdolager to anyone looking for a fun night out. At less than an hour and a half, it’s the perfect length to amuse and entertain without ever feeling overdrawn and excessively long, as I find a lot of theatre tends to be. And did I mention there is air conditioning?
- Mooney on Theatre

Theatre in Toronto gets interactive with this darkly comedic production from the Templeton Philharmonic.

If you’re looking for a laugh-filled evening and interactive theatre experience with the added luxury of air conditioning, get yourself to Sockdolager before it’s too late! Hilariously funny with a touch of twisted macabre, this performance offers each audience something a little different every time.

Boasting a different ending at every performance, audience members are invited to bring their ticket back and see the performance as many times as they’d like (space permitting!).

Created by the Templeton Philharmonic (the spectacular duo of Gwynne Phillips and Briana Templeton), this dark comedy is performed at the historic Campbell House, a beautiful historic home that seems out of place in downtown Toronto.

Taking place in “Toronto the Good,” the scene is set at a party hosted by society girl and Hollywood hopeful Adeline Sweetman, and her hilariously inartistic artist brother, Felix.

Other guests include a dry-witted valet, a Ponzi-scheme-entangled business man, a sleep-deprived musician, a wannabe film producer, the sensual trapeze artist Bombyx Mori, a disgruntled cook, and Edith, the nosebleed-prone wife of Felix.

Every member of the cast did an absolutely fantastic job in this performance, although my favourite may have been the valet Roland, played by Miguel Rivas. I may or may not have been yelled at by him while attempting to follow what turned out to be his sneaky ploy to see how closely people were paying attention to his instructions.

The two creators also really proved their talent with Philips doing a great job of portraying the neurotic, stick-in-the-mud Edith, while Templeton stood out for her role as the sultry Bombyx Mori.

This duo actually won the Best Comedy Duo Award at the LA Comedy Festival, an impressive feat that really showed how great their chemistry and comedic timing has proven to be.

Without giving too much away, the way the performance works is that the audience begins as one group, watching the actors have drinks in the dining room. Then the audience separates into three different groups.

Each group follows their actor/guide, and is privy to a scene involving two of the actors in mini-sub plots that contribute to the overall story. Each group of three rotates to see each scene and everyone comes together again in the ballroom where things wrap up in a crazy way.

I would highly recommend Sockdolager to anyone looking for a fun night out. At less than an hour and a half, it’s the perfect length to amuse and entertain without ever feeling overdrawn and excessively long, as I find a lot of theatre tends to be. And did I mention there is air conditioning?
- Mooney on Theatre

For most of this very happy 30 minutes of sketch comedy, I was laughing, but - good deal of the time I was wondering: Who are these young women and where the hell do they come from? Their performances - in a pile of tiny vignettes linked nicely together by outbursts of movement and dance - were incredibly proficient. The script, by the two (Briana Templeton and Gwynne Phillips) and their director (Kevin Matviw) wobbles occasionally with some long set-ups which are more interesting than the punchlines, but when they do characters (instead of jokes) - like two lunatic ladies who lunch - it is not only a marvel to behold but an absolute hoot. If you need a brisk theatrical wind to cool you down, this is the show! (BTW: They're from Toronto.)
- The Charlebois Post

The Templeton Philharmonic might initially sound like a hoity-toity musical collective, but it’s actually a comedic duo composed of Gwynne Phillips and Briana Templeton. The actors-writers have taken their critically acclaimed comedy shows from Montreal to New York to Italy. Now they’ve just been nominated for the Tim Sims Encouragement award, which is tonight. We chatted with the ladies about eating Sarah Silverman’s pizza, making The Senior Times and Ron Jeremy.

How did The Templeton Philharmonic form?
We studied theatre together at U of T, and had performed in a few plays together. Last year, we created a show together for the Fringe festival in Montreal. Originally, we were going to make a very serious, avant-garde piece about dreams. We developed the piece with Second City Tour Company member Kevin Matviw and he advised us that what we were creating was comedic. So, we scrapped our original vision and created a sketch comedy show instead. It received a great response and we had so much fun that we’ve been writing and performing comedy ever since.

How did you come up with such a fancy-sounding name?
Our last names are Templeton and Phillips and we wanted to combine them in an interesting way. We thought “Templeton Phillips” sounded like a snooty law firm, so we ran with snooty and decided to go with “The Templeton Philharmonic.”

How would you describe your style of comedy?
Dark and silly. We like to throw in over-the-top characters and surrealism whenever possible. Also, we usually incorporate interpretive dance in our transitions from sketch to sketch.

Where do you get your inspiration from?
Everywhere! Improvisation, historical periods, news articles, people we hear on the street, etc. Also, living together inspires a lot of our strangest concepts.

What’s the most outrageous thing that’s happened onstage?
Once when we were performing at the Montreal Fringe Festival, we walked off stage into our dressing room and as soon as we started changing, this old man with a long, white beard barged in and started yelling, “Loved it, loved it, loved it!” while opening and closing the door over and over. We were featured in The Senior Times.

You’ve just been nominated for the Tim Sims. How does that feel?
We’re pleased as punch! It’s a huge honour to be part of such a wonderful competition and to share the stage with such talented people.

You’re on a bit of a roll. You’ve also just won Best Comedy Duo award at the LA Comedy Festival. Does all of this recognition validate things for you?
Definitely. We were among some amazing performers in L.A., along with quite a few Toronto comedians whom we really admire (Falcon Powder, Ladystache, Matt O’Brien). This has been quite a whirlwind year for us - we’re so lucky to have had all these opportunities!

Any crazy road trip stories?
In Montreal, we stayed in an abandoned paper mill beside a railroad track for two weeks. In L.A., our motel was almost entirely populated by male models...and Ron Jeremy. In New York, we ate leftover pizza from Sarah Silverman’s dressing room, thanks to Eugene Mirman. In short, we travel well together!

Who is your dream guest performer?
Dick Van Dyke, Margaret Atwood, Loreena McKennitt (all at once).

In one word, how would you describe one another?
If I were to describe Briana in one word it would be: Peppery.
If I were to describe Gwynne one word it would be: Topiary.

It’s five years in the future. Where are you? What are you doing?
Ideally, it would be great to have our own TV show where we could feature all of our friends!

The details:
Year established: 2011
Influences: Catherine O’Hara, Andrea Martin, Kristen Wiig, Lucille Ball, Mr. Bean, VideoCabaret, B&W cinema, the Victorian Era.
Next gig: Cream of Comedy 2012, The Tim Sims nominees, The Second City, 51 Mercer St., 416-343-0011. Oct. 29. - Post City

The Templeton Philharmonic might initially sound like a hoity-toity musical collective, but it’s actually a comedic duo composed of Gwynne Phillips and Briana Templeton. The actors-writers have taken their critically acclaimed comedy shows from Montreal to New York to Italy. Now they’ve just been nominated for the Tim Sims Encouragement award, which is tonight. We chatted with the ladies about eating Sarah Silverman’s pizza, making The Senior Times and Ron Jeremy.

How did The Templeton Philharmonic form?
We studied theatre together at U of T, and had performed in a few plays together. Last year, we created a show together for the Fringe festival in Montreal. Originally, we were going to make a very serious, avant-garde piece about dreams. We developed the piece with Second City Tour Company member Kevin Matviw and he advised us that what we were creating was comedic. So, we scrapped our original vision and created a sketch comedy show instead. It received a great response and we had so much fun that we’ve been writing and performing comedy ever since.

How did you come up with such a fancy-sounding name?
Our last names are Templeton and Phillips and we wanted to combine them in an interesting way. We thought “Templeton Phillips” sounded like a snooty law firm, so we ran with snooty and decided to go with “The Templeton Philharmonic.”

How would you describe your style of comedy?
Dark and silly. We like to throw in over-the-top characters and surrealism whenever possible. Also, we usually incorporate interpretive dance in our transitions from sketch to sketch.

Where do you get your inspiration from?
Everywhere! Improvisation, historical periods, news articles, people we hear on the street, etc. Also, living together inspires a lot of our strangest concepts.

What’s the most outrageous thing that’s happened onstage?
Once when we were performing at the Montreal Fringe Festival, we walked off stage into our dressing room and as soon as we started changing, this old man with a long, white beard barged in and started yelling, “Loved it, loved it, loved it!” while opening and closing the door over and over. We were featured in The Senior Times.

You’ve just been nominated for the Tim Sims. How does that feel?
We’re pleased as punch! It’s a huge honour to be part of such a wonderful competition and to share the stage with such talented people.

You’re on a bit of a roll. You’ve also just won Best Comedy Duo award at the LA Comedy Festival. Does all of this recognition validate things for you?
Definitely. We were among some amazing performers in L.A., along with quite a few Toronto comedians whom we really admire (Falcon Powder, Ladystache, Matt O’Brien). This has been quite a whirlwind year for us - we’re so lucky to have had all these opportunities!

Any crazy road trip stories?
In Montreal, we stayed in an abandoned paper mill beside a railroad track for two weeks. In L.A., our motel was almost entirely populated by male models...and Ron Jeremy. In New York, we ate leftover pizza from Sarah Silverman’s dressing room, thanks to Eugene Mirman. In short, we travel well together!

Who is your dream guest performer?
Dick Van Dyke, Margaret Atwood, Loreena McKennitt (all at once).

In one word, how would you describe one another?
If I were to describe Briana in one word it would be: Peppery.
If I were to describe Gwynne one word it would be: Topiary.

It’s five years in the future. Where are you? What are you doing?
Ideally, it would be great to have our own TV show where we could feature all of our friends!

The details:
Year established: 2011
Influences: Catherine O’Hara, Andrea Martin, Kristen Wiig, Lucille Ball, Mr. Bean, VideoCabaret, B&W cinema, the Victorian Era.
Next gig: Cream of Comedy 2012, The Tim Sims nominees, The Second City, 51 Mercer St., 416-343-0011. Oct. 29. - Post City

As Beyoncé repeatedly points out, it is, in fact, girls who run the world. Two of those girls are doing their part by taking over the Toronto comedy scene with their hilarious act, The Templeton Philharmonic. I caught up with the award winning Briana Templeton and Gwynne Phillips at the Campbell House Museum, where they are performing their latest creation, a murder mystery called Sockdolager.

Nicky: When did The Templeton Philharmonic start?

Briana: We both went to [the University of Toronto], in the drama program, so we were in a lot of shows together. Then in 2011 at the Montreal Fringe Festival we decided to put together a show. We had no idea what we wanted to do. As we were writing and throwing around different ideas, it came to fruition that we came to write a sketch show.

Nicky: So you two have only been a duo for a year.

Both: Yeah.

N: And where do your ideas come from?

Gwynne: We begin with characters. We’ll sort of have an idea for a character, ask each other “Hey, what do you think of this voice, or this walk…” Sometimes we’ll take out an iPhone and record an improvised scene and then we’ll listen to it, edit it and tweak it however we want. From there we start to develop a scene. We’ve been doing that for the last little while.

N: You’ve got a number of character and sketches that you do at this point. How often are you adding new material, and playing with the running order of the show?

G: Right now we’ve been busy doing this show [Sockdolager] so we’ve held off writing for the last little while.

B: We try to write one or two new sketches a month. We’re pretty hard on ourselves. We’re shy and picky about performing new material in front of audiences.

N: So those new sketches don’t necessarily make it into the show right away?

B: No, but one thing that we try to change up is our transitions. Because we’re not particularly good dancers or trained dancers whatsoever, but we like to incorporate interpretive dance moves into our transitions.

G: We’re not exactly graceful…

B: There’s a little bit of dance in Sockdolager as well.

G: In all the shows we do we like to incorporate fun kinds of transitions and music. So we knew we wanted to do some sort of movement no matter what.

N: Congratulations on being awarded Best Comedy Duo at the L.A. Comedy Festival! How did you end up playing there in the first place?

B: We had so much fun at Montreal Fringe and the Toronto Sketch Festival, so we were looking for more festivals to apply to. That was one of the bunch.

G: We applied months and months ago, and we didn’t find out that we got in until about one month before the festival. So we immediately created an Indiegogo account, and we got a lot of support from our friends and family.

B: We were unbelievably bowled over by people’s generosity. Because of them we got to make our American debut as performers, and it was very cool to get to do it literally in Hollywood. And there was a really strong showing of Toronto talent there, with Falcon Powder, Ladystache…

G: Best Stand Up went to Matt O’Brien. Best Of The Fest: Live Performance went to Falcon Powder, Best Comedy Duo went to us. We were just like, “Wow!”

N: Did they recognize that down there? That Canadians were winning all the awards?

G: People were saying that Toronto’s really been amazing for sketch and comedy in general. There were quite a few troupes representing Toronto. More so than other places.

B: More than even other American cities, other than New York and L.A.

N: So Toronto’s really making a name for itself in the comedy world. And you guys are blowing up in Toronto!

Both: We are?!

N: You’re opening for everybody. You’re headlining your own shows…

G: It’s pretty great, we’ve been pretty lucky lately.

B: It’s always really flattering to be asked to open for all these comedians that we love.

G: And the fact that it’s all our own material, too. I’d say that sketch is very rewarding in that way. We write our own stuff, it’s all our own ideas. People seem to be really liking it.

B: It’s great how you can take the weird, surreal crap that’s in your brain, you can throw it on stage to make it a reality and people can somehow relate to it. It’s a really great feeling.

G: Some of our stuff’s a little dark and weird.

B: But a lot of it isn’t intentionally so.

G: Yeah, people will say, “That’s so dark,” and we’ll be like “Really? It is?”
N: Where did the idea for Sockdolager come from? Is it based on characters that you’d previously performed?

B: Actually, it’s more based on the museum itself.

G: We knew we wanted to do a historical show as a site-specific piece. We have a fascination with the 1920s, so we started working from that. We developed all the characters over the course of a few months. We started writing completely collaboratively. We split up scenes and wrote them…

B: …with a Google document that we both had open. Luckily we get along so - Quip Magazine

As Beyoncé repeatedly points out, it is, in fact, girls who run the world. Two of those girls are doing their part by taking over the Toronto comedy scene with their hilarious act, The Templeton Philharmonic. I caught up with the award winning Briana Templeton and Gwynne Phillips at the Campbell House Museum, where they are performing their latest creation, a murder mystery called Sockdolager.

Nicky: When did The Templeton Philharmonic start?

Briana: We both went to [the University of Toronto], in the drama program, so we were in a lot of shows together. Then in 2011 at the Montreal Fringe Festival we decided to put together a show. We had no idea what we wanted to do. As we were writing and throwing around different ideas, it came to fruition that we came to write a sketch show.

Nicky: So you two have only been a duo for a year.

Both: Yeah.

N: And where do your ideas come from?

Gwynne: We begin with characters. We’ll sort of have an idea for a character, ask each other “Hey, what do you think of this voice, or this walk…” Sometimes we’ll take out an iPhone and record an improvised scene and then we’ll listen to it, edit it and tweak it however we want. From there we start to develop a scene. We’ve been doing that for the last little while.

N: You’ve got a number of character and sketches that you do at this point. How often are you adding new material, and playing with the running order of the show?

G: Right now we’ve been busy doing this show [Sockdolager] so we’ve held off writing for the last little while.

B: We try to write one or two new sketches a month. We’re pretty hard on ourselves. We’re shy and picky about performing new material in front of audiences.

N: So those new sketches don’t necessarily make it into the show right away?

B: No, but one thing that we try to change up is our transitions. Because we’re not particularly good dancers or trained dancers whatsoever, but we like to incorporate interpretive dance moves into our transitions.

G: We’re not exactly graceful…

B: There’s a little bit of dance in Sockdolager as well.

G: In all the shows we do we like to incorporate fun kinds of transitions and music. So we knew we wanted to do some sort of movement no matter what.

N: Congratulations on being awarded Best Comedy Duo at the L.A. Comedy Festival! How did you end up playing there in the first place?

B: We had so much fun at Montreal Fringe and the Toronto Sketch Festival, so we were looking for more festivals to apply to. That was one of the bunch.

G: We applied months and months ago, and we didn’t find out that we got in until about one month before the festival. So we immediately created an Indiegogo account, and we got a lot of support from our friends and family.

B: We were unbelievably bowled over by people’s generosity. Because of them we got to make our American debut as performers, and it was very cool to get to do it literally in Hollywood. And there was a really strong showing of Toronto talent there, with Falcon Powder, Ladystache…

G: Best Stand Up went to Matt O’Brien. Best Of The Fest: Live Performance went to Falcon Powder, Best Comedy Duo went to us. We were just like, “Wow!”

N: Did they recognize that down there? That Canadians were winning all the awards?

G: People were saying that Toronto’s really been amazing for sketch and comedy in general. There were quite a few troupes representing Toronto. More so than other places.

B: More than even other American cities, other than New York and L.A.

N: So Toronto’s really making a name for itself in the comedy world. And you guys are blowing up in Toronto!

Both: We are?!

N: You’re opening for everybody. You’re headlining your own shows…

G: It’s pretty great, we’ve been pretty lucky lately.

B: It’s always really flattering to be asked to open for all these comedians that we love.

G: And the fact that it’s all our own material, too. I’d say that sketch is very rewarding in that way. We write our own stuff, it’s all our own ideas. People seem to be really liking it.

B: It’s great how you can take the weird, surreal crap that’s in your brain, you can throw it on stage to make it a reality and people can somehow relate to it. It’s a really great feeling.

G: Some of our stuff’s a little dark and weird.

B: But a lot of it isn’t intentionally so.

G: Yeah, people will say, “That’s so dark,” and we’ll be like “Really? It is?”
N: Where did the idea for Sockdolager come from? Is it based on characters that you’d previously performed?

B: Actually, it’s more based on the museum itself.

G: We knew we wanted to do a historical show as a site-specific piece. We have a fascination with the 1920s, so we started working from that. We developed all the characters over the course of a few months. We started writing completely collaboratively. We split up scenes and wrote them…

B: …with a Google document that we both had open. Luckily we get along so - Quip Magazine