Hawaii Sketch Comedy Festival 2015: Kick Off Fundraiser!!

First off, I love comedy. I appreciate it as an art and I think comedians, no matter how clueless them may act, are brilliant. Timing, build up, development all of it takes great skill. Enter Saturday night live, where great actors get you into a situation in a flash. And you really need to pay attention because it will be over just as quick and usually not in the fashion you were expecting.
Initially, I had no idea if I would appreciate sketch comedy as it was my first time. And honestly it took a little warming up before I could get into it. But once I did, I really got to appreciate what its about.
I love reading. I love how my imagination would have to be engaged in order for me to fully experience a book. And when it happened, it was all magic. It was my escape from reality. Sketch comedy, without any prop or settings, forces you to use your imagination to see the scene that the writer had in mind.
Description of sketch comedy, you ask? Actors, holding scripts, using their talents as actors to help you see the moment that they are living. Nothing else as they sit on a table, and read their parts to the audience.
So what makes it five star event, you ask? In my opinion, on this night, they had a great duo playing some awesome live music in between some great videos and some funny readings. Also, the ambiance of agora. A real warehouse, open raw feeling too it reflected some of the raw skits.
I love community college theater. I love the boarders that are crossed in the scenes that no one else will do because, well, its community college theater! Entertainment unlike mainstream productions. Unique.
One of my favorite videos was one parody-​ing those videos on fb where mainland-​ers (wow I’m really busting out those made up words, huh?) try «Hawaiian» food for the first time. But instead it was the other way around hitting up every misconception people have about the island and we on the island have on each other. It was awesome! I love that someone finally did that! I wonder if it’s on youtube.
I am more than willing to dig through rock to find the diamond. In my opinion, it makes the diamond that much more shinier and meaningful. That what I felt like this was. An adventure into the unknown that could have turned out horribly, but at the end of it all had so much more meaning because of the risk taken. Though it seemed kind of iffy in the beginning, being so unheard of, it turned out to be a real, quality diamond. It was perfect in every way.
Thank, Emi & Unilocal for opening my world up to a wonderful situation called sketch comedy!

What’s so funny? Well, local girl actress, comic (and Unilocaler!) Kimee Balmilero is funny, as is local boy radio host, musician and comedian Fernando Pacheco. Ms. Balmilero is the founder and creative force behind ImprovHI, and Mr. Pacheco is the very funny morning radio host at KPOI. His show is called «Walk of Shame» and please do yourself a favor by tuning in. Remember laughter is the best medicine for whatever might be troubling you!
The two teamed up to produce the «Hawaii Sketch Comedy Festival 2015: Kick Off Fundraiser!!» at the Kaka’ako Agora a week ago. As the name implies, the event raised money and awareness of Ms. Balmilero Sketch Comedy Festival to be held in March of next year. A description of the festival (and a short video showing-​off funny girl Kimee’s talents) can be found here:
and here
I’ll get to the fundraiser in a bit, but first a little background might be helpful. You might wonder about the difference between sketch comedy and improve. Sketch comedy is scripted comedy — think «Saturday Night Live», or locally James Roche’s and Tony Silva’s «Da Braddahs». Improv comedy is created by whatever the actor finds in the moment and environment. Because I write sketch for my own pleasure and have some ambition to take it public, the upcoming festival interests me a lot. There will be live performances, workshops, videos, the opportunity to submit your own sketches, as well as a chance to network with other writers, performers and producers. But the festival requires money (about $ 10,000) which brings us to the fundraiser.
SPOILER ALERT: I’ll be mentioning some of the details of the sketches — not spoilers, yet skip to end if it should bothers you. I must say that a well written comedy sketch will amuse you many times over, even when you do know what’s coming next. (.which is why there are those such as myself who have watched Seinfeld some many times that they’ve memorized almost every line. lol)
The producers staged the event in the Ka’kaako Agora, a stylish pavilion locate in a Cooke Street warehouse. Over the next two hours the audience was treated to series of live sketches interwoven with YouTube videos. I found the quality of the live sketches a little uneven, but this is the nature of the beast. A skit may seem great on paper, but fall a little flat when performed. There is no way to predict this. Here are a couple of notable sketches.
Picture a patient returning from the mainland to see her former dentist. As the scene plays out, the dentist acts more and more like a spurned lover, displaying jealousy and demanding t0 know exactly what she did with the other dentist. I thought this was a wonderful concept with a lot of potential for development.
Another skit involved the classic scene from Frankenstein in which the «monster» comes to live. «He’s alive! He’s alive!» shout the two mad scientist. Frank, however, turns out to be much less viral than anticipated. Instead of obeying orders to kill the villagers, he prances about the stage in less than manly manner. It’s a nice twist on a well-​known story. I thought it might be funnier if the monster made romantic advances towards the scientists. But this is just me. The audience found the scene amusing.
The videos displayed comedy of better quality — not surprising since the writers have had time to polish the skits. Two examples come to mind.
A young woman announces her engagement to her girlfriends. The girlfriends first respond (silently) with what they really think. Their replies were something like these. «You’re going to marry that creep?» and «Good luck honey, you’re going to need it.» Then they make increasingly hypocritical responses. «You’ll make a darling couple,» and «oh what a beautiful ring.» The responses finally degenerate into non-​sense. I found this to be a funny example of an often used technique.
I truly loved the last video about a day-​care center for demonic children. The day care worker speaks directly into the camera and cites her references, one of which was her work at an insane asylum. In the meantime, truly creepy children folic in the background doing truly creepy things. The skit concludes with a scene taken from The Exorcist. I won’t tell you which one, but you can probably guess.
All in all, it was a nice fundraiser. The only flaw was the seating arrangements. Not enough chairs were provided, and some of the audience had to sit on the raised daïs that fronted the area where the performances were given. I had to sit on a small (and hard) horizontal beam, and some of my view was blocked by wooden pillars. But I survived.
The duo Sheen provided a pleasant musical interlude. I hope everyone will do what they can to support Kimee and her endeavors.

I love the feeling of a chill garage type but chill environment. I didn’t have to worry about tripping on one foot and falling on my face and making a fool out of myself in front of my wonderful fellow Unilocalers. That’s the comedians job and not mine. Which in fact, they successfully did. I was a virgin and this my first time to attend one of these. There light refreshments and pupus before the act started.
Kimee Balmilero, the lady that put all of this together not only checked us in but she was also the voice behind all the introductions. The sketch scenes by Fernando Pacheco and his fellow stand up comedians with some beautiful music performed by SHEAN was great! I couldn’t stop laughing on a lot of the scenes. I loved the YOUTUBE videos because each one gave us a good introduction of what was to happen next. What a great fundraiser! Something different and very relaxing.
Thanks Unilocal for another great first time opportunity.

First time to one of these, Thank you Unilocal for the passes. Presentation good, Everyone there talented, comedians as well as the live entertainment. Fast moving, you tube videos and live entertainment between acts. They even had soft drinks, water and light snacks for us.

Last night’s Sketch Comedy Fundraiser was a good way to spend my Saturday night! Like SNL? MadTv? Then this event probably would have been for you. A group of talented comic actors wrote some pretty clever, witty, and funny sketches. I won’t spoil the surprise however, you’ll just have to see them for yourself.
I thought holding the event at the agora was interesting, I’ve never been there so I have never experienced the large creative space. It was rather cool! It felt so cosmopolitan and urban haha Honolulu is truly working it’s way up. Only thing with the busy Kakaako traffic, the constant car sounds made it difficult to hear our funny actors.
The best of luck to the Sketch Comedy Festival Fundraiser! I’m so excited to see how this organization will flourish and show that Hawaii is actually really, amazingly funny!

I love a good comedy show.
Wife and I scored tickets to this event via Unilocal.
We cracked up in crack-​up-​ako (Kaka’ako).
It was like a live Saturday Night Live.
Sketch comedy team was faaboo. Really funny skits that were timely and local themed.
Looks like the Hawai’i Sketch Comedy Festival team is trying to revive the genre a la Rip Riplinger.
Funny Youtube videos in between skits.
Wonderful musical guests Shean. Both artists had beautiful voices.
Hostess Kimmie made us all feel welcome and was quite a comedienne herself.
Agora Kaka’ako was a nice site. Not sure what they use this place for during the day, but it would make a nice set for a Western movie saloon scene.
This is a great cause to support because comedy make all of our lives a little lighter.
Best of luck in raising money for your festival!

This was my first time attending a comedy sketch event. I had my +1 with me and we made it past the UH football traffic down to the agora across the street from Fisher’s.
The main show was a mix of comedy sketches and YouTube videos, but the wow factor here was the musical duo Sheen. (or is it Shean ?). I looked for their FB page but I could not find them, these two singers made my night. If I ever have a venue where I need music I will guarantee hunt these 2 down! Their covers blew away the original singers.
This event was a kick off for fundraising the 2015 Sketch Comedy Festival coming this March at the Honolulu Museum of Arts.

I got the notification from Unilocal and I just had to check this out! I love comedy. After getting my confirmation, I was on my way!
The presentation was very well presented. It was great having special guest Fernando Pacheco (former Jimmy Eats World band member and currently Pimpbot). I did not laugh as much as I hoped but there were some funny moments. The actors acted really well. I wished that there were less youtube videos because I had seen some of them before, but it was still good to watch.
The music duo SHEAN was really good! The girl sings very well and has a really good voice. The guy plays the guitar well and knows how to sing! I wish them the best of luck.
Free pupus and drinks were on hand. I chose water and grapes since I’m still dieting. I was happy to find healthy choices!
What a great kick off event and good luck to Hawaii Sketch Comedy!