Just for Laughs Announces New Faces: Characters 2017

Just for Laughs and their New Faces series once again give love and recognition to 10 young performers who are excelling in the field of sketch comedy. Love the feeling you get when you don’t know what to expect and raw talent reaches out and punches you in the chest? Then you need to follow JFL’s New Faces: The Characters.


This year’s crew includes 10 talented young comics: Ana Fabrega, Avery Monsen, Bill Posley, Geoffrey Dow, Heidi Gardner, John Trowbridge, Kat Palardy, Matt Gehring, Matt Rogers, and Yoni Lotan.


You can see the best new sketch comics before they’re playing sold-out theaters across the continent, on Thursday July 27 at 7pm on Monument-National, Ludger-Duvernay Theatre.

Ana Fabrega performs in New York City at comedy venues and art spaces and hosts a monthly show at Starr Bar in Brooklyn called Sundays with Ana. She’s been on a great list of shows including Portlandia, The Chris Gethard Show, The Jim Gaffigan Show, and in various web videos for Comedy Central, IFC, and Más Mejor.

Avery Monsen is an LA based actor and writer who has been on 30 Rock, Maron, Adam Ruins Everything, High Maintenance, The Tonight Show, and Rooster Teeth’s streaming series, Crunch Time. He’s written and illustrated the national bestseller, All My Friends Are Dead and wrote for Billy On The Street and Comedy Central’s Trip Tank. Currently, you can see him perform sketch comedy with the UCB-LA house team, Bombardier.

Bill Posley lives in Los Angeles, after growing up in Massachusetts. He is an alumni from UCB, I.O. and Second City and has shared the stand up stage with comedians such as Lewis Black, Godfrey and Joe Rogan. Most recently Bill was a standout in the 2017 CBS Diversity Showcase, shining as both a writer and performer.

Geoffrey Dow is from Philly and is now performing weekly with his beloved Lil’ Tooties at The iO Theater in Chicago.

Heidi Gardner is a standout writer/performer in the Groundlings Main Company in Los Angeles, and  voices a role in the animated series SuperMansion with Bryan Cranston. She was also in TV Land’s Nobodies this year. You’ll see her in the upcoming feature film, Life of the Party, opposite Melissa McCarthy, soon.

John Trowbridge is an New York City comedian currently writing original comedy for Hearst Media (Elle, Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar). You can catch John performing at Night Late at UCB-NY or performing stand-up all around NYC.

Kat Palardy is a Los Angeles-based comedian who draws heavily upon her roots in musical theater and improv when creating her original characters and impressions. She will be recurring in the upcoming animated series Little Big Awesome for Amazon Prime, and recently worked on Superstore, New Girl, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Rob Huebel and Paul Scheer’s Drive Share, The Pete Holmes Show and more. She performs regularly at UCB Theatre with the Maude sketch team, Bombardier.

Matt Gehring – a  New York City writer and performer recently booked a recurring role on Amazon’s The Tick and the comedic feature film Set It Up. Matt performs his writing at the UCB-NY and is a member of Political Subversities, which was recently awarded a video-residency at the YouTube Next Lab. Matt can be seen in recent episodes of Netflix’s The Characters and Adult Swim’s Neon Joe, Werewolf Hunter.

Matt Rogers performs regularly at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in NYC as part of “Characters Welcome” and was previously an actor on the UCB Maude team ‘Choir’. He was selected as one of Comedy Central’s “Comics To Watch” in 2016 and has been featured in a recurring role on Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee alongside Jerry Seinfeld. Matt co-hosts the popular weekly podcast Las Culturistas and the monthly live show, GAYme Show.

Yoni Lotan is a UCB NY house performer on the Maude team ‘Nipsey’ and the Harold team ‘Higgins’. With several shorts under his belt and a few viral YouTube hits, his videos have been seen on Buzzfeed, Gawker, CNN, The Today Show, Huffington Post, Mashable, and his mother’s Pinterest. Yoni appeared on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon and was most recently seen in the Sony feature Rough Night, directed by Lucia Aniello.

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