It’s time once again for the Toronto Sketchfest! This year, there’s a fabulous lineup of hilarious comedians delivering the best in Sketch Comedy. The Suburban Sisterwives is the dynamic duo of Katie Preston and Emma Bulpin and they’re bringing their unique brand of comedy to Sketchfest audiences! They wrote to me about that fantastic name, what you can expect from their brand new sketch show, and how they started doing comedy together.

1. Could you please introduce yourselves to my readers?

Katie: My name is Katie Preston, I am a wife, a new mom, a psycho… therapy student in my fourth year, and a former theatre school graduate who loves performing comedy!

Emma: My name is Emma Bulpin, and I am a mother of two and a comedian. You’re welcome. (and a wife, and a stand-up comic, and a corporate worker.. And whatever else Katie said).

2. I love the name The Suburban Sisterwives, how did that name come about?

Katie: It was many months ago, Emma and I were just bouncing ideas back and forth about troupe names we would use if we were to ever write comedy together. We both moved from Toronto to the suburbs of the GTA in the last few years, and we knew we wanted to nod to the suburban life we now lead, and sisterwives, I mean, a girl can dream! 😉

Emma: Katie and I were both VERY much a part of the comedy scene before kids. Lived downtown, walked to Comedy Bar, did multiple shows a week – and now we are moms, and went to buy affordable housing in suburbia outside of Toronto. As you can imagine, having kids has taken up the majority of our “coolness”, and while walking our strollers, in a suburban mall, we got to chatting and wanted to get back at it and come back to our roots- The Toronto Sketch Festival. We also get told that we look and sound a lot alike, hence the Suburban Sister Wives!

3. Could you tell me a bit about how you met and started doing comedy together?

Katie: We met about 5-6 years ago when Emma came to a Herbeaver show and later asked us to perform on her RUN V.A.G show she had at Second City. She felt like a person I had known my whole life! She lit up the room, she was so welcoming and funny, and we were both blonde women with deep voices so I knew we needed to join forces with that kind of power.

Emma: I was in an all female sketch troupe, called RUN V.A.G, and was putting together a show at Second City, and reached out to Katie’s all female comedy sketch troupe- HerBeaver. Given our sketch names, it was a match made in vagina.. heaven, and even since our first show in 2018, we’ve been doing silly things both on stage, and now in our mom lives, together ever since.

4. What can audiences expect from a Suburban Sisterwives comedy show?

Katie: OHHH! Let me tell you, we are both sleep deprived moms, with a deeply weird sense of humour. I think this show is going to be unhinged and wild in the best way! It’s been a long time since I have written a new show, and I have never been more tired. So BUCKLE UP, it’s going to be a silly time.

Emma: To be inundated with silly mom jokes, suburban jokes, silly songs, and just general exhaustion from being alive as a human! We hope everyone will take a night off from stress and just laugh with us silly, exhausted moms. We’ve written this show between nap times, after bed times, and during baby mall walks…. so you better god damn like it!

5. What’s the most difficult part of planning and creating your own sketch comedy show?

Katie: I think the most difficult part at this time in my life is finding the balance of all the different balls I am juggling. Writing a new show is a lot of work. It’s a TON of fun, but there is so much work creating something from the ground up. Ideas tend to be easy for me, but it’s finding the jokes and building the characters that take time. I am a perfectionist, so I have to remind myself that the jokes always come easier when I am relaxed and when I take the pressure off of myself too. There are also a lot of details that people don’t always realize when it comes to creating a new show. There are sound cues, lighting, blocking, props, costumes, having an organized script for the stage manager and in what order each sketch will appear in the show is also specific and carefully thought out.

Emma: Not sure what I ever complained about before, but this show has been a labour of love, all while navigating sick children, sleepless nights, full time jobs & school, all for the love of comedy. As Frank says, “Many times I thought of cutting out, but my heart won’t buy it”.  We do it for the love, and for our souls!

I want to thank Katie and Emma for taking time out of their incredibly busy schedules to answer my questions. You can check out The Suburban Sisterwives at the Toronto Sketchfest on March 8th at 9pm and March 14th at 7:30pm. For more information and tickets, visit: https://torontosketchfest.com/2024-festival/#/