Whether you’re looking for something fun for the whole family to do together or are looking for an excuse to get away from those people this Thanksgiving, Stomping Ground Comedy Theater has just the thing to satisfy your craving this holiday season: It’s Giving *Thanks*: A Thanksgiving Sketch Comedy Revue. Let’s face it: Even if you like your family, everyone likes a few extra laughs this time of year. Join us at 9PM on Friday or Saturday the 22, 23, 29, or 30 to process whatever emotional state this holiday has you in with laughter.
Meet the performers, writers and directors and hear about some of their favorite Thanksgiving memories:
THE CAST
Zachary Barrera
Zachary is brand-new to sketch comedy and has loved every minute working on this production. His first taste of improv was here at Stomping Ground and has since graduated from their program. He currently performs with Caught Up in the Hoo Ha and is a cast member of the upcoming Improvised Hallmark Christmas Movie.
His favorite Thanksgiving memory is when he would stay up late talking with his Grandma and “help” her cook the turkey.
Aaron Hall
Aaron is a graduate of the Stomping Ground Comedy improv program and enjoys watching his friends perform when he’s not on stage.
His favorite Thanksgiving memories were when he was a small child and his grandparents were all still alive. They celebrated with big family gatherings with lots of cousins to play and fight with.
Victoria Hines
After a long hiatus, Victoria is extremely honored and excited to have the opportunity to return to sketch comedy with SG and the incredible artists and community created here.
One Thanksgiving, a bluegrass band spontaneously jammed across the street from her house, drawing neighbors together in a magical moment, people joining in with instruments and voices. She’s been waiting for that kind of magic to happen again ever since!
James Johnson II
James is a black professional voice actor and improv actor. He has been a performer for 8 years. One of the things he loves about storytelling is the ability to bring a story to life and create a character the audience can connect and see a bit of themselves in. James has a passion for making the world a little more empathetic by bringing levity to relatable situations that have life lessons attached to them. When James isn’t improv-ing he is playing tabletop games such as D&D and travels to conventions to run tabletop games for convention goers.
His favorite Thanksgiving Memory is going to his paternal grandparents’ house one year and seeing his 2 cousins, whom he was only able to see once a year. He and his siblings and cousins were all around the age range of 8-13. They didn’t just have their own kiddie table – they had the kids’ room where they were to remain as the adults prepared Thanksgiving dinner. His cousins felt more like siblings, and he remembers a lot of play from sunup to sundown and being able to connect with his younger cousin, who was the closest to his age, over his new obsession with Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon.
Steven Martin
Steven Martin is a passionate actor and improviser who has performed in several productions at Stomping Ground Comedy Theater, including Now THAT’S What I Call TV: The Improvised ‘90s Sitcom, The Improvised Hallmark Christmas Movie, and Welcome to Your Town. When not performing, Steven can be found directing theater productions, creating imaginative content for YouTube, or brainstorming ways to inspire others to embrace their own creativity.
Thanksgiving holds a special place in his heart. As a native Texan, he gathered around the TV to cheer on the Cowboys while devouring mountains of chips and dip. For him, those moments represent the perfect blend of family, tradition, and the simple joys of life.
SJ Richman
SJ is a multidimensional artist with specializations in 2D design, 3D art, and 4D performances. They are a Dallas native, Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts alum, and graduate of Columbia College Chicago. SJ has worked mostly behind the scenes (Prop Master: Disney on Ice, Virgin Voyages, Theatre3) and is ecstatic to be returning to stage.
Their mom’s birthday always falls around Thanksgiving, and they celebrated the day after with “Russian Breakfast,” family, friends, food, and day drinking. They all got a bit too drunk and were hungover by the evening.
Hannah Sligar
Hannah is thrilled to be making her Stomping Ground debut. By day, she manages and engineers critical telecommunication infrastructure projects, and by night, she doesn’t take herself that seriously. Hannah was part of the Comedy Pigeons and Theatre Arlington’s Comedy Club for the last 3 years under the direction of Ben Fort, specializing in musical comedy and improv. She was in the musical Gypsy at TA last year too, but the time commitment for 20 3-hour shows in 5 weeks freaked her out so she’s back on stage doing comedy, despite a deep love for musical theatre. She is very excited to know her lines prior to going on stage for the first time in a while.
Last year, they took an overnight Amtrak train from Dallas to St. Louis to visit her partner’s family for Thanksgiving. The bustling energy of everyone traveling to see their families paired with a good book, a cute dining car, and lots of legroom was magical.
Iannë Warshawsky
Iannë Warshawsky is thrilled to be joining the cast of It’s Giving *Thanks*. A Stomping Ground alumni, Iannë is a cast member of several regular shows and can think of no better way to spend their time than having fun playing pretend and laughing with friends.
THE WRITERS
Kim Bush
Kim is a comedy writer and performer, and the creator of Sketch Betches, a sketch comedy group that produces video content and live shows. She recently served as the producer, director, and head writer of the sold-out sketch show, Airplane Airlines. A native of New Jersey, Kim moved to Dallas in 2014 after graduating from the University of Oklahoma with a BFA in Ballet and a BBA in Management Information Systems. The same year she started taking improv classes and performing at Dallas Comedy House, where she later studied sketch comedy and joined their inaugural house sketch team as a writer and performer. Since 2017 she’s written and performed countless sketch shows with five different house teams at Dallas Comedy House and Dallas Comedy Club. When she’s not working on sketch she enjoys doing musical improv and fostering kittens from the animal shelter.
One year when she was a kid growing up in New Jersey it snowed on Thanksgiving!
Steve Childers
Steve is a Network Engineer from Richardson, TX. This is his first time writing sketch comedy and working with other writers.
His favorite Thanksgiving memories are of his grandfather warning him not to eat all of the pumpkin pie and threatening to eat it all before Steve got a chance to.
Coral Davis
Coral is involved in sketch writing and improv at Stomping Ground Comedy Theater, and she is a strong and independent woman who stands in her power and will say the courageous thing that no one else will: She doesn’t like Thanksgiving food.
One year for Friendsgiving she thought it would be a brilliant idea to buy 30 party burritos from Taco Bueno for the potluck. Everyone loves burritos and variety …right? The crestfallen looks on her friends’ faces as I disgraced their beautiful Thanksgiving spread with her spectacularly miscalculated party burritos have been etched in her memory forever. It has been ten years and people still let her know if an event is party burrito appropriate or not.
Brandon Enriquez
Brandon began his life in comedy over 20 years ago in the eclectic comedy community of Toronto, Canada. Brandon was a graduate of the Toronto Second City Conservatory (on Scholarship), Bad Dog Theatre, Impatients Theatre, and Toronto Theatresports. He continued teaching, training and performing after he moved to Dallas in 2004 and shortly thereafter won the inaugural, ‘Funniest Person in Dallas’ comedy competition. He recently resurfaced and can be found performing improv, stand up and sketch comedy at Stomping Ground Comedy Theater and various venues in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
Once there was a Thanksgiving gathering of a few dozen people in his family when shortly after dinner, the tryptophan sleepiness took effect, and there were more people asleep than awake at the party.
Alexander Joshi
Alexander Joshi is a comedian native to the Dallas area, growing up in Mckinney and having preformed improv comedy for over 10 years. He got his funny card a while ago. With performance experience in Houston & Austin, he has done everything from Stand Up to Musicals half decently but with pizzazz.
Nan Kirkpatrick
The first time Nan’s spouse saw them put gas in their car, he said, “You know, you won’t have to get gas so frequently if you fill it up when you do get gas,” to which Nan responded, “Don’t tell me what to do.” Their friend William once described them as “my A-list art hoe.” They’re old enough to have a sense of humor rooted in irony and young enough to be in therapy for it. They once were involved in a political project built on the principle of “yes, and.” They’ve been subtweeted by a hater for being a clown. As in an actual clown.
They once ate an entire lemon meringue pie by themself at Thanksgiving and passed out cold from the sugar crash, completely missing all the quality family time.
Josh Reus
Josh has been silly since birth but recently has been practicing the distinguished art of comedic writing and performance. He is excited to see his writing performed for the very first time and share his comedic talents.
Some of his favorite Thanksgiving foods include apple pie and mac and cheese.
THE DIRECTORS
Lindsay Goldapp – Writer & Director
Lindsay is the Co-Founder and Executive/Artistic Director of Stomping Ground Comedy. Lindsay holds a B.S. in Acting/Directing from Texas A&M University-Commerce where she is a Theatre Alumni Ambassador. She is a 2009 graduate of Chicago’s Second City Improv Conservatory and has over 25 years of experience performing and teaching theatre, improv, sketch writing, applied improv, and musical improv all over the U.S. and in the U.K. Lindsay currently teaches Sketch Comedy Writing, Improv, Youth Improv, Improv for Work, and Improv for Life classes at Stomping Ground and improv at Booker T Washington School for the Performing and Visual Arts. Lindsay can be seen onstage at Stomping Ground in Broadway(ish) and Spaghetti Confetti or seen sitting in the back of the theater laughing.
Her most memorable Thanksgiving memory is the year the family’s very spirited Jack Russell Terrier jumped on the beautiful Thanksgiving dinner table and downed an entire stick of butter before they could stop her. It was quite a feat…and a long car ride home.
Nono Osuji – Assistant Director
Nono is an actor, filmmaker, and writer. She is a first-generation American born to Nigerian Igbo parents who recently forgave her for not attending medical school. She has worked on award-winning documentaries for ABC and PBS and in the multi-media space with Fortune 500 companies such as Tiffany and Co., Estee Lauder, and L’Oréal USA, as well as with smaller companies and individual artists. She also wrote for the second season of the Emmy Award-winning series WASHED, streaming on Amazon. She has also lent her talents to corporate entities such as AT&T and Warner Media as a Creative Producer and Writer for podcasts, conferences, short films, educational videos, and other digital media content.
Her favorite Thanksgiving memory was a few weeks before she received her transplant and most of her family came from everywhere around the country to celebrate Thanksgiving and her second chance at life. It was 4 days of celebrations and there was something different everyday. They celebrated her niece’s baptism. They had dinner with her donor sister and her family, and of course they had Thanksgiving dinner and a game night. Each day was wonderful and they always acted like we hadn’t seen each other the day before. There were 50 of them and it was glorious!
Sara Jackson – Assistant Director
Sara is thrilled to be on their first directing team at Stomping Ground! They love working both onstage and off — this year having had the pleasure of producing queer variety show, OutLoud: Out, Loud & Outlawed, to celebrate pride month. You can catch them performing at SG regularly in improv shows Caught Up in the Hoo Ha, Now THAT’S What I Call TV: The Improvised 90s Sitcom, and Whose Mind Is It Anyway as well as doing stand-up all over DFW.
Their favorite Thanksgiving memory just so happens to be after Thanksgiving. They wait all year long to make leftover turkey sandwiches.
