Bigger and, it is hoped, better, the Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival is back for its third go-round this week — putting some 80 acts including locals The Imponderables, The Understudies and Kathleen Turner Overdrive on stage with out-of-towners including Chicago's OneTwoThree and L.A.'s Gratuity Not Included. That's twice as many acts as last year, on twice as many stages now that the six-day laughathon has pulled stakes from its former home, the Gladstone, and settled at Second City and the Diesel Playhouse.

The fest is "trying to raise the bar this year" says organizer Paul Snepsts, in part with the new digs. "They give the troupes a chance to look as good as they can possibly look — with a proper lighting rig a raised stage that's not going to come apart on you."
 
The festival opens today (Nov. 13) with a four-act showcase including The Riot and Asianploitation and runs until locals The Sketchersons bring down the curtain on Sunday (Nov. 18). Also on the bill are New York's Nat Turner Revue,  Montreal's Uncalled For and locals Cory! and Approximately 3 Peters.

Snepts, who is also one-third of the troupe Boiler Weiners (also appearing, naturally), wants the festival to be a draw for performers as much as for the public. Sketch troupes, he says, need a place to meet and "cross pollinate." So the fest has also added seminars, workshops and mixers — two of which are open to the public. Second City alum Melody Johnson will give a "nuts and bolts" talk on Friday (Nov. 16) about how to make a living in comedy, following a Wednesday night panel about the basics of sketch.

Seeing other troupes is "definitely a huge part' of the appeal, agrees Jonny Harris, part of Dance Party of Newfoundland, which plays the Diesel on Friday with New York's Buddy System. "There's not a lot of sketch on TV right now so seeing other troupes is really inspiring. There's just not much of a venue apart from this festival."

Well, except for that other festival. You know, the big one from Montreal? The one that expanded into Toronto this summer? City Hall and Queens Park both supported the local version of Just For Laughs and Snepts says he understands why: JFL is the 800-lb. gorilla of comedy, after all. But he felt insulted nonetheless. It would have been nice, he says, if the city's culturecrats had at least contacted his festival, or the summertime Toronto International Improv Festival.

"If you want a comedy festival, how about picking one of the two that's here?" he says ruefully. "But that's my heart talking.  I know the business side is simple. It's a tourist concern, not an arts and culture concern."