Rails Comedy's Kevin McDonald: From Improv to Sketch Intensive on Jun 14, 2025 at 10:00 AM

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Kevin McDonald: From Improv to Sketch Intensive

📅 Date: Saturday, June 14
🕙 Time: 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM (6 hours)
🍽️ Lunch Break 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
📍 The DC Arts Center, 2438 18th St NW, Washington, DC 20009

About the Workshop

In this high-energy, hands-on workshop, Kids in the Hall’s Kevin McDonald teaches students how to generate sketch comedy through improvisation. Working in small groups, students improvise scenes which are then analyzed and developed with Kevin’s guidance (and comedic commentary). He walks the class through turning raw improv into a structured sketch—building characters, heightening the comedy, and shaping a narrative. Each scene is then performed again as a refined sketch. By the end of the intensive, students will create their own improvised scenes and begin transforming them into original sketches. It’s a fun, fast-paced crash course in writing without the blank page. This workshop includes a 1 hour lunch break.

About Kevin McDonald

Comedian, actor, writer and director Kevin McDonald founded “The Kids in the Hall” with friend Dave Foley, after they met in Toronto at Second City, and the television series ran from 1988-1995. In the troupe's television series and stage shows, he portrays several popular recurring characters, such as the King of Empty Promises, Sir Simon Milligan, and Jerry Sizzler. McDonald went on to appear in a variety of films including Boy Meets Girl, Lilo & Stitch, “Lilo & Stitch: The Series”, and Epic Movie.

On television, he has appeared on “The Martin Short Show,” “Ellen,” “That '70s Show,” “Seinfeld,” “Friends,” “NewsRadio,” “MADtv,” “Arrested Development,” and “Corner Gas.” McDonald has also done voice work for various animated series, including Nickelodeon's “Invader Zim,” “The Angry Beavers,” “Catscratch,” and “Clerks: The Animated Series.” He also played an imaginary friend named Ivan in the episode ‘Sight For Sore Eyes’ on “Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends,” appeared in the music video for "Roses" by Outkast, and made an appearance in “Tim and Eric's Awesome Show.”

In 2006 McDonald hosted a CBC Television special, featuring several of Canada's best-known sketch comedy troupes. "Sketch with Kevin McDonald" won a Canadian Comedy Award (Best Taped Live Performance - The Minnesota Wrecking Crew). He was recently at the Just for Laughs Festival with the reunion of Kids in the Hall, and also with his show "Hammy and the Kids" with Craig Northey, based on his two dysfunctional families, his father ("Hammy") and the Kids in the Hall, as well as “Death Comes to Town” on CBC.

Along the way, Kevin was also in the movies, Sky High and Galaxy Quest. He did his podcast from 2016 to 2020. Just recently, he and the Kids in the Hall did another season of their sketch show for Amazon Prime. He has also done a bunch of things that he forgets. And the world is better off for that.