“I have a need to put Canada on a bigger world stage,” he says on the telephone from Los Angeles. The French version of the Just For Laughs festival has promised a full lineup, but has yet to reveal which francophone comedians will take to its stages. Louise Richer, who runs Montreal’s École nationale de l’humour, a 30-year-old institution that was created by Rozon and Just For Laughs, says there are now question marks beside almost every aspect of Quebec’s vibrant comedy industry. “I don’t think the comedy industry will collapse tomorrow, but it’s possible that the landscape and the ecosystem is transformed significantly.”Among the things Richer identifies as a “worrying question” is whether Just For Laughs might eventually abandon Quebec's francophone comedy scene altogether and move the festival out of Montreal. François Brouard, a professor at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business, compares the shakeup in Quebec’s comedy industry to the shuffling of cards in a high-stakes game of poker.

Source: thestar March 23, 2018 20:37 UTC