Seattle’s Comedy Imprint Grows with SF SketchFest Guests

3 weeks, 12 venues, 100+ performances: The San Francisco Sketch Festival (SF SketchFest) is renowned as the largest festival dedicated to stand-up, improv, sketch, and all comedic art forms. The 2025 world-class lineup includes Bill Murray, Kathryn Hahn, Tim Curry, the casts of Futurama and Children’s Hospital, and an anniversary staged reading of Airplane!  

The event draws megastar talent from across the globe, emerging artists, SNL pros, beloved podcasts, cult-favorite character performers, plus more, making SF SketchFest the North Star of all things indie and mainstream comedy. Representing the PNW are comedians like Bo Johnson and Cassie Workman, who have deep roots in the area (one’s a local, the other is not but-a-huge-fan-of-Aberdeen) proving that Seattle’s comedic influence is one to watch in contemporary scenes.

Bo Johnson, a Washington native, is no stranger to the world of comedy festivals. Johnson has carved out a name for himself performing across the U.S. and Canada, with a distinct voice that resonates with his home city’s audience. In an interview with The Evergreen Echo, he reflected on his journey from small venues in Olympia to prestigious stages like San Francisco’s Punchline, where he once headlined for a full weekend. Johnson’s career has been shaped by his roots in Seattle, a city known for its intellectual, socially-conscious surface combined with a markedly bizarre “adult-swim” type comedy underbelly.

Bo Johnson

San Diego Union Tribune

“The Seattle audience is smart and sensitive,” Johnson says. “That means a lot of jokes that land in Seattle won’t in Brooklyn, which you learn and adapt to. Generally, when I’m in Seattle, I know they get a lot of nuanced jokes. It’s a place where you can take contextual risks with material, and most of the time they’re with you.” 

One of Johnson’s upcoming projects, a web series about Canadian pickup artists, is an example of how the PNW’s comedic landscape has influenced his work. He credits the city’s cultural awareness for encouraging him to dig deeper into societal issues to find the odd golden funny nuggets. “Seattle’s energy definitely pushes you to examine things that might not seem funny, but when you look closer, it’s absurd,” he explains. “It’s not just about making people laugh—there’s an underlying desire to challenge perspectives and have meaningful conversations.” I once heard Bo Johnson brag at an open mic at Comedy Nest that while he’s unable to own property on Earth, he’s now a proud millennial owner of a portion of the moon. He printed out a certificate and everything. Take that, outrageous housing costs!

Cassie Workman

The Guardian

But it’s not just local talent that’s bringing our region into the spotlight. Australian comedian Cassie Workman’s show Aberdeen offers a unique blend of humor, drama, rhyming poetry, and authentic identity. Workman’s solo performance, inspired by her experience transitioning, or what she lovingly refers to as her “second adolescence viewed from an adult perspective”, explores the life of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain through a time-traveling epic poem, where she attempts to rewrite the past to save his life. The show has earned international acclaim, drawing support from industry heavyweights like Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Workman’s deep connection to the PNW region, and particularly to Cobain’s hometown, is a testament to the magnetic influence our home has on creative minds worldwide.

For Workman, it’s a haven for artistic expression. She recalls her visit to Aberdeen in 2019, where she felt a strange sense of familiarity. “Aberdeen felt like a place I was supposed to be,” she reflects. “It’s a town that’s seen a lot of pain, but there’s also something beautiful about it—something that feels timeless.” Workman’s journey echoes the sentiment that the PNW is not just a backdrop for creative work, but an essential character in the stories being told. For artists like Workman, this region offers a sense of grounding, a place to explore personal history while navigating universal themes of grief, loss, pain of love, and identity.

After speaking with both Johnson and Workman, I noticed their work is a reflection of the PNW itself: a place that values introspection, individuality, challenging identity, and a certain state of self-content, restless with seeded desire to grow beyond itself. 

When I asked Bo Johnson to rate the Seattle comedy scene among other cities (tell me we’re funnier than Houston??) he lovingly gave us “B or B+”. “We’re good, but we could be better and we’ve definitely improved since the pandemic.” He’s excited for what seems to be a revitalized comedy scene and can’t wait to see where we go from here.

Whether it’s through smart oddball humor or thought-provoking performances, the influence of the PNW on comedy is only growing stronger.