HumanTown is a Canadian sketch comedy troupe, best known for winning the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's ComedyCoup seed accelerator competition in 2014.[1] Based in Vancouver, the troupe consists of Kajetan Kwiatkowski, Jack Heyes, Liam MacLeod, Kane Stewart, Miles Chalmers, and Daniel Doheny.[2]
The troupe's comedy concept is framed by an orc named Orthak, who lives in a world populated entirely by Dungeons & Dragons character archetypes; within his reality, he is a fan of a role-playing game called HumanTown about imaginary creatures called humans.[2] After he is magically teleported into the game's alternate reality, linked comedy sketches depict life in the human world.[2] The troupe members are all high school friends, whose first collaboration as teenagers was a short comedy film called Monkey: Dawn of the Ape.[3]
Their ComedyCoup prize consisted of $500,000 in production funding toward the creation of a 30-minute CBC Television comedy special.[1] The special, directed by Vivieno Caldinelli, aired on the CBC in July 2016, and garnered two Canadian Screen Award nominations at the 5th Canadian Screen Awards for Best Photography in a Variety or Sketch Comedy Program or Series (D. Gregor Hagey) and Best Editing in a Variety or Sketch Comedy Program or Series (Aren Hansen).