JFL40: Fortune Feimster Has Stories To Tell

Fortune Feimster can’t wait to be back in Montreal later this month.

“It’s one of my favourite cities that we go to," the 42-year-old comedian told iHeartRadio Canada. "I love the city so much and the people are so great."

Feimster is returning to Just For Laughs on July 30 to perform her new show Hey Y'all at Club Soda. No stranger to the festival, she said it has become a staple of her summer.

“It was so weird in the last two years not to have it. It was like, July’s coming around and we’re not going to Montreal. I felt like something was missing from our summer,” she said, "so we were so excited when we heard that they were coming back and that I was going to get to go.”

Feimster said JFL is a chance to hang out with her funny peers. “It’s such a rare opportunity to get to be around all these other comics because we’re all on the road and all busy and don’t get to see each other very often,” she said.

“You don’t get much sleep – but it’s worth it.”

Feimster made her JFL debut in 2010 as part of the New Faces showcase.

“That was the first time I really felt like, ‘Oh I’m doing it, I’m a comedian and I’m on a good path.’ I got to meet so many comics for the first time and everybody was so nice,” she recalled. “It was just a really special summer for me.”

Feimster said her show picks up where her Netflix special Sweet & Salty left off. “It’s a really fun hour where I tell a lot of stories about myself, where I reveal things about myself – where people think I might be one way but I’m actually another way – and I think audiences have really enjoyed getting to know a different side of me,” explained Feimster. “And then really talking more about my relationship and where that’s at and how that’s evolved, so that’s been cool to share that part of my life with people.”

She said the show “feels very celebratory” at the end.

“I try to make these hours feel a little bit like you’re on a journey. There’s a middle, beginning an end. There’s a through-line, callbacks… and so It doesn’t feel like a bunch of random stories thrown together. I like for it to feel like a narrative.

"That’s what I sort of started with with Sweet & Salty and I’m trying to continue that here with this show so I’m excited to perform it for everybody in Montreal.”

Fortune Feimster performs Hey Y'all on July 30 at Club Soda. Click here for tickets. Just For Laughs runs July 13-31.

Virgin Radio & CHOM are sponsors of the Just For Laughs festival, which is partly owned by parent company Bell Media. This article was adapted from a feature article at Pop Goes The News.