Denise Jones discusses stand-up, her time at USask, and her upcoming show “Middle Aged Boy Band.” Don’t worry, she said they’re “really funny.”

Denise Jones has lived a whirlwind of a life. After spending the majority of her life in Saskatoon and pursuing her dream of becoming a comedian, she’s finally returning to the stage that started her career on October 3, with her world-renowned comedy company in tow. 

Jones graduated from USask with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in acting in 2000. After completing her degree, she moved to Vancouver, taught at Vancouver Film School, performed as a comedian on different cruise lines, acted in TV shows and movies—including one directed by Steven Spielberg—and founded an incredible and successful comedy entertainment company. Jones was also nominated for a Leo Award for her work as Cherry in Preggoland (2014).

She first started out working for Vancouver Theatersports League, one of the biggest companies in Canada. Jones worked with them for 22 years, eventually acting as their artistic director for five years before founding her own company, The Comedy Department, with longtime friend and improv partner, David Milchard, in 2022. 

After starting their company together, Jones and Milchard went on to have incredibly successful careers as improv comedians, entrepreneurs and entertainers in Vancouver’s west end, winning a Consumer Choice Award for Best Comedy Club and a 2025 TripAdvisor Travellers’ Choice Award. Jones was also featured at the top of Vancouver Living Magazine’s “Entrepreneurs to Watch in BC’s Entertainment Industry” list last year, which called The Comedy Department’s shows “the gold standard in improv.”

Next week, Jones and Milchard—along with several other critically acclaimed comedians—will be bringing their new show “Middle Aged Boy Band,” a satirical improv comedy show that blends nostalgia and crowdwork to the Broadway Theatre. 

Sitting down with Jones, I had the opportunity to find out more about her company’s upcoming show, get to know her on a deeper level than the description on her website and see what life is like for a USask grad who made it big. 

Laila Haider: “I just wanted to start this off by asking, is there any realm of the entertainment industry that you haven’t delved into yet?”

Denise Jones: “Yeah, there’s a lot of things that I haven’t done, but one of the main things that people often get confused with is, I’ve never done stand-up. Stand-up feels terrifying to me. I don’t know how people do it. It doesn’t interest me. It feels like a solo sport. And I think maybe because I’ve been improvising for so long, I’m so used to collaborating, collaboration is what I’m built of, but stand-up feels very risky. Stand-up says, ‘Okay, I’ve gone away. I’ve really thought about this. I think that what I’m about to say for the next five to 10 minutes is very funny, and I hope you do too.’ Whereas improv is kind of the opposite, [it’s] like, ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen, but together, me and the audience and my performers, we’re going to create something. And if laughter is a byproduct, then we’ve really won the day.’

LH: “Do you ever feel like you could get to a place where you feel confident in doing stand-up, or is that something that’s totally out of your comfort zone? “

DJ: “I mean, I should probably do it. I’m like, “You should do things. You’ve got to be fearless and try things.” So I should probably give it a go. My business partner, Dave, does stand-up, and he keeps saying that we could save a lot of money if he and I both did stand-up and then toured and also hired improvisers. I should probably do it, you know? I’m convinced now, Laila. I guess I have to do it now.”

LH: “Well, all credit to me, obviously, for giving you that final push.”

DJ: “Looking back after I write my comedy album or my Netflix special, I owe all of this to Laila.”

[Laughter.]

LH: “Obviously, I’ve got the short and sweet version of your biography, but I’d really like to get to know more about you and your career as a comedian. Could you tell me how you got into it?”

DJ: “It was not my plan to do comedy. It was my plan to be an accountant. I was a total math nerd growing up. It’s all I wanted to do. […] I did extracurricular math. I was out doing math when I didn’t need to be there. And then I had this grade eight teacher who asked me to audition for Jesus Christ Superstar, and the part that he asked me to audition for was King Herod, which is the only role in Jesus Christ Superstar that’s funny. And so I did this part, and I got laughs for the first time in my life. And I was like, ‘Oh, this is my jam.’ Why would I do anything else, you know? […] I was in drama club, and that’s all I wanted to do. My mom kept saying, ‘You should have a backup plan or fall back.’ And I was like, no, because if I have a backup plan, I’ll probably back up, right? There [are] a lot of actors who always say to young, up-and-coming people who are getting in the business, ‘If there is anything else you enjoy doing, go do that.’ It’s one of those where you have to love it. You gotta love it. Thankfully, I’ve been very fortunate to get to work with incredible people, and I’ve been doing comedy for at least 25 years now.”

LH: “What was it like going from drama classes in high school and drama clubs and being in the Saskatoon soaps to working on bigger projects and with Netflix and Spielberg?” 

DJ: “You don’t realize when you’re in school, that all those things are preparing you for that. I honestly credit improv in particular for a lot of my success and my comfortability on sets, my comfortability in auditions, because improv is such an invaluable skill. It really gives you the ability to connect, whether it’s with a casting director, whether it’s with a director. […] In the film and television world, they love actors who can improvise. They love it if the script isn’t that great and you can improvise something on the day that’s a little better than whatever the writers came up with. All of those crunches, or the workouts that you end up doing, that you don’t think matter. They really do.”

LH: “Is there anything in particular that you recall fondly from your time at USask? Any places or professors?” 

DJ: “Well, you know the drama department, the hanger bangers, the parties—Pam Haig Bartley was one of my professors, Henry Woolf, who’s a famous professor from University of Saskatchewan. Looking back, you don’t really realize how impactful acting professors are going to be in your life, because they’re there when you’re sort of starting to figure out who you’re going to be as an actor and what kind of acting you want to do […]. I look at my time in the drama department and the Greystone Theatre, and the productions I did there, as some of the best acting experiences I’ve had. Because the great thing about it is, you go through the whole thing—I’ve called the lighting cues in a show. I’ve built the props for a show. I’ve built the set for a show. And I think that having that real foundation of of ‘we’re all in this together,’ especially when you get into the world of making movies and that everyone has a job, and just because you’re the one that’s on camera saying the lines your job is no more important than the person who’s coiling cable in the back corner, and having that theater spirit is invaluable. I think it just makes you an overall more considerate actor who treats everybody with respect.”

LH: “Is there anything in particular that you learned from your time as a drama student at USask that has really stuck with you throughout your career?”

DJ: “[…] I did classes with Henry Woolf—I had a directing class with him. And every Friday, he would do bad plays or bad directing, and so we would be given a concept. We’d have to go away, and he would challenge us to come back with the worst piece of theatre that we could come up with, the worst, cringiest thing that we could possibly do. And often what ended up happening is it ended up creating really great stuff. Because when you’re not so precious about something being good, when you’re challenged to make it bad, make mistakes, make it awful, the doors sort of get flung open on ideas. And it becomes a more expansive exercise than limiting [to] ‘No, this is what it should be. This is what the play should be. It should be this level of quality.’ […] To not be so precious about the work and to make mistakes, and that the awesome gold is going to be found in you just not giving a shit when you’re in that creation phase, you sort of figure that out. Because I think, you know, I probably fell into the trap a lot of taking myself a bit too seriously. You become that drama nerd in the black turtleneck who really takes herself very seriously. […] Joyful mischief was something that I totally got out of my time at [the] University of Saskatchewan, for sure.”

LH: “How did you go about establishing yourself, as some would say, a staple in Vancouver’s comedy scene?”

DJ: “It’s sort of just attrition. I remember someone saying [that] sometimes it’s just a matter of the herd. People just fall away, and they don’t do acting anymore. They don’t do comedy anymore. So you become that person who’s doing lots of reps. With improv, because I’m not learning lines, I can’t really go away and study improv. You have to do it, and you have to do it in front of an audience in order to start to tune your ear and your body into what resonates and how to stay connected to your audience, and how to stay present in the moment. When you improvise, you kind of have to have a reptilian brain. A certain percentage of your brain is always thinking, ‘Where should this scene go?’ But this part of your brain has to remain in the moment, [thinking about] safety for your partner. ‘What are we doing? What’s the scene about? What’s that character’s name? Should I reference this other character that we talked about half an hour ago?’ All that sort of stuff. So I think that I was just in a whole bunch of shows and managed to connect and continually collaborate with other people who loved improv as much as me. I found my gang of improv people. One of them has been my partner for 19 years. I think there’s a lot of people that are like, ‘I want to try this comedy thing, or this acting thing, or this improv thing,’ but [aren’t sure] they’re gonna really stick with it and do it, because there’s long stretches where it’s like, ‘Oh God, is this actually gonna work out?’ I remember in the middle of the pandemic, I was like, ‘Am I trained to do anything else? What else am I going to do?’”

LH: “You’d finally go back to accounting, right?” 

DJ: “That’ll be full circle, Laila, full circle.”

LH: “Do you have any advice for students who are hoping to follow a similar career path to you?”

DJ: “I wish that I could go back and not worry so much about how it was going to look, or if I looked too pushy, or if I was doing too much. […] Make your own path, because I am where I am, and the universe puts you where you’re supposed to be. You walk through the doors you’re supposed to, but I wish that I had spent more time creating my own opportunities, instead of waiting for someone else to cast me, instead of waiting for someone else to produce a show, and then for me to put my hand up and say, “Can I please be in your show?” [I wish I had] taken more agency of my own creative path. […] There’s nothing to stop you now with social media; there’s no barrier for you to get your work out there, to get your show poster in front of 1000 people. […] You’ll be glad that you just started early, because that’s how you learn to create your own stuff, to make all those mistakes that you’re going to make, and to not freak out when it doesn’t work. There’s going to be a [lot of times] when it doesn’t work, but there’s always going to be a great idea. That’s the spirit of improv. There are no bad ideas, because a really great idea is often on the other side of a not-so-great idea.”

LH: “Life doesn’t really end when you fail, you know? The doors will always open and shut. You just have to go out and open them and close them yourself, or make your own doors.” 

DJ: “Yeah, get some wood. Make some doors and then open them for yourself.”

LH: “Circling back to your return to Saskatoon and your return to the theatre here, what is it like coming back to your old stomping grounds? How are you feeling about this upcoming performance?”

DJ: “I don’t know how I’m gonna feel when I get there, but it’s pretty wild. If you had told me when I got my drama degree that I would be coming back with my own company that I co-founded with my business partner Dave… […] This company’s only been around for three years, and the level that we’ve managed to attain and the work we’ve managed to get done in three years, I wouldn’t have believed you. I really did think that I was going to spend my whole time auditioning and hoping that someone else [would give] me work. That’s what I really thought. […] So I think that it feels pretty incredible, you know, to get to go back—my mom will be at the show, and it’s [Broadway Theatre] where I did my first improv show [that] I actually got paid for with the Saskatoon Soaps. It just feels really incredible to get to [perform here], often you run into people, they’re like, ‘Are you still doing that acting thing?’ That’s sort of how creative pursuits can sometimes be minimized. ‘Are you still doing that little improv show?’ It’s like, ‘Yeah, it’s actually what I do for a living. Are you still doing that doctor thing?’

LH: “Is there anything else that you’re looking forward to seeing in Saskatoon? Anything or place in particular that you’re nostalgic for?”

 DJ: “There’s always the old haunts, you know, my very first job was at the Saskatoon Berry Barn. I was a dishwasher at the Berry Barn. Saskatoon is such a beautiful place. I mean, there was a pub that I used to love to go to—Lydia’s on Broadway was sort of a famous one. The Broadway cafe, I love. And I always, every single time I go home, cruise past Greystone Theatre, right? I have to. Yeah, the university holds a really special place. […] What’s the name of the pub?”

LH: “Louis’.” 

DJ: “Louis’, yes. Many, many, many nights having very cheap pints of beer, talking about shows and theatre and dreaming about what our plans were going to be, what our lives were going to be like. […] ‘I wonder what my life is going to be like in the year 2000. Oh my God. What is life gonna be like?’ All the great bands, great music venues, I’m stoked to be back at the Broadway [theatre], for sure. That’s such an incredible venue. And the people there are so great.” 

LH: “The Comedy Department was created three years ago. How did you get the idea to start your own comedy company?”

DJ: “In the pandemic, basically, my business partner and I were both part of a big theatre company, and we were sort of moving away from that, and a bunch of the senior members had left as well. [We thought] ‘Well, you know what? I think we can figure this out. Like, what if we just made our own show?’ We just did that. We just started looking around for a venue. I was at this sports bar down the street called The Park Pub, and I took the wrong way to the bathroom, and I stumbled across this [place], it looked somewhat like a conference room, down past the kitchen and down a set of stairs. And they said, ‘Oh, that’s just for pub quizzes and breakfast overflow.’ I said, ‘Oh, well, could I have it?’ So they let us use it one night a week. They ended up making it its own little venue. But every Saturday we transform it into this cool speakeasy [type] vibe comedy club. We do two improv comedy shows [a night], 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., and we just hustled. In the beginning, seven people would come to our show. No one knows who we are, no one knows who The Comedy Department are, and no one knows the venue. And then in the last three years, we’ve managed to win the TripAdvisor Traveller’s Choice Award two years in a row, which means we’re in the top 10 per cent of all companies on that platform. [We won] Consumer Choice Award for Best Comedy Club two years in a row. People come to our shows, and there’s just an intense amount of connection. It’s a very teeny venue. I take the tickets [and] my business partner takes you to your table. I think that there’s so much streaming, and you know, you watch your Netflix or whatever. But we end up talking to pretty much everyone at the show every night. So it began quite small, and in the space of three years. […] We’re very, very, very fortunate to have gotten the level of recognition that we have.”

LH: “And then about this show, your project, ‘Middle Aged Boy Band’. Tell me a bit more about it. What should the audience expect going into it?”

DJ: Okay, so the concept of the show is that these guys [that] were [trying to start a boy band] in the 90s, and then they gave up on their dreams, and they got new dreams—having kids, getting married, becoming accountants, a tire salesman—but that dream was always in the back of their brains, and now in their mid-to-late 40s they decided that now’s the time. Their kids are grown or old enough, and they’re cashing in their RRSPs, and now they’re gonna make a go at this dream that they had when they were 20. When we created the show, the Backstreet Boys were not doing what they’re doing now, and New Kids on the Block were not doing what they’re doing now. So it’s quite hilarious the timing of [it all]. It’s sort of what it would be like if a bunch of guys tried to do this again, and then we put in the [improv] comedy piece as well. So the characters are locked in. We know who the characters are. I don’t know a lot [about] their journeys, because some of that’s informed by the audience. And they’re going to be doing sort of improv comedy under the spirit of using collaboration to really set them up to succeed on the road. So, you walk in and the band has instant history because they’ve known each other forever, but it also has a real spirit of, ‘no dream [is] too late.’ […] Everyone doing the show, it’s their dream to do improv for a living. We’ve [all] been doing it forever. And the fact that we get to do this, and people actually come watch us on a regular basis is incredible. […] There’s going to be lots of boy band vibes, you know, choreography, real nostalgia and connection. […] There’s a real vibe of girl’s night out—that feeling of when anything’s possible—that’s what it’s felt like. It’s just really silly fun. Our tagline is, ‘it’s Who’s Line is it Anyway? meets Backstreet Boys, but with more knee pain.’ Our choreo is not going to be slick like the Backstreet Boys, and from what I’ve seen, it might be closer to what 98 Degrees is doing. 

[Laughter]. 

“Someone saw one of our ads and they said, ‘I actually thought you guys were 98 degrees.’ It’s just a ridiculous amount of fun. It really, really is. We invite people to come and just have a killer time. It’s not a show that takes itself seriously. It’s so dumb. The show is so dumb. And I think an indicator of a great night out is that you go, you laugh, you laugh your ass off, you laugh until your mascara runs and just sort of forget about everything for a little bit, because the world can be a bit crappy lately. This is your night to shake it off and cut loose, and sing along, like shouting song lyrics from the rooftops. […] It’s a super joyful show, for sure.”

LH: “Is there any reason in particular that USask students might want to come by?” 

DJ: “Well, from what I remember being a university student, is that you really like to have a good time. You really like to have a good time. It’s going to be a night of non-stop laughs, non-stop laughs. […] We’re really funny, Laila. We’re really funny, you know? Plus, there’s a sweet, special discount promo code for USask students. Special promo code for you, for sure.”

LH: “That’s great. I’m gonna make the byline: ‘we’re really funny, Laila.’”

DJ: “Listen, we have 250 five-star reviews on TripAdvisor. 250 people can’t be wrong!”

LH: “Has there been a show that you’ve done over the course of your 25-year career that really sticks with you?”

DJ: “One of the most memorable shows I’ve ever done was the worst show that I’ve ever done. It was truly, truly awful. It was a group of us […], and we did a [skit] called Kiss Prom. It was at the Chicago Improv Festival, a very prestigious festival, and we created this format where we were some of the members of Kiss—it took us three hours to do our makeup. We had all the costumes. I was Peter Criss, and we performed two live songs, and we did improv in that. We were terrible. Nobody laughed for 45 minutes. We got off stage, and we were just blown away. We’d spent all this money, and we just basically had our asses on fire in front of the Chicago Improv Festival. You don’t remember the good shows. You remember those ones because it’s like you and your scene partner, your other performers on fire together. We have to keep going. We know that this show is awful, and [your partner] doesn’t know how to make it better, and neither do I. And we just have to keep going. And then there was, at the end, a little smattering of applause. They were probably just grateful it was over. And then we all went home, drank bourbon and laughed about it until four o’clock in the morning. I will never, ever forget it.” 

LH: “Is there anything that you never would have expected to learn about the entertainment industry when you were in your undergrad?”

DJ: “I thought that if I wasn’t a star, I hadn’t ‘made it.’ I think I had this idea of what success was as an actor. And I think that there isn’t enough light shining on the fact that there’s a whole industry of working-class actors. There are very few stars, but there are thousands of actors who make a living being that person you can’t remember in that show. There’s a great documentary, I think it’s called That Guy Who Was in That Thing. I’ve sort of transitioned into making my own work. There is a great deal of reward, [but] the end goal is different. My indicator of success is very different from what it was when I was in university, for sure. I really thought that I was going to be a star, like I had no doubt about it, really. I really did. But you know, there [are] lots of stars in the sky, and some shine differently. I can’t believe I just said that, Laila, don’t put that in there.”

LH: “I’m putting that in there. I have to. It’s on the record.”

DJ: [Laughter]. “’It’s my journalistic integrity.’ ‘So what was the highlight of that article? Well, she said that we’re all stars a little differently.’”

LH: “So what’s next for you? Is there anything that we should be on the lookout for?”

DJ: “It’s our plan to be coming back to all communities twice a year with different shows. We just want to keep sort of reinventing ourselves and trying something new. We have another show that we’re touring called Canadian Steam. It’s a music and comedy show with mildly sexy lumberjacks, sort of just embracing body positivity—proving that Canada is sexy because we’re the funniest country. That’s a really fun show that we got on tour. We really want it [The Comedy Department] to be like, as soon as I see A24 at the start of the movie, like, ‘oh, this has gotta be good, because it’s A24,’ and that’s how I want people to view The Comedy Department. ‘Oh, it’s a Comedy Department show. You gotta go.’ And probably down the road, I imagine we’ll have a stand-up tour […], stand-up, sketch, improv, variety. Lots of shows, you know, [this isn’t] gonna be the last time you see a [Comedy Department] show in Saskatoon. And we’re not just in Saskatoon. We’re doing Regina, Moose Jaw and Prince Albert. And then we also have a tour in Alberta happening. So we’re all over.”

LH: “Is there anything that we didn’t cover that you would want to talk about? Any message to leave the audience?”

DJ: “Our show is just so ridiculous. That’s what I want people to know. I wouldn’t lie to you. It really is a good time.”

LH: “I’m glad that you get to do it on your old stage, and have that full circle moment from where you started your career to where you are now.”

DJ: “Yeah, and it’ll be like, 25 years later. It’s so rad.”

Be sure to check out The Comedy Department’s upcoming show at the Broadway Theatre on Oct. 3.

Tickets are on sale now at broadwaytheatre.ca

Students get 20% off on tickets when you use the code: UOFS