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Winnipeg Free Press

Inside out

In April 2020, Julie Nolke caught her big break. The Canadian comedian/actor/writer debuted a new series on the sketch comedy channel she runs with her husband on YouTube: Explaining the Pandemic to My Past Self, wherein a pandemic-present Julie tells a pre-pandemic Julie what's in store for her. The first video has 21 million views and counting. Five years on, Nolke has firmly established herself as one of Canada's brightest comedic voices for her ability to tap into the zeitgeist — and now, she's doing something new: Dying on the Outside, a live, one-hour, one-woman sketch-comedy show she's bringing to the Park Theatre on Wednesday. 'It's a departure from what I've done for the last, I don't know, 10 years,' Nolke says over the phone from Toronto. Last year, Nolke was feeling disconnected from her audience — which, when you're creating comedy online, is mostly measured in anonymous numbers. 'I really just wanted to see and meet the people behind those views,' she says. After three months of writing, Nolke tapped fellow comedian/actor/writer Gwynne Phillips to direct the show, which had a sold-out run in Toronto in March. Nolke's not the only viral Canadian comedian who has recently brought her work from screen to stage. Fellow Toronto comedian Laura Ramoso, who was in Winnipeg in November on her Sit Up Straight tour, has also followed a similar career trajectory. 'You know what's funny — Laura was the first person I called when I realized I wanted to do a live show,' Nolke says with a laugh. 'I called her and I said, 'We have to meet for coffee because I want to do this thing, and you are an expert in it.' 'We had a really nice, long chat, and she gave me a lot of guidance, and has been giving me guidance through this whole thing. She's an incredible community member and wonderful friend.' Without revealing too much, Dying on the Outside deals with, among other topics, death and processing death as the title suggests. The north star of all of Nolke's comedy is relatability. 'The hope is that if I've gone through something and I create a piece of content, as long as I keep it authentic, the hope is that it's going to be relatable,' she says. Nolke grew up in Calgary, where she did a ton of improv and theatre and, after high school, moved to Toronto to complete an acting degree at York University. Dying on the Outside is a welcome return to live performance. 'Of course, it's been 10 years since I've been back (onstage), so I was a little bit rusty, and I definitely had some imposter syndrome, but once I started performing, it felt very natural. And to be honest, that surge of adrenaline you get from the audience is exactly what I was looking for. It feels like a very special, once-in-a-lifetime experience that only live theatre can offer,' she says. It also allows her to exercise different creative muscles. Julie Nolke brings Dying on the Outside, her new sketch comedy show, to the Park Theatre on Wednesday. 'There's something really brave about doing something in person, live. There's that opportunity for failure that I think I need. I need that fire under my butt so I keep changing my content and making sure the audience is relating to it.' Nolke's success has not been overnight. She started her YouTube channel with her husband Samuel Larson in 2014 after years of struggling as an actor. It steadily grew enough they were able to quit their day jobs in 2016 before Explaining the Pandemic to My Past Self took it to a whole new level. 'I think we just had an excellent temperature check on where people were at in the world. Our comedy just seemed to hit in exactly the way that people needed, and so those videos took off, but I am an avid believer that if it wasn't going to be those, it was going to be some other video, just because we had worked so hard and we'd gotten really good at YouTube,' Nolke says. There was a cultural shift taking place at that time, too. YouTubers and online creators were finally being recognized as legitimate artists. 'I have felt that shift in a huge way. I mean, I was on a show called Run the Burbs — we had three seasons on CBC — and the reason I was invited into that original development writers room before the show was ever greenlit is because the production company knew me from YouTube. That would not have been the case five years previous,' Nolke says. During Elections Get campaign news, insight, analysis and commentary delivered to your inbox during Canada's 2025 election. Now, Nolke has multiple screen credits to her name, including Murdoch Mysteries, What We Do in the Shadows, Coroner, Odd Squad and Workin' Moms. In 2023, she also had a starring role in the W Network movie The Wedding Rule. After years of grinding it out and putting in the work, Nolke has been nominated for two 2025 Canadian Screen Awards for her work on Run the Burbs. The winners will be fêted in Toronto at the end of May. The performer calls the nominations,'really surreal. Like, very, very out-of-body experience. I think there's a part of me that still feels a little bit impostery in film and TV — like, when are people going to realize I'm just a YouTuber? I try to mute that voice as much as possible but the reality is, it exists.' 'And so, the awards bring me a huge sense of validity. Like my peers, my own peers, the people that I deeply respect in the industry, recognize that I'm more than just an online creator who couldn't book a job the regular way. It doesn't go by me mildly.' Jen ZorattiColumnist Jen Zoratti is a columnist and feature writer working in the Arts & Life department, as well as the author of the weekly newsletter NEXT. A National Newspaper Award finalist for arts and entertainment writing, Jen is a graduate of the Creative Communications program at RRC Polytech and was a music writer before joining the Free Press in 2013. Read more about Jen. Every piece of reporting Jen produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print – part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.