New Episodes on Sundays @ 8:30pm ET on OMNI 2
About
ABROAD is a half-hour, satirical sketch series that focuses on the immigrant experience in Canada. Starring and co-created by Isabel Kanaan, the show presents a humorous look at how immigrants think, perceive and deal with living in the country.
Cast
Isabel Kanaan is an established Filipina-Canadian actor, comedian and writer based in Toronto. She is a Second City graduate and Seneca College Acting for Camera and Voice alumna. She is best known for her work as a cast member in one of the most popular Canadian sketch troupes, Royal Canadian Air Farce. She is also an alum cast member and writer of the Canadian Comedy Award winning The Sketchersons, and frequently hosts as a guest on their weekly show Sunday Night Live. Most recently she was an ensemble member on the latest season of the CBC sketch series This Hour Has 22 Minutes. She has also recently joined The Filipino Channel as their Canadian corresponden and was head writer of the multi award-winning group, Tita Collective, which won awards in the Toronto and Montreal Sketch Comedy Festival.
Having immigrated to Canada in 2008, she was awarded the RBC Top 25 Canadian Immigrant Award and was nominated for a Premier’s Award for her expeditious achievements in comedy, theatre, and film/TV. She was also awarded the NBC Universal Bob Curry Fellowship, one of NOW Toronto’s breakthrough stage artists of 2017, and one of Torontoist’s Mirthful Mx. In The 6ix (previously “Local Ladies Who Make Us Laugh”).
Selected TV Credits: TallBoyz (CBC), Hudson & Rex (City TV), Nurses (Global TV), The Good Witch (Hallmark), This Art Works (CBC Arts), Air Farce Canada 150 (CBC), Second Jen (OMNI TV).
Justin Santiago is a Filipina-Canadian emerging actor. She moved to Canada at the age of seven and grew up in Brampton, Ontario where she discovered her passion for all things performing arts. She is a graduate of Sheridan College having attended the Film & Television and Performing Arts Preparation program. She holds a diploma in Performing Arts from Randolph College of the Performing Arts in Toronto. Through her passion and determination, she landed leading roles in plays and musicals such as The Dispute (Alistair Newton), Sunshine Boy (Bad Hats Theatre), and The Drowsy Chaperone (Sheridan Performance Prep). Since graduating, Justin has since picked up her interest in Film and Television and has worked on sets with Go Button Media and Discovery Channel. She is currently working on expanding her skill set to the business side of the arts whilst continuing her passion in acting. She promotes a future of diversity and inclusion through her art and through the people she meets.
Nicco Lorenzo Garcia is a first generation Filipino-Canadian and Dora Award Winning actor, playwright, collective creator and dramaturge based in Toronto. He can currently be seen as Ruben on CBC Gem in the Shaftesbury series “Topline” created by Romeo Candido. He last appeared for Rogers Media in the series “Rising Suns” on OMNI. He will next be seen in Peter Berg’s much anticipated Netflix mini-series, “Painkiller” alongside Matthew Broderick. Nicco is currently in production and set to appear in the new romantic comedy series “Slip”, written and directed by Zoe Lister Jones. Other film and tv credits include: Departure (NBC); Conviction (ABC); Street Time (Showtime); Mayday (Discovery); 5000 Years of Heroes (True Legend) DeGrassi: TNG (CTV); Owning Mahowney (Alliance); and also Ang Pamana: The Inheritance and Prison Dancer – The Webseries (Digital Sweatshop) also created by Romeo Candido, based on the viral YouTube sensation “Dancing Inmates of Cebu”.
Nicco was a collective creator and playwright for “People Power”, for which he won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Best Performance; and “In The Shadow of Elephants” both produced by Carlos Bulosan Theatre, the first and only Filipino-Canadian theatre company in Canada.
Joy Castro is a Filipino-Canadian actress, singer and aspiring writer. She was born in Winnipeg, MB and caught the acting bug after attending a theatre production of ‘Anne of Green Gables’. She and her family then moved to Vancouver, BC when she was eleven and that is where she cultivated her love for performing through various community theatre productions. After graduating from the professional theatre training program at Studio 58, Joy has gone on to play multiple nurses in films and tv shows (not one in real life though!), as well as the odd alien or two. ABROAD is Joy’s first time working within the world of sketch television.
Aldrin Bundoc is a Dora award-nominated actor, physical-theatre creator, and producer who was born in Manila, Philippines and immigrated to Canada with his family when he was five-years old. He is currently based in Toronto.
To date, Aldrin has amassed a significant body of work including Schitt’s Creek (CBC/Netflix), The Boys (Amazon Prime), Star Trek: Discovery (CBS), Coroner (CBC/Netflix), Hudson & Rex (City), Killjoys (Space), Endlings (Hulu), Flashpoint (CTV), Warehouse 13 (Syfy), Beauty and the Beast (The CW), Lost Girl (Showcase), Shadowhunters (Freeform), Private Eyes (Global), The Hot Zone: Anthrax (National Geographic), Nurses (Global), and Slasher (Netflix) to name a few. Theatre credits include Hilot Means Healer (Cahoots); Million Billion Pieces, Antigone (Young People’s Theatre); Towards Youth (Project Humanity/Crow’s Theatre), Meet Cute (Roseneath Theatre), Twelfth Night, All’s Well that Ends Well (St. Lawrence Shakespeare), and Body Politic (Buddies in Bad Times/LemonTree Creations).
Episodes
Lack of Representation
Sketches include, Bruno Mars gives a Filipino spin to his Uptown Funk song. Mercy Memorial, a new series that puts the drama in medical drama.
Standing Up For Yourself
Standing Up For Yourself. Sketches include, Boxing champ Manny Pacquiao demonstrates the religious virtues of a right cross, the weaponizing of slippers from a Black Market Dealer, a doctor’s patient gets lost in translation.
Culture Clash
Culture Clash. Sketches include, Karaoke song lyrics hit a low note with a group of office co workers, scary Filipino bedtime stories that go bump in the night, a very unsupportive immigrant support group.
Pride In Heritage
Pride In Heritage. Sketches include, a woman puts out an Accent Point Bulletin for her lost dialect, a school teacher gets a lesson on Filipino animal sounds, a devilish deed trading your soul for the family life you want.
Control
Control. Sketches include, a Filipino mother plays the passive aggressive card with her two daughters, refunding the police, Filipino style, a friendly checkup at the dentist turns into a real nightmare.
Bonding
Bonding. Sketches include, a guy discovers that binge watching a Teleserye can be extremely unhealthy for his relationship, when it comes to showing emotions, Robo Yaya does not compute, while on a date, a Filipina brings her ultimate protection her dictionary.
Homage
Homage. Sketches include, a captain onboard a spaceship encounters two of the universes most dangerous species, her mother and father, Filipinos put the fun in funeral, don’t judge a Yaya by her cover.
Miscommunication
Miscommunication. Sketches include, workplace showdown at the OK Office, Filipino comic Jo Koy discovers a whole new meaning for the term tough crowd, Haunting apparition accents that’ll leave you speechless.
Competition
Competition. Sketches include, an in depth look at one of the contestants on the new Canadian game show Canada’s Got Immigrants, a corporate Privilege Awareness training course instructor crossing over her own privilege line, a local parish priest holds a marriage preparation course.
Tough Choices
Tough Choices. Sketches include, negotiating office vacation days, immigrant style, while trying to get her father’s computer password, a daughter uncovers his morbid password obsession, when it comes to love at a bar, a woman becomes colour blind.
Beating Expectations
Beating Expectations. Sketches include, the unmasking of the Philippines most popular superhero Darna, US border guard gets a crash course on the colonization of the Philippines, a pair of ghosts hold an intervention that leaves their fellow Filipina spirt caught between two worlds.
Don’t Judge A Book By Its Cover
Don’t Judge A Book By Its Cover. Sketches include, the joys of flying Pinoy Airlines with Manny Pacquaio, Filipina Influencer and Musician Bella Poarch releases new song addressing Filipinos’ complicated history with beauty pageants, while waiting for her family to show up for Sunday mass a woman becomes a real seat saviour.
