Kirsten has been the subject of hundreds of media interviews. See review quotes on the Theatre and Comedy Pages. Here is a selection of feature articles:
KIRSTEN VAN RITZEN BRINGS COMEDY BACK WITH MARCH MADNESS (Nexus newspaper March 9, 2022)
Local comedian and actor Kirsten Van Ritzen and her group of comedy students will be putting on their annual comedy show March Madness. ... " I love that I get to meet people from all different walks of life.. help them explore comedy... and discover their own voice..." Nexus newspaper March 9, 2022 by Nexus - Issuu
TWO NEW ORLANDO COMEDY EVENTS HOPE TO GET CENTRAL FLORIDA LAUGHING (Orlando Sentinel, Sept. 19, 2019)
"it’s a big week for comedy in Orlando as two new events get off the ground. The first Central Florida Sketch Comedy Festival will take place Sept. 21... organized by The Humor Mill Orlando, a 10-year-old sketch-comedy troupe that performs regularly around town..." (PHOTO CAPTION: Comic Kirsten Van Ritzen, of Vancouver, British Columbia, will perform at the first CFL Sketch) https://www.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment/arts-and-theater/os-et-orlando-comedy-warehouse-sketch-festival-20190919-pc4m7cm44jh67n6kt3jd3awdk4-story.html
AROUND TOWN: FINDING FUN IN SIN CITY (Times Colonist, Feb. 2018)
“… As narcissistic Hollywood actor Libby Montgomery, Van Ritzen, apparently channelling Catherine O’Hara at times, impulsively sang ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ at one point.” https://www.timescolonist.com/islander/around-town-finding-the-fun-side-of-sin-city-1.2185854
SIN CITY LIKE BUNGY JUMPING FOR ACTORS - Kyle Wells, Monday Magazine (Jan. 2017)
It's Las Vegas, 1961. Think mobsters and showgirls, gamblers and dealers, intrigue and suspense. And just what's going to happen is anybody's guess, actors and audience alike. Forget about shouting out a location and character for a five-minute sketch; Sin City is a unique brand of improv where an entire world is created and an ongoing story organically progresses from show-to-show, unscripted and bursting with creativity.
READ MORE : http://www.mondaymag.com/news/408845795.html
VICTORIA'S FILMING BOOM BENEFITS LOCALS - Michael Reid, Times Colonist (Jan. 8, 2016)
"Kirsten Van Ritzen had her own reasons to rejoice, being one of several local actors who benefited ... The prolific local actor, writer, comedian and producer of shows including Sin City the Improvised Serial beginning its sixth season here on Feb. 16, landed small roles as a lawyer, reporter, wedding guest, florist and harried driving instructor in movies filmed in and around Victoria. “It was written for a 60-year-old man and that’s just not me,” Van Ritzen said with a laugh, recalling how she was cast as a divorce lawyer in Game of Love, a romantic comedy starring Heather Locklear... "
READ MORE: http://www.timescolonist.com/big-picture-victoria-s-filming-boom-benefits-locals-1.2146483
AN INTERVIEW WITH KIRSTEN VAN RITZEN, MULTI-TALENTED PERFORMER - Janis La Couvee (Jan. 2013)
It seems that everywhere you turn lately you’ll see or hear Kirsten Van Ritzen. This popular Victoria-based actor, comedienne, writer and television producer has an incredibly busy schedule for the months of January and February; playing the mother in Polly Stenham’s hard-hitting, award-winning drama, That Face, at Langham Court Theatre while simultaneously launching a third season of the live-improvised serial, Sin City: Bedlam-by-Sea, and working as executive producer for She Kills Me, a comedy series for APTN that will be live taped in Victoria February 13-17.
READ MORE: http://janislacouvee.com/an-interview-with-kirsten-van-ritzen-multi-talented-performer/
TV SERIES SHOT IN VICTORIA GIVES FEMALE COMICS A BOOST - Adrian Chamberlain, Times Colonist (Feb. 8, 2013)
With Tiny Fey, Amy Poehler and Kristen Wiig having become household names, the playing field for female comics seems more levelled. Nonetheless, comedy is still a male-dominated field. With her new television show, She Kills Me, Victoria actor Kirsten Van Ritzen hopes to help change all that. The upcoming
13-episode series, to be taped next week over five nights in front of live audiences at Metro Studio, will showcase more than two dozen female comics. One
third of the performers — including Carolyn Mark, Miss Rosie Bitts and Van Ritzen herself — are local. All hail from Western Canada.
READ MORE: http://www.timescolonist.com/entertainment/television/tv-series-shot-in-victoria-gives-female-comics-a-boost-1.70233#sthash.AJQ95Ub1.dpuf
ROLE OF A LIFETIME - Mary Ellen Greene, Monday Magazine (Jan. 16, 2013)
When professional actor Kirsten Van Ritzen heard the Victoria Theatre Guild was mounting the Western Canadian premiere of Polly Stenham’s That Face at
Langham Court Theatre, she knew she had to audition for the role of Martha . . . “It’s kind of the role of a lifetime,” says Van Ritzen. .. "I think it will be interesting because people in Victoria think I’m a comedian, but I went to theatre school. I’ve been a professional actor for 20 years. I’ve done a number of dramas, although I usually choose to do comedy.” But Martha is no laughing matter. She’s a pill-popping alcoholic nightmare mother to a dysfunctional family of four. “She’s everything,” says Van Ritzen. “She’s an alcoholic. She has moments of lucidity, moments where she’s the life of the party, and moments where she’s completely cruel and over the top … We’re yelling and screaming and letting it all out on stage.”
READ MORE: http://www.mondaymag.com/entertainment/187207091.html
FUNNY WOMEN FESTIVAL: WOMEN WHO KILL Natalie North - Monday Magazine (Jan. 23, 2014)
Ten years ago an unapologetic boozehound of a woman in a Hawaiian lei and shades first strutted to the fore of an alt-comedy show in Toronto. After she was done delighting and offending as only Louise can, she crawled back into Kirsten Van Ritzen’s mind, a fertile ground from which punchlines and projects flow. The comic, actor, writer and producer’s latest undertaking: Launching Victoria’s first Funny Women Festival, a chance to host professional female comics from across western Canada, while highlighting the women of Victoria’s burgeoning comedy community. It’s a scene Van Ritzen has played a key role in building since she moved to Victoria with her partner Ian Ferguson in 2010. At that time there were just two monthly shows open to amateurs. READ MORE: http://www.mondaymag.com/entertainment/241559161.html
KIRSTEN VAN RITZEN RETURNS FOR ANOTHER ROUND OF SIN CITY - Mason Hendrix, Nexus Newspaper (Oct. 5, 2016)
Actress/comedian Kirsten Van Ritzen has starred in a plethora of plays, acted in television, and toured with live theatre troupes. But Victorians most likely know her as the creator of and actress in her own live theatre improv show, Sin City Improv Serial. Van Ritzen and her partner Ian Ferguson moved to Victoria in late 2010; just a few months later, they created Sin City Improv, and they have been performing here ever since. Every year, a new installment is introduced, with a new setting and new characters. “It’s always been a passion,” says Van Ritzen.
READ MORE: http://www.nexusnewspaper.com/2016/10/05/kirsten-van-ritzen-returns-for-another-round-of-sin-city/
SHOWDOWN INCLUDES SOLO JOURNEY - Laura Lavin, Vic News (Aug. 12, 2015)
". . . The second act features the Victoria premiere of Solo Journeys, a short comedic play written and directed by Showdown's host Kirsten Van Ritzen. Solo Journeys lovingly mocks the cliches of one-person plays and feminist fringey theatre festivals. "It comes from a place of love," says Van Ritzen, a veteran of fringe and one-person shows . . . "I thought I'd dust this one off and cast the five roles for women, with a chorus and bongos and a lot of shrieking and running around with red ribbons." READ MORE http://www.vicnews.com/community/321591711.html
GET READY FOR THE SHOW-TUNES SHOWDOWN - Michael Reid, Times Colonist (March 12, 2015)
"Van Ritzen hosts and recently began producing the popular event that gives seven performers up to seven minutes in the spotlight to compete to become the audience favourite... "Some themes haven't been done before, and Broadway is one of them," says Van Ritzen, a musical comedy diva herself who at one of Gotta Getta Gimmick's cabarets at the Belfry Theatre last year sang Ten Cents a Dance, the Rogers and Hammerstein tune written for the 1930 musical SImple Simon . . ." READ MORE http://www.timescolonist.com/entertainment/get-ready-for-the-show-tunes-showdown-1.1789605
SPACE, THE FUNNIEST FRONTIER - Michael Reid, Times Colonist (Jan. 16, 2015)
"While Ridley Scott’s sci-fi epic Alien chillingly demonstrated that “in space, no one can hear you scream,” it was a different story at Victoria Event Centre on Tuesday. In Sin City’s version of space, everyone can hear you scream with laughter — a scenario likely to repeat itself . . . It’s not an insult to note that director Ian Ferguson and the cast of Broad Theatrics’ live improvised serial didn’t have a clue during the Season 5 preview. They literally had no idea what they were doing until the lights went up on their silver-and-white set depicting a sterile spacecraft, which is all part of the fun. In Space — “the funnier frontier” as they describe it — a crew of astronauts including Monet Mitsubishi, the starship’s concierge played by Kirsten Van Ritzen, whose wig matches her white shiny plastic coat... are about to blast through a wormhole in the year 2020. " READ MORE http://www.timescolonist.com/around-town-space-the-funniest…
DIVA'S DIARIES REVEALED - Natalie North VicNews (posted Dec. 6, 2012)
A beer bottle hurtles past your head, you’re heckled off stage and your income relies on landing a part in a cringe-worthy commercial. Life for a
standup comedian can be brutal, but for everyone else, it’s hilarious. Comedian, actor, writer and producer Kirsten Van Ritzen hopes her
fellow comics aren’t regularly dodging projectiles or the caustic outcries of drunken hecklers, but she knows the anecdotes in her debut book will hit
particularly close to home for those with whom she shares the standup spotlight. The Comedy Diva Diaries, officially launched today, chronicles the
struggles of a 29-year-old comedienne who imposes an ultimatum: get famous by her next birthday, or die trying.
READ MORE: http://www.vicnews.com/entertainment/182471121.html
KIRSTEN VAN RITZEN BRINGS COMEDY BACK WITH MARCH MADNESS (Nexus newspaper March 9, 2022)
Local comedian and actor Kirsten Van Ritzen and her group of comedy students will be putting on their annual comedy show March Madness. ... " I love that I get to meet people from all different walks of life.. help them explore comedy... and discover their own voice..." Nexus newspaper March 9, 2022 by Nexus - Issuu
TWO NEW ORLANDO COMEDY EVENTS HOPE TO GET CENTRAL FLORIDA LAUGHING (Orlando Sentinel, Sept. 19, 2019)
"it’s a big week for comedy in Orlando as two new events get off the ground. The first Central Florida Sketch Comedy Festival will take place Sept. 21... organized by The Humor Mill Orlando, a 10-year-old sketch-comedy troupe that performs regularly around town..." (PHOTO CAPTION: Comic Kirsten Van Ritzen, of Vancouver, British Columbia, will perform at the first CFL Sketch) https://www.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment/arts-and-theater/os-et-orlando-comedy-warehouse-sketch-festival-20190919-pc4m7cm44jh67n6kt3jd3awdk4-story.html
AROUND TOWN: FINDING FUN IN SIN CITY (Times Colonist, Feb. 2018)
“… As narcissistic Hollywood actor Libby Montgomery, Van Ritzen, apparently channelling Catherine O’Hara at times, impulsively sang ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ at one point.” https://www.timescolonist.com/islander/around-town-finding-the-fun-side-of-sin-city-1.2185854
SIN CITY LIKE BUNGY JUMPING FOR ACTORS - Kyle Wells, Monday Magazine (Jan. 2017)
It's Las Vegas, 1961. Think mobsters and showgirls, gamblers and dealers, intrigue and suspense. And just what's going to happen is anybody's guess, actors and audience alike. Forget about shouting out a location and character for a five-minute sketch; Sin City is a unique brand of improv where an entire world is created and an ongoing story organically progresses from show-to-show, unscripted and bursting with creativity.
READ MORE : http://www.mondaymag.com/news/408845795.html
VICTORIA'S FILMING BOOM BENEFITS LOCALS - Michael Reid, Times Colonist (Jan. 8, 2016)
"Kirsten Van Ritzen had her own reasons to rejoice, being one of several local actors who benefited ... The prolific local actor, writer, comedian and producer of shows including Sin City the Improvised Serial beginning its sixth season here on Feb. 16, landed small roles as a lawyer, reporter, wedding guest, florist and harried driving instructor in movies filmed in and around Victoria. “It was written for a 60-year-old man and that’s just not me,” Van Ritzen said with a laugh, recalling how she was cast as a divorce lawyer in Game of Love, a romantic comedy starring Heather Locklear... "
READ MORE: http://www.timescolonist.com/big-picture-victoria-s-filming-boom-benefits-locals-1.2146483
AN INTERVIEW WITH KIRSTEN VAN RITZEN, MULTI-TALENTED PERFORMER - Janis La Couvee (Jan. 2013)
It seems that everywhere you turn lately you’ll see or hear Kirsten Van Ritzen. This popular Victoria-based actor, comedienne, writer and television producer has an incredibly busy schedule for the months of January and February; playing the mother in Polly Stenham’s hard-hitting, award-winning drama, That Face, at Langham Court Theatre while simultaneously launching a third season of the live-improvised serial, Sin City: Bedlam-by-Sea, and working as executive producer for She Kills Me, a comedy series for APTN that will be live taped in Victoria February 13-17.
READ MORE: http://janislacouvee.com/an-interview-with-kirsten-van-ritzen-multi-talented-performer/
TV SERIES SHOT IN VICTORIA GIVES FEMALE COMICS A BOOST - Adrian Chamberlain, Times Colonist (Feb. 8, 2013)
With Tiny Fey, Amy Poehler and Kristen Wiig having become household names, the playing field for female comics seems more levelled. Nonetheless, comedy is still a male-dominated field. With her new television show, She Kills Me, Victoria actor Kirsten Van Ritzen hopes to help change all that. The upcoming
13-episode series, to be taped next week over five nights in front of live audiences at Metro Studio, will showcase more than two dozen female comics. One
third of the performers — including Carolyn Mark, Miss Rosie Bitts and Van Ritzen herself — are local. All hail from Western Canada.
READ MORE: http://www.timescolonist.com/entertainment/television/tv-series-shot-in-victoria-gives-female-comics-a-boost-1.70233#sthash.AJQ95Ub1.dpuf
ROLE OF A LIFETIME - Mary Ellen Greene, Monday Magazine (Jan. 16, 2013)
When professional actor Kirsten Van Ritzen heard the Victoria Theatre Guild was mounting the Western Canadian premiere of Polly Stenham’s That Face at
Langham Court Theatre, she knew she had to audition for the role of Martha . . . “It’s kind of the role of a lifetime,” says Van Ritzen. .. "I think it will be interesting because people in Victoria think I’m a comedian, but I went to theatre school. I’ve been a professional actor for 20 years. I’ve done a number of dramas, although I usually choose to do comedy.” But Martha is no laughing matter. She’s a pill-popping alcoholic nightmare mother to a dysfunctional family of four. “She’s everything,” says Van Ritzen. “She’s an alcoholic. She has moments of lucidity, moments where she’s the life of the party, and moments where she’s completely cruel and over the top … We’re yelling and screaming and letting it all out on stage.”
READ MORE: http://www.mondaymag.com/entertainment/187207091.html
FUNNY WOMEN FESTIVAL: WOMEN WHO KILL Natalie North - Monday Magazine (Jan. 23, 2014)
Ten years ago an unapologetic boozehound of a woman in a Hawaiian lei and shades first strutted to the fore of an alt-comedy show in Toronto. After she was done delighting and offending as only Louise can, she crawled back into Kirsten Van Ritzen’s mind, a fertile ground from which punchlines and projects flow. The comic, actor, writer and producer’s latest undertaking: Launching Victoria’s first Funny Women Festival, a chance to host professional female comics from across western Canada, while highlighting the women of Victoria’s burgeoning comedy community. It’s a scene Van Ritzen has played a key role in building since she moved to Victoria with her partner Ian Ferguson in 2010. At that time there were just two monthly shows open to amateurs. READ MORE: http://www.mondaymag.com/entertainment/241559161.html
KIRSTEN VAN RITZEN RETURNS FOR ANOTHER ROUND OF SIN CITY - Mason Hendrix, Nexus Newspaper (Oct. 5, 2016)
Actress/comedian Kirsten Van Ritzen has starred in a plethora of plays, acted in television, and toured with live theatre troupes. But Victorians most likely know her as the creator of and actress in her own live theatre improv show, Sin City Improv Serial. Van Ritzen and her partner Ian Ferguson moved to Victoria in late 2010; just a few months later, they created Sin City Improv, and they have been performing here ever since. Every year, a new installment is introduced, with a new setting and new characters. “It’s always been a passion,” says Van Ritzen.
READ MORE: http://www.nexusnewspaper.com/2016/10/05/kirsten-van-ritzen-returns-for-another-round-of-sin-city/
SHOWDOWN INCLUDES SOLO JOURNEY - Laura Lavin, Vic News (Aug. 12, 2015)
". . . The second act features the Victoria premiere of Solo Journeys, a short comedic play written and directed by Showdown's host Kirsten Van Ritzen. Solo Journeys lovingly mocks the cliches of one-person plays and feminist fringey theatre festivals. "It comes from a place of love," says Van Ritzen, a veteran of fringe and one-person shows . . . "I thought I'd dust this one off and cast the five roles for women, with a chorus and bongos and a lot of shrieking and running around with red ribbons." READ MORE http://www.vicnews.com/community/321591711.html
GET READY FOR THE SHOW-TUNES SHOWDOWN - Michael Reid, Times Colonist (March 12, 2015)
"Van Ritzen hosts and recently began producing the popular event that gives seven performers up to seven minutes in the spotlight to compete to become the audience favourite... "Some themes haven't been done before, and Broadway is one of them," says Van Ritzen, a musical comedy diva herself who at one of Gotta Getta Gimmick's cabarets at the Belfry Theatre last year sang Ten Cents a Dance, the Rogers and Hammerstein tune written for the 1930 musical SImple Simon . . ." READ MORE http://www.timescolonist.com/entertainment/get-ready-for-the-show-tunes-showdown-1.1789605
SPACE, THE FUNNIEST FRONTIER - Michael Reid, Times Colonist (Jan. 16, 2015)
"While Ridley Scott’s sci-fi epic Alien chillingly demonstrated that “in space, no one can hear you scream,” it was a different story at Victoria Event Centre on Tuesday. In Sin City’s version of space, everyone can hear you scream with laughter — a scenario likely to repeat itself . . . It’s not an insult to note that director Ian Ferguson and the cast of Broad Theatrics’ live improvised serial didn’t have a clue during the Season 5 preview. They literally had no idea what they were doing until the lights went up on their silver-and-white set depicting a sterile spacecraft, which is all part of the fun. In Space — “the funnier frontier” as they describe it — a crew of astronauts including Monet Mitsubishi, the starship’s concierge played by Kirsten Van Ritzen, whose wig matches her white shiny plastic coat... are about to blast through a wormhole in the year 2020. " READ MORE http://www.timescolonist.com/around-town-space-the-funniest…
DIVA'S DIARIES REVEALED - Natalie North VicNews (posted Dec. 6, 2012)
A beer bottle hurtles past your head, you’re heckled off stage and your income relies on landing a part in a cringe-worthy commercial. Life for a
standup comedian can be brutal, but for everyone else, it’s hilarious. Comedian, actor, writer and producer Kirsten Van Ritzen hopes her
fellow comics aren’t regularly dodging projectiles or the caustic outcries of drunken hecklers, but she knows the anecdotes in her debut book will hit
particularly close to home for those with whom she shares the standup spotlight. The Comedy Diva Diaries, officially launched today, chronicles the
struggles of a 29-year-old comedienne who imposes an ultimatum: get famous by her next birthday, or die trying.
READ MORE: http://www.vicnews.com/entertainment/182471121.html