Aunty Donna
Aunty Donna exploded onto the Melbourne comedy scene in 2012 with a unique brand of surreal, fast paced, alternative sketch. Their debut show Aunty Donna in Pantsuits was nominated for the illustrious Melbourne International Comedy Festival’s Golden Gibbo Award. Their award winning YouTube channel currently has over 453 thousand subscribers and 84 million views.
Having met throughout high-school and their time at the University of Ballarat Arts Academy, Aunty Donna are a collective of creative cats dedicated to bringing the funny across all mediums: actor / writers Mark Samual Bonanno, Broden Kelly and Zachary Ruane, writer / director Sam Lingham, film director / editor Max Miller and sound designer / composer Tom Armstrong all come together to bring Aunty Donna’s wildly entertaining style of comedy to life.
Aunty Donna’s loud and energetic live shows have taken them around the world multiple times. They sold out their Australian and New Zealand Comedy Festivals seasons from 2016 to 2018 before hitting Edinburgh, London, Montreal & Hong Kong. They have toured North America three times performing to sold out crowds in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco & Austin.
Aunty Donna developed award winning ‘1999’, an original web series exclusively for YouTube thanks to Screen Australia and Google’s Skip Ahead funding before moving onto television with ‘Trendy’ the first piece of local content commissioned by Comedy Central Australia. You have also seen them on your screens with their live show being part of ABC’s Next Gen series as well appearance on Get Krackin’ and Mad As Hell.
2018 saw Aunty Donna branch out into the music industry and release an album, the self titled album debuted at number 30 on the Australian charts and received an ARIA nomination for Best Comedy Release
In 2019 they released their biggest webseries to date, Glennridge Secondary College. A 16 part series which has garnered over 500K+ views on YouTube and went on to be nominated for an AACTA Award in the Best Online Drama or Comedy category.
While the rest of the world was falling to shit in 2020 Aunty Donna had their biggest moment with the worldwide release of Aunty Donna’s Big Ol’ House of Fun on Netflix which was executive produced by Ed Helms and Scott Auckerman. BOHOF was a critical success and loved by fans everywhere (including Neil Patrick Harris & RuPaul).
After the success of Big Ol’ House of Fun, Aunty Donna has returned to the stage for the first time in four years with The Magical Dead Cat Tour. This is a two-hour show filled with brand new sketches and familiar favourites that welcomes us all back to the maddening fun of Aunty Donna live on stage. In 2023 Aunty Donna will release the high octane and unpredictable series ‘Aunty Donna’s Coffee Cafe’ which follows the story of three best mates running a trendy café down one of Melbourne’s less-than-iconic laneways.
