Bria Mack Gets a Life

From Bill Brioux of Brioux.tv:

Link: Preview: There’s plenty to love with Bria Mack Gets a Life
Credit creator-director-writer Sasha Leigh Henry with busting down a stereotypical wall or two with Bria Mack. Like her main character, Henry is a Black Canadian who survived a University of Waterloo education. Her credits include a stint as story editor on Workin’ Moms as well as accolades at the Toronto International Film Festival for an earlier incarnation of Bria Mack. Continue reading.

From Sabina Wex of CBC Arts:

Link: Bria Mack Gets a Life turns the awkwardness of young adulthood into comedy gold
“It felt like the female ensemble, female Black comedy lead was missing. I thought we could use that in Canada. I had this idea of a woman who, on her first day on the job, experiences someone trying to touch her hair. Instead of seeing the shitty, poorly handled HR meeting, where nothing really happens, what if we go with her and her brain to where she actually wants to go and how she would want to react? And we get to play that out.” Continue reading.

From Elisabetta Bianchini of Yahoo! News:

Link: ‘Bria Mack Gets A Life’ doesn’t shy away from specifics, and will ‘up the ante’ for comedy
In a world with countless streaming TV shows at our fingertips, a series that actually stands out for being funny, compelling, with a truly entertaining script, is a big deal. For Canadians, that show is Bria Mack Gets A Life on Crave, created by Sasha Leigh Henry, starring Malaika Hennie-Hamadi and Hannan Younis. Continue reading.

From Courtney Small of That Shelf:

Link: Interview: Sasha Leigh Henry on Bria Mack Gets A Life
“It might be cheesy to say, but I don’t think I picked comedy, so much as comedy picked me. The things my family liked to watch when I was growing up, and resonated with, were often comedic.” Continue reading.

From Annemarie Cutruzzola of She Does The City:

Link: Bria Mack Gets a Life: A Chaotic New Comedy from Sasha Leigh Henry
Bria Mack Gets a Life is a show for the burnt-out post-secondary grads, for the cuspies (those straddling the line between Gen Z and Millenial) and for anyone who copes with microaggressions by daydreaming about the ultimate comeback. Continue reading.

From Kevin Bourne of Shifter:

Link: Bria Mack Gets a Life is funny, well-written and pretty much perfect
Since the success of Kim’s Convenience, some have wondered when Caribbean people would get a comedy series of our own. Well, that day is just around the corner with the upcoming Crave Original Series Bria Mack Gets A Life, a coming-of-age comedy about a young Black woman’s transition from college student to adulthood. Continue reading.

From a media release:

On the heels of its world premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, the Crave Original series BRIA MACK GETS A LIFE premieres on Crave on Friday, Oct. 13. The hysterical six-episode, half-hour comedy is the vision of creator and showrunner Sasha Leigh Henry, who was named one of Variety’s “10 Canadians to watch” in 2022 and is behind critically acclaimed short films Black Bodies and Sinking Ship. BRIA MACK GETS A LIFE follows a 25-year-old Black woman as she navigates adulthood in a predominantly white world, made all the more difficult, but also more tolerable, by Black Attack, her invisible hype girl.

Episodes 1-3 of BRIA MACK GET A LIFE drop on Friday, Oct. 13 with episodes 3-6 dropping on Friday, Oct. 20. The official trailer for the series is available HERE.

After seven long years in University, fresh graduate and newly minted valedictorian, Bria McFarlane (Malaika Hennie-Hamadi), moves back home to the suburbs ready to finally take a break. But when her mother Marie (Leslie Adlam) shares her plan to retire early – and soon – Bria must coordinate her life, friends, dating, a place to live, and most importantly, a job, to fund it all, before time runs out. With her hype girl and most-trusted imaginary confidant, Black Attack (Hannan Younis), by her side, the series follows the pair as they take on the world… one microaggression at a time.

Led by Hennie-Hamadi and Younis, the unfiltered comedy features a predominantly BIPOC cast including Adlam; Manuel Rodriguez-Saenz; Amalia Williamson; Marlee Sansom; Preeti Torul; Robert Bazzocchi; Nia Cummins; Robert Clarke; Femi Lawson; Shannon Jardine; Catherine De Sève; and Mark Forward. Over the course of the season, the series illustrates the varied ways navigating adulthood can manifest anxiety, especially for a young, clever, Black woman. Punctuated by inner monologues and fantasies, BRIA MACK GETS A LIFE acutely explores what it feels like to figure out who you want to be in a world too eager to tell you who you are.

On Thursday, Oct. 12, New Metric Media hosts the special event, BRIA MACK GETS A LIFE LIVE! at Comedy Bar in Toronto. The event features stand-up comedy, musical performances, and a screening of episode 1 and 2. For more information, please visit www.BriaMackGetsALife.tv.

BRIA MACK GETS A LIFE is produced by New Metric Media in association with Bell Media’s Crave with the participation of the Bell Fund. Executive producers are Sasha Leigh-Henry, Mark Montefiore, and Tania Thompson; Angelique Knights and Tamar Bird serve as producers; and directors are Sasha Leigh-Henry and Kelly Fyffe-Marshall.

Everything about Bria Mack Gets a Life, eh?

Links: Bria Mack Gets a Life, Season 1

Fantastical new Crave original comedy series, Bria Mack Gets a Life premieres October 13