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“it’s not practice, it’s REHEARSAL”

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There’s a new Trevor Schmidt play, How Patty & Joanne Won High Gold at the Grand Christmas Cup Winter Dance Competition. It’s opening simultaneously at Northern Light Theatre in Edmonton, directed by Schmidt, and at Lunchbox Theatre in Calgary, directed by Bronwyn Steinberg.

I saw the Northern Light production. And it left me a little teary, in a contented, some-things-right-in-the-world way.

Jenny McKillop and Kendra Connor play Patty and Joanne, two students in an Adult Beginner Tap class at the Free Body Dance Station. You will probably recognize both performers from amusing shows with Teatro Live! or Fringe or other local companies, but they’re both new to Northern Light. And they have really great chemistry together – both characters mean well, but they start off awkward, not understanding each other and not comfortable together.

As the play starts, they’ve just gotten the message that their dance teacher, Miss Amber, won’t be back to keep teaching them. And the class, which started out full, has dwindled until – are they the only ones who still want to dance? they aren’t sure. Joanne and Patty take turns narrating the story to the audience and interacting with each other in the studio. Rae McCallum’s lighting design makes it clear to us when there’s a shift. The simple set design (Schmidt) makes clever use of the dance mirrors usually hidden behind curtains in the Fringe Studio Theatre.

Both women are middle-aged and have comfortable-enough secure lives, but we see that each of them is lonely and left out, wanting something more, something just for herself. Patty describes coming home from class to see her husband (Peter) and five children (Parker, Patrick, Petra, Poppy, and Emma) decorating cookies together in the kitchen, and they all run to greet her as she drops her dance bag by the kitchen door – and then immediately disperse to other parts of the house leaving her to do all the dishes. I found that bit one of the most poignant things Schmidt has ever written. And the measurement-for-costumes business was hilarious and relatable.

Joanne talks about how she came to love music and dance and especially musical theatre and movie musicals, with memories of being taken on a special movie outing with her parents, wearing a dark red velvet dress with white lace just like her mother’s. “She was beautiful. And on that day, I was a little bit beautiful.” Throughout the play, Joanne bombards Patty with musical theatre history facts and cultural tidbits. She corrects Patty, a sports parent, saying that for dance “it’s not practice, it’s rehearsal”. Their rehearsal outfits are consistent with their different backgrounds/expectations (costumes by Logan Stefura). Joanne is wearing a ballet-pink leotard and tights under a wrap skirt and cut-off CATS t-shirt, while Patty’s outfit includes cutoff grey sweatpants and a football jersey.

In the first scene they rehearse the tap routine that Miss Amber had been teaching them, to “All the Single Ladies”. (Apparently the women in the class would have been dressed as reindeer, with the man as Santa.) The moves are familiar to anyone who’s watched beginner tap classes. They aren’t very good. They keep running that routine periodically as the story progresses, and they get more in sync. Then they change to a piece better suited to entering “musical theatre duet” instead of the “adult group tap” competition class – Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You”. Their performance gradually improves, and their homemade costumes are both credible and fairytale-delightful. Jason Hardwick’s choreography works well to make the easy moves look hard and then have the dancers gradually master them. The soundscape (Lindsay Walker) evokes tap-dance performances and pop-music fun, right from the pre-show selections.

Like many of Trevor Schmidt’s scripts, I started out amused and then became engaged with the likeable but very distinct characters and their situation, realizing afterwards in conversation with my theatregoing companions that there were also some profound messages in the narrative. About the difficulty and awkwardness and necessity of making new friends in mid-life. About wanting “something just for me.” About how anything worth doing is worth doing badly. All of which are good reminders, especially before Christmas.

Running time is about an hour, with no intermission – which is just right for this quiet delightful two-hander.

Tickets to How Patty and Joanne Won High Gold at the Grand Christmas Cup Winter Dance Competition are available here. Performances run until Saturday December 13th. If you’re in Calgary, or if you loved this script so much that you want to road trip, the Lunchbox Theatre production runs at the Vertigo Theatre in Calgary until December 18th.

Fall 2025 Quick Takes

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What I’ve been watching, and haven’t made time to post about:

Nicole Moeller’s WILDCAT at Workshop West Playwrights’ Theatre. The best thing about this play is the performers – Michelle Flieger and Maralyn Ryan as women a bit older than me, remembering their labour-activist past and frustrated in an increasingly-constrained present, Melissa Thingelstad as a lawyer daughter who works hard on taking care of her mum and not quite so much on figuring out what her mum wants, and Graham Mothersill as … well, as I said to a friend afterwards, Graham Mothersill pretty much has a lock on playing “nasty. ” Interesting and disturbing timely premise, with some points tweaked for the 2025 Alberta situation. I found the soundscape a bit intrusive, but that might be better for audience sitting further from the booth/back speakers. Heather Inglis directs. After a delayed start, WILDCAT‘s short run has two more shows, today (Saturday) matinee and evening, and tomorrow (Sunday Nov 9) matinee. Workshop West tickets and subscriptions continue to be 100% Pay what you will, online and in person.

25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, part of the MacEwan University Music Theatre season and directed by Ellen Chorley. Like all the MacEwan shows, this one had a short run last weekend, and it sold out the Tim Ryan Theatre Lab space every night. It’s a good choice for a student show, with most of the young-adult performers playing children and a few playing adults (parents and competition staff). The set design was playful and functional, with an evocative representation of an American school gym, worn basketball-marked hardwood floor to wooden climbing frame, swinging doors full of photocopied notices, and old-school wall phone with the longest most mangled cord ever. Choreography was fun and energetic. Jack Hunting (Olive Ostrosky) and Kohen Foley (Leaf Coneybear) were particularly memorable as characters. In 2013 I saw a production of this musical by local company ELOPE. I’m a little embarrassed that I wrote in this blog at the time that I didn’t recognize the actor names, because now they’re all performers whose names would make me choose to go see something they’re in. MacEwan’s next show is Carrie: The Musical. It’s in the bigger Triffo Theatre space so some seats are still available, for Nov 26-30.

According to the Chorus was Walterdale Theatre’s October show. The Arlene Hutton script was directed by Barbara Mah, and set in the crowded female-chorus quick-change room of a Broadway theatre in the 1980s. Costumes – both the over-the-top concepts the dancers wear to perform, and the flamboyant neon warmup gear they arrive in – were splendid and funny and appropriately period, thanks to costume designer Karin Lauderdale. Walterdale’s next show is Noël Coward’s Present Laughter, directed by John Anderson, December 3-13. The talented cast includes Randy Brososky, the multi-talented actor/creator/improviser/director, along with 10 other performers, some new to Walterdale and some familiar. Advance tickets are here.

Die-Nasty is Edmonton’s long-running very-long-form improvised soap opera, this year tackling The Bible. Or rather, stories from those settings which didn’t make it into the versions we know, either the Torah or the New Testament. Die-Nasty’s company and guest performers create characters and the director (Jake Tkaczyk) gives them bare-bones scene descriptions to fill in on a moment’s notice. And somehow this turns into fascinating character development, plot points which could be excessive or nuanced or both, and moments of hilarity that are hard to describe afterwards. Last year they built a gold-rush town, complete with saloons and schoolmistress, doctor and explorers and a matriarch of many sons … Company members this year include Little Guitar Boy brothers Jason Hardwick and Lindsay Walker, who bear some resemblance to musical collaborators John&Paul as well as to various disciple origin stories, the aforementioned Randy Brososky who seems particularly suspicious, journalist Myrrh Incense (Kirsten Throndson), and others, and recent special guests have included Matt Baram and Naomi Sniecus (creator-performers of Big Stuff at the Citadel). Paul Morgan Donald provides live music and sometimes the characters sing! You don’t need to follow from the beginning, as they give recaps and character intros at the start of each show. Tickets for Die-Nasty are also 100% Pay What You Will now, at the theatre or online. Varscona Theatre, Monday nights at 7:30.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to fit in everything I want to see in November, but the list includes

Tough Guy, by Hayley Moorhouse, at the Arts Barns, two last shows today Saturday Nov 8th, advance tickets here.

Castle Spectre, an adaptation by Lauren Tamke who directed this production for her Paper Crown Theatre, at Gateway Theatre, Nov 21-30, tickets here.

Beehive the 1960s musical, at St Albert Dinner Theatre, directed by Caitlyn Tywoniuk and music direction by Dalton Terhorst, tickets here.

Teatro Live doing The 39 Steps, with Geoffrey Simon Brown as Richard Hannay, Nov 13-30.

Northern Light Theatre has a new play by Trevor Schmidt, How Patty and Joanne Won High Gold at the Grand Christmas Cup Winter Dance Competition, with Jenny McKillop and Kendra Connor, Nov 27 – Dec 13. Tickets here.

Vinyl Cafe: The Musical, at the Citadel, Nov 8 – Dec 7, tickets here.

Day Three – local artists, new stories

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It’s hard to find a connecting theme for the four productions I saw today, except that they were all done by familiar local artists.

Dick Piston Hotel Detective in Prague-Nosis was, as the title suggested, a classic noir tale with a hardboiled detective narrator (Lucas Anders), an assortment of suspicious characters (Mélissa Masse, Sarah Gibson, Dan Fessenden, Dave MacKay), and an atmospheric setting cleverly suggested by description, lighting, and a few set pieces moved around to suggest different locations in the seedy Lakeview Hotel. The published script, by American playwright/television writer Jeff Goode, offers scope for over-the-top humorous character portrayals but seems to have the consistent intricate plotting of a classic noir detective story. Director John Anderson has gathered a cast of clever character actors and talented crew, familiar from Walterdale Theatre productions. ASM Adorra Sergios displays title cards before each scene, in a series of increasingly strange hats. Playing in the Sugar Swing Ballroom (main floor) space, venue .

Rob and Chris / Bobby & Tina is an adaptation of one of my favourite plays ever, Collin Doyle’s Let the Light of Day Through. The playwright adapted it to a 60-minute musical format, along with composer/music-director Matt Graham. The original 2013 production of the play, with Jesse Gervais and Lora Brovold, portrayed the awkward affection and determination of a couple who experience an awful tragedy and … not get over it, but go on. The play is partly recollective, but they act out the stories to tell them to the audience, and it is very funny except when it’s awful. Part of the power of the original experience, for me, was not knowing what they were avoiding telling, until they told it. When I heard that Kate Ryan of Plain Janes would be directing a musical adaptation for the Fringe, I was excited, but also apprehensive. What if it wasn’t as good as I remembered the play? What if the experience depended on not knowing the outcome? But it is very good. It landed differently for me because I was watching for clues, but it was still powerful. The couple (Bobby + Tina when they meet as teenagers, Rob and Chris later) are played by Garett Ross and Jenny McKillop. They do just as well showing the awkward disconnects of a new relationship and a long-term one as they do showing the way that the couple develops a shorthand of shared understandings – the scene of trying to have a role-play fantasy when each of them thinks the other wants something else was hilarious, and the ways they imitate each other’s parents to amuse each other show clearly how they’ve been allied against both sets of parents for years. Graham’s music is suitably poignant and funny and affectionate, as called for, and the simple Fringe-appropriate set design (Trent Crosby) worked. Matt Graham plays the piano live. Venue 11, Varscona Theatre.

Mass Debating was also a musical and also at the Varscona. Trevor Schmidt wrote it and cast frequent collaborators Jason Hardwick, Cheryl Jamieson, Kristin Johnston, Michelle Todd, and Jake Tkaczyk, along with himself, to play junior-high-school debate team competitors. The universality and familiarity of the junior-high-aged themes (an early song focuses on each character’s worries of “Can they tell by looking?” ) were portrayed in a setting of mid-1970s Catholic schools, so the injustices were more overt and seemingly unchangeable than a contemporary context. Although the audiences know that things will get better, the characters really don’t. This dramatic irony provides not just humour but poignant compassion. Many of the unfairnesses focus on the institutional sexism of the society and that Church, and the way that both the boys (played by Jameson, Johnston, and Todd) and the girls (played by Tkaczyk, Hardwick, and Schmidt) express them in their interactions and behaviour. The thoughtless racism of the time was also shown in the segment where Ralph Washington, the Black competitor (Michelle Todd) was required to debate the Against side, on a resolution that racial integration has hurt Catholic education. Unlike Schmidt’s recent successful contemporary story about junior high school girls, Robot Girls, this one does not tie up the plot threads with happy endings. And it shouldn’t. That left me thinking. The music was written by Mason Snelgrove, and the accompaniment is recorded. Some of the announcer’s voice-overs were hard for me to hear clearly – not quite the Charlie-Brown-teacher “wah-wah-wah” but probably funnier than I knew about.

The drag comedy troupe Guys in Disguise have a new comedy, written by Darrin Hagen and Trevor Schmidt, called Microwave Coven. It’s also set in the 1970s, in a suburb, and it starts off with three neighbourhood women in fabulous caftans (Darrin Hagen, Jake Tkaczyk, Trevor Schmidt) preparing for a visit from neighbourhood newcomer Jason Hardwick. Hardwick is adorable as naive newlywed Mary Rose, in crinoline and blonde flip. The premise of this story is less realistic than the troupe’s recent productions like Crack in the Mirror and Puck Bunnies, but the characters are just as much fun. It’s also at the Varscona.

The unseen Mob

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Kristin Johnson in Mob. Photo credit Marc J Chalifoux Photography and Video.

I liked seeing Mob, currently on stage at Workshop West Playwrights’ Theatre’s Gateway Theatre, without knowing much about what to expect. Afterwards, I wanted to talk about it, but I also wanted to give more people the chance to see it similarly unspoiled.

So, if you don’t want to know what it’s about or what happens, I can still give you several reasons to see it, and then you can stop reading. Starting with the names in the credits:

  • Heather Inglis, artistic producer of Workshop West as well as director of this play, has created a coherent season of challenging work, loosely categorized under the theme Borderlands.
  • Three good performers familiar to local audiences: Kristin Johnston, and Graham Mothersill, and Davina Stewart. Each of them portrays a fascinating complex character, not entirely likeable but sometimes funny and often relatable.
  • Designers include Darrin Hagen (eerie atmospheric soundscapes and original music), Beyata Hackborn (a set that starts out with an Instagram-perfect look and turns out to be both functional and symbolic), Alison Yanota (unusual lighting that escalates the tension), and Sarah Karpyshin (iconic costume design).
  • Program credits for Jason Hardwick (choreography) and Sam Jeffery (fight and intimacy direction) provide additional clues to the content in the show and the skill level with which it will be executed.

The action starts with projections, conveying a woman, Sophie, (Johnston) driving feverishly while voices overlap and reverberate in her head. As she arrives with her suitcase at a remote bed-and-breakfast, she is greeted by Martin (Mothersill), cringingly clumsy and twitchy as he over-explains that he’s at home this time of day because he’s lost his job. The visitor stands immobile on the threshold holding her suitcase, responding to his questions but not progressing the conversation. Is she exhausted? Is she hesitant to enter? Why is she there? She’s not giving anything away. Soon Martin’s aunt Louise (Stewart) bustles in with a limp, all aging-hippie style and colourful cane, to smooth over the conversational awkwardness and remind Martin how to behave with guests. The show is described as a thriller – at first I wasn’t sure whether the characters would be realistic or more gothic, whether there would be overt or psychological violence in the isolated-country-house trope or what. I’ve also seen Johnston play a lot of disturbed and disturbing characters on stage in the past few years, from Death Trap to Destination Wedding, Baroness Bianka’s Bloodsongs to We Had a Girl Before You. But the fears explored in Mob are completely realistic and timely. Which is much scarier.

Mothersill’s portrayal of Martin often made me want to laugh – but the menace conveyed by the soundscape and the unfolding story made me feel uncomfortable about laughing – not so much that I was pitying him, but that it might be dangerous to provoke him.

The performance is a bit over an hour and a half long, with no intermission. The script (written in French by Catherine-Anne Toupin and translated by Chris Campbell) has a compelling directness with no unnecessary dialogue.

Beforehand, I wondered why a three-hander would be called Mob. Isn’t a mob a larger angry group? Then I realized that the three people on stage were not the only ones involved – that the internet posters Sophie quotes, in overlapping overwhelming torrents of abuse, are in some ways present throughout, ubiquitous and inescapable.

Mob has a short performance run, ending next Sunday afternoon, November 12th. Get your tickets soon!

A full Saturday at Fringe 2023

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On the final weekend of Fringe, I’m in “just one more!” mood. Saturday ended up including Ken Brown’s Life After Life After Hockey, Natasha Mercado’s Tree, into a black shirt into the booth for a performance of i carry your heart with me, then the last episode of Die-Nasty and the last Late Night Cabaret.

Life After Life After Hockey was a masterclass in solo narrative, with a throughline, clear transitions, and interesting actions. The creator-performer Ken Brown takes us through the creation, performance, and lengthy touring career of his 1980s solo Life After Hockey, and about how it led to the next things in his life, with challenges and joys. There are familiar experiences and recognizable names in the hockey parts of his story, but also in the parts about becoming a theatre creator and inspiring generations of other local theatre creators through his time teaching at Macewan and afterwards. For a solo, it had a lot of special guests – but that is not a complaint at all, they were delightful. Holger Peterson playing harmonica, Dana Wylie singing and playing guitar, Edmonton’s former poet laureate Pierrette Requier reading a poem about Edmonton, etc. Stage 13, La Cité – Servus Credit Union Théâtre.

Natasha Mercado’s Tree was a charming solo about a tree who longs to be human. Lots of low-key audience participation (“now I need a babbling brook through the forest – just this side of the room”) and a bit of a twist that I thought was going to turn into The Giving Tree. (It didn’t – which is good because I can’t stand that book). A game-show “Would You Rather” explored some of the possibilities available only to humans, good and bad. Stage 7, Chianti Yardbird Suite.

Die-Nasty’s Fringe series wrapped up with a few more deaths, everyone in jail exonerated especially Liz Nicholls (Kristi Hansen) who was recognized as the Spirit of the Fringe in an inspiring song, and the traditional port-a-potty hookup between Liz and the gonzo podcaster Fisher T Johnson (Mark Meer). Die-Nasty’s fall season opens its curtain on Monday October 23rd, set in a 1920s circus sideshow, and the first one’s free! (a successful marketing ploy for many substances …)

Late Night Cabaret was crammed full of special guests, stunts, contests, and inside-jokes that include the whole Fringe community as the insiders, which is the best thing about LNC. (@lnc_yeg, as the hosts often remind us.) Last night was also the last performance ever of Zee Punterz, who have been the cabaret’s house band for more than ten years. A slideshow gave us glimpses of many of their performances and paid tribute to the late Brett Miles, saxophonist through most of that time. They ended their last set, and the night, with a great rendition of Stairway to Heaven, along with the musical guest Lindsay Walker. And then they gave us an encore. Before the lights came up and the Fringe technicians started striking the band’s set, as a reminder of what will be happening today and all through the next week, as the Fringe grounds gets returned to its usual uses as a park, an alleyway, a parking lot, a road and bike path … and the theatres go back to being rehearsal spaces and classrooms, music performance rooms, bars, dance studios, lecture halls, a Masonic hall, and … and a lot of theatres preparing for their upcoming 2023-2024 performance seasons.

But that’s for later! For today, I’ll put my lanyards back on and find my sunglasses and head out to watch some theatre before our 5 pm performance of i carry your heart with me (Stage 27, Sugar Swing Upstairs). First stop, Multi-Vs. 2 pm at Stage 11, Varscona Theatre.

Amor de Cosmos, and Puck Bunnies

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It’s a little harder to find a connecting theme for these two – Amor de Cosmos: A Delusional Musical is a fantastical recounting of the biography of a not-very-famous figure from Canadian history. Puck Bunnies is a play about contemporary young women who are hangers-on of a local minorleague hockey team. One’s a new work written by Richard Kemick with music and lyrics by local singer-songwriter-actor Lindsay Walker, and the other is a remount from local playwrighting team Darrin Hagen and Trevor Schmidt.

Amor de Cosmos: A Delusional Musical is not in the printed Fringe programs because it was a late addition off the waitlist. And it’s a little hard to describe, but it’s quirky and charming. Cody Porter, who directed the show for its Toronto-Fringe run, stepped into the performing role for Edmonton, which is a treat for his fans here. I loved the way he changed characters as Walker (accompanying on keyboard and narrating some parts from newspaper headlines) flipped him different hats, with physicality, dialect, and eye-twinkles to match. The elliptical/heightened text recitation reminded me a bit of Jonathan Christenson’s work, and was delivered with such clarity that I didn’t realize until afterwards that a lot of it was iambic pentameter. The main character was born into a mining family in New Brunswick, made his way to California as a photographer, and ended up in BC as a newspaper publisher and then politician. I was fascinated by the way the writers included acknowledgements of where this character stood or would have stood on various issues of the day that now we see as injustices (e.g. Indian Act, Immigration Act) and was cracked up by a throwaway anachronism about the right of homosexuals to give blood. Stage 8: Kick Point OSPAC, in the schedule slots showing as Ruby Rocket in the printed program.

The Guys in Disguise play Puck Bunnies debuted at the Fringe in 2017, and the playwrights won Outstanding New Work Fringe at the Sterling awards that season. In this remount, Jake Tkaczyk is playing Tammy, the new mother bringing her baby to the game as a visible reminder of her claim to the team captain Cliff. Tanya, played by Trevor Schmidt, seems to be the one making the rules for the group calling themselves the Puck Bunnies – providing hair/fashion consultation, relationship advice, and decreeing who can sit where. Newcomer Tina, played with adorable well-intentioned bewilderment by Jason Hardwick, used to sit with the “loser girls” but has been invited into the clique as a replacement for someone they’re shunning. As they watch the intersquad game from the stands (the bleachers are facing the audience) we learn more about their lives and their relationships and a lot of it is troubling. As I probably wrote when I saw the original production in 2017, I knew people like this when I was growing up in hockey rinks in the 1970s, so it’s troubling to see the same “put the boys first” mentality in a setting contemporary enough to have Google and selfies and pussy hats. Like other recent scripts by this writing team or by Schmidt, there’s a layer of poking gentle fun at the characters, but underneath there are some pointed messages about society and glimpses of hope. Even for these young women with their limited outlook and unsupportive environment, by the end we see hints of how things can change for them and for the people around them. Stage 11, Varscona Theatre.

Today I’m excited about catching Lesbihonest, Lady Porn, and Agent Thunder. How about you?

Music and laughter: Scoobie Doosical and Die Nasty

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On Monday at the Fringe both shows I caught were comedies. Comedies with lovely original music and clever lyrics and amusing choreography and movement. There are a lot of funny people around this festival.

Scoobie Doosical is an original musical by Rebecca Merkley, a tribute to the well-known 1970s cartoon television about the ghost-debunking gang and their Great Dane. Merkley’s company Dammitammy Productions did something similar a few years ago with River City: The Musical, parodying the Archie comic-book characters.

Live accompaniment (Yvonne Boon and Robyn Slack) enhances the lyrics both goofy and touching, and the impressive singing voices of cast Cameron Chapman, Bella King, Natalie Czar, and Andrew Cormier. Cormier plays the villain Professor Gigglepuffs (“Riggleruffs” in Scoobie’s dialect) with a flair evocative of Frank N. Furter in Rocky Horror (Picture) Show – and also plays Velma. Czar plays the villain’s sidekick/cat and also plays Daphne. (Imagine some wig-quick-changes). Chapman and King play the Shaggy and Scoobie characters, building on the source-material expectations to create lovable caricatures. The plot was also reminiscent of the source material, confusing at first but all falling into place with happy and fair resolutions. Stage 4 Walterdale Theatre, selling quickly.

Die Nasty is “an Edmonton comedy institution for 30 years” according to their program blurb. At the Fringe, the long-form improvised soap opera has an episode every night that takes place at the Fringe, with some familiar characters and some archetypical ones. The night I saw it, it was directed by Peter Brown with live music by Paul Morgan Donald, and there were 16 performers on stage, including guests Joel Taras and Jake Tkaczyk as well as Stephanie Wolfe, Jacob Banigan, Kirsten Throndson and other ensemble members. Characters I remember from previous years included Kristi Hansen’s version of Liz Nicholls, this time skating off across the grounds with Jesse Gervais’ Robin Fairweather, the tin-whistle-playing Edmonton institution. I particularly appreciated the acknowledgement of this character’s mixed reputation, and I think other audience members did too. Mark Meer’s Hunter S Thompson-esque podcaster wasn’t in the episode I saw, but his gum-chewing colleague Kalyn Miles was. The Mormon elder missionary (Jason Hardwick) was successful in converting hot dog vendor Fat Frank (Gordie Lucius), and for some reason this involved switching the missionary’s white dress shirt and nametag with the hot dog vendor’s apron. Murray Utas made an appearance (as portrayed memorably by Jake Tkaczyk). When given the directorial challenge by Brown to speak about his secret wishes, we find out (in an original musical solo then enhanced by a dancing ensemble) that Murray would really like to leave paperwork behind and perform his own Fringe autobiographical solo piece, complete with embodying three characters, the young Murray, the woman who coaches him, and … I’ve actually forgotten who the third one was, because I was laughing so hard at this point.) Die Nasty continues every night at 10 pm at Varscona Theatre, Venue 11. You do not need to have seen previous episodes to enjoy it.

Starting the Fringe 2022

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Crack in the Mirror – This Guys in Disguise show is set at a late-1970’s Women’s Group meeting in a suburban home. Strident divorcée Ruth (Jason Hardwick) shows up at Melanie’s (Trevor Schmidt) finger-foods and wine event with earnest brochures and speeches about Gloria Steinem, but both of them are disappointed when nobody else comes except for the older, naive, Ginger (Jake Tkaczyk). I once heard Trevor Schmidt speak at a script reading and he said in his writing, he favours choosing kindness when possible – that there’s still lots of scope for conflict and interesting stories with characters who don’t set out to be mean to each other. And I didn’t realize it at the time – I was laughing too hard – but Crack in the Mirror is a good example of that. Varscona Theatre.

Meatball Séance – John Michael of Chicago’s solo show is infused with so much manic awkward energy that the themes of loss at its heart didn’t bring it down. Lots of audience participation bits, always with an option to decline. Sue Paterson stage at Campus St-Jean.

Mules – Directed by Kevin Sutley and with a good cast of actors from U of A Augustana (that’s the campus in Camrose), I bought a ticket for this because of the playwrights, Beth Graham and Daniela Vlaskalic. It was dark, it was twistedly funny in parts, and it managed to evoke some really disturbing things without actually showing any of them directly. It is a longer play (90 minutes), but I was really engaged with what was going to happen with these characters, played by Miracle Mopera, Kyra Gusdal, and Frank Dion. Walterdale Theatre.

Late Night Cabaret – I don’t make it to this Fringe midnight event very often, because I usually need some sleep more than I need a variety show with an amazing house band (Zee Punterz), amusing hosts from Rapid Fire Theatre, and glimpses of many of the Fringe artists and phenomena that I hadn’t yet had time to catch up with. But in the scaled-down masked-up Fringe of 2021, I managed to score one ticket to the limited run of Late Night Cabaret and when I walked in to the Backstage Theatre that night, its perfect blend of nightclub energy and community acceptance was something I hadn’t known I’d been missing. Last night’s hosts were Joleen Ballendine and Joey Lucius of Rapid Fire and the guest performers included Ingrid Hansen (Epidermis Circus), Tymisha Harris (Josephine, Josie & Grace) and Rachel Comeau (Josie & Grace), and Johnnie Walker (The Heterosexuals). Backstage Theatre.

White Guy on Stage Talking – I am stage-managing this, an innocent operations production with Jake Tkaczyk and Meegan Sweet. Like Tkaczyk’s previous innocent operations work, it includes a series of images and explorations devised on a theme, many of them topically pointed, excessively silly, or just absurd, and never takes itself too seriously. It’s fun to show audiences the things the performers and other creative contributors have been building. Walterdale Theatre.

This year’s Fringe has kept some of the innovations we first saw last year. The option to do paperless ticketing, and the move to one-step sales in the beer tents instead of the old get tickets here, give tickets there ritual. The bigger liquor-licensed area covering the old South Beer Tent and the whole of McIntyre Park (Gazebo Park) which eliminates a lot of the crowding/bottlenecks. The “no handbills” rule was easy last year as reducing the interactions between artists and patrons on site felt appropriate, and it eliminated a lot of paper. This year I think it’s more of a challenge – performers do need to engage to sell their shows, and it’s probably harder when there’s no tidy way of taking a card to wrap up the conversation. I’ve seen performers wandering in costume and wearing billboards and T-shirts with their QR codes.

The gravel parking lot (formerly Farmers’ Market parking, rebranded a few years ago to Theatre District parking) has increased in price to almost $20 for a full day, which will change my strategies a bit. Lots of my favourite food vendors (the wood fired pizza, the grilled cheese people, Fat Frank’s, the spaghetti in a cone, and the green onion cakes) are back, along with Native Delights (bannock burgers!) and something I need to try based on recommendations, BF Korean Chicken. Some people are wearing masks – more indoors than out, more performers than guests. There has obviously been some festival planning to eliminate pinch-points and bottlenecks and other non-intentional crowding, which is helpful in many ways other than reducing covid transmission.

Happy Fringe!

More performance genres at Fringe 2017

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Note:  I don’t know why the caption isn’t showing up on my photo.  That’s Bethany Hughes from Evil Dead talking to the audience members seated in the Splash Zone. 

 

Animal Farm Treatment – I have never studied, read, or seen any version of George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm, but as with Sartre’s No Exit, I had a general idea of the theme and I knew one line.  During Animal Farm Treatment, a solo show by creator/performer Alice Nelson from Calgary, I wondered how it would appear to an audience member who didn’t know the expected outcome from the original cynical parable.  The playbill said that she has a study guide to accompany her show for high school audiences.  The performer skilfully switched among several speaking characters, using different physicalities and speech patterns as well as clues of having the characters refer to each other by name, and she used a few simple props to move the story forwards.  I knew that the experiment in democracy would not end well, but I kept hoping it would.  Two more shows, Friday 2:45 and Saturday 11:30 pm.

Evil Dead – Amanda Neufeld directed this lively, funny, gory musical, which is playing at L’Unitheatre.  Bethany Hughes stage managed, and in the picture above is reassuring the audience members in the Splash Zone.  Music is a four-piece instrumental group under the direction of Daniel Belland (also seen in Mormonic at this festival).  The narrative moves quickly through the tropes of horror fiction, the college students each with his or her own incentives to vacation at a lonely cabin (Matthew Lindholm, Jaimi Reese, Nadine Veroba, Stephen Allred, Josh Travnik), the eerie woods with limited access, the intrepid explorer returning from Egypt to finish her father’s work (Neufeld), the source of local knowledge Reliable Jake (Travnik), and the demons (uncredited here because that would give away some plot).  It’s very funny, and the songs are great. The action moves quickly and it’s over in 90 minutes as advertised.  Some tickets are available for tonight’s late show.

Puck Bunnies – This is another cleverly-scripted and poignant drag comedy in the spirit of Flora and Fawna’s Field Trip with Fleurette, from Guys in Disguise.  Darrin Hagen, Trevor Schmidt, and Jason Hardwick play the girlfriends of junior/minor-league hockey hopefuls, sharing support, gossip, and relationship troubles while in the bleachers for an intra-squad scrimmage.   Tammy, Tanya, and Tina are more than silly caricatures (although I have to say that the costumes are spot-on perfect), each with her own struggles.  The dramatic-irony part (where the audience knows something a character doesn’t realize) is great.  The gentle insertion of a more feminist awareness into a culture of “support the boys at all costs”, by Hardwick’s Tina, is credible and satisfying.  I last paid attention to this culture in the mid-90s, I found it disturbing and necessary to be reminded that, despite the pussyhat, some things have not changed.   Shows Friday, Saturday, and Sunday afternoons.

You Fucking Earned It – At last year’s inaugural Edmonton Clown Festival (now renamed Play the Fool, and running Sept 28-Oct 1 2017), in a panel discussion Deanna Fleischer (aka Butt Kapinski) pointed out that traditional bouffon was criticizing the king in front of the king, and she challenged performers using bouffon techniques to ask themselves “Is the king in the room?”  There are two key points in this.  One is to punch up – make fun of the powerful instead of the powerless.  The other is that if it’s good bouffon serving its purpose, nobody in the audience should feel comfortable and safe.  At the start of the performance of You Fucking Earned It (a Naked Empire Bouffon work featuring Cara McLendon and Sabrina Wenske, directed by Nathaniel Justiniano whom you might recall from You Killed Hamlet), I wondered whether the piece would succeed at the second point for an Edmonton audience, but it definitely did.  One more show, 2:45 today (Friday).

The show I’ve been working on, How I Lost One Pound, the Musical, also has one more show this festival, at 6:30 pm today in the Rutherford Room at the Varscona Hotel.  We are not sold out at the box office and I will have some tickets available at the door as well.  I’d love to show more people this quirky funny low-key narrative about a woman at mid-life.   Lesley Carlberg’s show will also be playing at Vancouver Fringe and at Guelph Fringe in October, if you miss it here.