Screwed to the Sticking Place -- Part 1

One of the advantages of writing a column for the Fringe Festival website, is that I get to learn about all sorts of productions. Some of the ones that I write about are produced by friends of mine, others are shows that just catch my eye because of a title, or a concept. And then there's the one that I'm writing about today. Being a columnist means I get to promote my own damned show!

For my longtime readers you may remember that I wrote about the show I was in two years ago called "Dandelion Snow." Well, this year I'm doing things from a different perspective. I am writing about a show that I am producing, and otherwise not involved in. My company, Commedia Beauregard, is producing Screwed to the Sticking Place, a company created collaboration revolving around the women in Shakespeare's plays.

So... since I'll be in Spain during July, and not able to rehearse a show, I hired Sasha Walloch to direct the piece. Sasha has been my assistant director on two pieces in the past, and has developed into a very good director in her own right. She brings to the table a bit of the Kari Margolis method of putting a show together.

In fact, this show is going to be filled with physical acting and comedy. The cast is filled it very talented ladies. Katie Kaufmann will be familiar to fans of the Ivey Award-winning Off-Leash Area. She's also trained in Commedia Dell'Arte methods. Kari Kelly was in last year's mega-hit Please Don't Blow Up Mr. Boban! with Live Action Set. Another lady who's recently worked with Noah Bremer of Live Action Set is Markell Kiefer who was trained in the Lecoq method of physical theatre that we've all become familiar with thanks to Theatre de la Jeune Lune.

The cast is rounded out by Kate Greenwood Gunther, Ann Brummer,Jane Shrantz, and Katie Rose McLaughlin. These ladies have experience doing shows at Prairie Fire Children's Theatre, Theatre de la Jeune Lune, and off-Broadway.

To develop the show there is a workshop process that involves a lot of acting exercises as a company. Just for fun, I thought I'd share a bit of video of one for you:



That was from the other night. I'm not exactly sure what was going on, but it made me laugh a lot when I set it to Banjo music, so there it is!

Anyway, there are a bunch of scenes being written that involve Shakespeare's women as they might have been if they'd not been restricted to the confines of Shakespeare's plays. It is coming from a intelligent and exciting group of women who are putting together something brilliant. I'm looking forward to being able to tell you more about the process as they get into it further.

Now for something a bit on the random side of life:

I need to go buy a bike. I tried to do that for last year's Fringe, but it was a 3-speed that didn't fit me very well, so I opted out of riding it all over. This year I'm going to buy one more suited to me and stick to it. I don't want to have to drive all over, given how much gas costs, and how expensive parking at the U can be.

I've made the mistakeof joining MySpace.com. If you feel the need to come over to my profile on there, you can. Here's my profile page

Remember the Alamo!

Tonight we're gonna party like it's 19,999 BC!!!

There is a lot of prep work that goes into painting the exterior of a house.

And now some trivia from Hooked on Facts: "90 percent of women who walk into a department store immediately turn to the right." -- This is only intriguing to me because when I was at JC Penny's at Rosedale yesterday, I noticed that the Men's section was to the right as you first enter from the mall. Does this mean that men, too, turn to the right inherently, or that Penny's wants to confuse the Hell out of the ladies?

Here's the link to the next show I'm doing, as an actor/singer: Iolanthe