So. StageStruck, the Edmonton Regional One-Act festival happened this past weekend. I stopped posting a while ago about how The Ugly Princess was going, because things very nearly went…pear-shaped, as they would say in Scotland. (That’s one of my favourite UK expressions, after “mingin’ ” – stinky – and “bollocks” – self-explanatory). BUT, everyone pulled together, I ended up playing the title role in my own play…and I won an award for Outstanding Actor. I’m still gobsmacked. To everyone who donated to the Writeathon to get me writing this play, and to everyone who saw it and wants to see again, THANK YOU. AND. My play Crushed will be getting two performances shortly – one at a high school in Lac La Biche, Alberta, and the other at a university in Kingston-Upon-Thames. And I’m getting paid for them. :O
Tag: ADFA
What goes into a show? OR, how much is a free wedding dress worth?
Regarding set, props, and costumes for The Ugly Princess. Over the last few weeks, I have been picking up, transporting, or even storing in my car, the following:
- a green velvet Renaissance dress
- 6 wooden boxes, custom built by Doug Verdin for A Hate Story in 2012
- “gold” tableware – goblets, cutlery and dishes
- one rubber chicken
- fake feathers (black and white)
- 2 collapsible tables, different types
- one blue satin dress
- one fluttery white blouse
- one production manager/designer/builder/life-saver
- a wedding dress
Here’s how the last one came about.
With this play, I threw caution to the wind. It’s a relatively big cast (5 actors), it’s meant to take place in a dilapidated, but still-royal residence, the characters are wearing fairy-tale-like costumes, and ONE character is a vain, selfish clothes-horse — she has TWO costume changes in a one-act show. The green dress is mine. Our actress Mandy loves costumes and has no issue acquiring new items, so she found the blue dress and blouse at Value Village. But — SPOILER ALERT — the script (and I wrote it, so yes, it’s my own doing) calls for the character to appear in a wedding dress at one point. Even with scouring thrift shops and the web, anything I could find which was remotely appropriate was running into the hundreds of dollars. Oh, I’m also producing the show. That is: I’m the money. Ha ha.
Then lightning struck: I found a wedding gown on Kijiji, being given away – FREE. It was the right size, and it wasn’t hideous! I told my co-workers, who speculated about why someone would just give away a wedding dress. Hey, I’m a writer, but in this case I don’t care WHAT the story is.
As always though, there was an ever-so-slight catch. As with most things Kijiji, I would have to pick up the dress myself. I had also arranged to fetch the boxes from director Maria that night. Here, in text messages with my production manager Adam, is how the evening went:
Here, I drove to the south end of town, which took about 30 minutes.
HE DID NOT CALL 911. He told me later he called the complaints line!
Moral: every girl should have a stage manager who will flip out if she goes AWOL. But beware, he WILL flip out!
The Ugly Princess at StageStruck!
The Ugly Princess will open the 2015 StageStruck! one-act festival at:
7 pm
27 February 2015
La Cite Francophone, 8627 Rue Marie-Anne Gaboury Northwest, Edmonton.
Tickets are on sale NOW!
I’m writing a play in 18 hours or less!
I can’t do it in 24 hours, because I work until 5 pm.
Yes, the 2nd Annual Writeathon begins at noon tomorrow! Last year’s was…bonkers. Fellow writers made velcro out of their beards and resorted to lacing of warm drinks (and then just tossing the mix altogether and drinking straight out of the mickey). Oh, and we all did some writing and raised some (a crapload) of money to keep Alberta Playwrights Network ticking.
I haven’t been flogging the Writeathon at all. With this two months ago, and flareups of this, I’ve been lying low. Now, however, I’m going to write out the beast that is endometriosis and kick it across the room. I am re-writing It Started With an Allergy from beginning to end, and one way or another, I’m performing it (me!) at next summer’s Edmonton Fringe. If you’d like to see it, feel free to visit HERE.
I’ll see you when I come down from the caffeine high.
The reason I walked out of a show? Endometriosis.
Brigitte: Are you sure it’s just cramps?
Ginger: Just so you know…the words “just” and “cramps,” they don’t go together.
From the film Ginger Snaps
This is something I had never, NEVER, done before.
I have a condition called endometriosis. (WARNING – description of female biology coming!) Basically, the stuff that comes out during a woman’s period doesn’t all come out…because some of it is growing where it shouldn’t. I’ll provide a link, should you wish to get really squirmy.
It’s hard to say how long I’ve had it, but from the time I started telling a doctor “This isn’t normal,” to a diagnosis took FOUR YEARS.
I’ve had oral birth control, painkillers, and surgery to stop the pain. Each one worked for a while, and then either my body developed a tolerance, or the tissue grew back. In 2010, I had an IUD put in by a gynecologist (I’ve already said this onstage, so online, whatever) which sends contraceptive right to the source of the problem. I’ve been normal for three and half years. But since February this year, the pain has been getting steadily worse. Again.
A week ago tonight, I was at the Citadel Theatre Young Company’s play readings. Brand new playwrights having their work read, out loud, in public, for the first time. And ten minutes into the second play, I had the icy thought –
I’m going to break in half and throw up on the floor.
I had to leave. I had NEVER before left a show, reading, concert, ANYTHING, ever – whether the show was terrible or not, because it’s a horrendous thing to do. It disturbs the audience, it makes the creators involved feel like garbage. I e-mailed two friends later who were there, and who I knew saw me leave, and I just said “I was really sick.”
“Sick” isn’t the word. It’s a consistent grinding in the abdomen. You need your abdomen to walk, to sit, to stand, to pick things up. Before I had the IUD, I was dragging myself to work, because I HAD to work, and then going straight home. Every night. For months. There’ve been two shows I was desperate to see this past week, and now they’ve closed and I didn’t see them because I was terrified I would have to leave. Again. My life is being screwed up by this. Again.
I’m seeing my gynecologist on Thursday, to find out what else I can do. The final thing to try on endometriosis is a hysterectomy. THAT is not happening. But…I am turning 40 this year…
There are so many ways being a woman sucks.
It’s awesome when people love what you do…
So here are the awards for the ADFA 2013 One-Act Festival, or StageStruck!
You’ll note that Maria Colonescu, the director of It Started With an Allergy, received Honourable Mention, as did playwright Heather Morrow for her performance.
Yay US.
The feedback and delight from everyone who saw the show was amazing, the most common theme being how brave the show was. And plenty of those who couldn’t make the Friday night show, on hearing about it, kept saying “I wish I’d seen it! Are you doing it again?”
When we do, details will be here.
Tonight’s the night for an Allergy!
So, tonight, and tonight only, playwright and sometime-actor Heather will be performing It Started With an Allergy. Tickets are available at Tix on the Square or at the door, of the Walterdale Playhouse, 10322 83 Ave NW, Edmonton.
What else can I say? Come see ME!
Tickets for StageStruck!
Here they are, available now at Tix on the Square!
Reminder: It Started With an Allergy is on Friday, February 22, 2013. StageStruck is over two days, that Friday, and the following Saturday afternoon and evening. Check out everything!
new shows for Edmonton Fringe 2012!
Hello again!
We’re putting Take a Bite on hold for the moment while deciding where and when is the best place to relaunch it. But in the meantime…Take a Bite productions is getting ready for summer 2012!
This Edmonton Fringe, we’ll be doing a double-bill — two one acts, one right after the other!
First, we have A Hate Story. The very first version of this script was performed for a drama class project at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh in the spring of 2007 (it was directed by Lorna Dalgarno, who, later that year, directed the world premiere production of Take a Bite.) In February of this year, a brand new production was launched at StageStruck, the 2012 ADFA One-Act Play Festival in Edmonton. One performance — and one award! — later, the cast and crew of the new A Hate Story agreed to take on the Edmonton Fringe with it. So, here we go.
Plans for a party to promote the show and its sister play (tba) are underway. Let the madness begin!