The Competition is Fierce… brace yourself Vancouver

A guest blog post by Roanne Ward

When Sarah Kane’s Blasted premiered in London in 1995 the critics raged, people vomited (literally) and it was instantly panned as a failure. The rawness and reality of Kane’s writing was too much for the audience. Fast-forward 18 years and Blasted is a contemporary classic. As writer Sebastien Archibald dryly delivered stage directions for The Competition is Fierce on Sunday night at the intimate CBC Studio 700, it instantly brought Kane’s Blasted to mind. The 40 or so audience members groaned, squirmed, laughed and cringed as they were forced to imagine some colorful scenes. That’s the great thing about staged readings; you, the audience, get to use your imagination and with daring writing like Archibald’s the visuals are horrifically rich.

 

The Competition is Fierce pits two corporate ladder climbers against each other in the most dark and absurdly hilarious battle. John (Chris Cochrane), feeling the pressure from a family past that haunts him, steps up to the challenge of a promotion that Carlyle his boss (Andrew Wheeler) offers him. Little does he know that a charming new co-worker is set to rival him for the acclaimed position. Despite feeling betrayed John charges forward switching between complete confidence and crippling insecurity. His narcissistic rival (Colby Wilson) worms his way towards the top spot with every charming trick he can pull out of the bag including seducing John’s new colleague-girlfriend (Rachel Aberle). The lengths they’re forced to go are far and beyond any sane person’s comfort level. Holding the reigns of the competition, completely unhinged, is CEO Madeline (Patti Allan), whose corporate career only resulted from a lack of brothers.

 

Even as a seated, staged reading it felt like we were being taken on a journey, a journey that maybe we didn’t want to go on at times but once we were in, we were committed and there was no turning back. One thing Archibald always succeeds at is lulling an audience into a false sense of happy security before taking them around the corner to a dark alley with a shady figure hovering nearby. Laugh-out-loud moments quickly shift to grave concern and back again before you know it. This is not theatre for the faint-hearted; think Sarah Kane meets David Mamet. ITSAZOO are going to have a fantastic time pulling this one off and I have no doubt the end result is going to shake up even the most open-minded of Vancouver theatre-goers. Stay tuned for dates!

Where Does the Money Come From? (aka Sincere Thank Yous)

Where does the money come from to produce a play?  This is a long question to answer because the truth is that there never is very much money and every penny is earned with blood sweat and tears.  For Mojo we have many sources of revenue from grants to donations to silent auctions to parties and much, much more. Also, we have many companies who have sponsored us and offered us products for free/cheap including John’s Jukes, Steamwhistle and Mountain Colours.  These organizations are run by amazing people who have gone above and beyond to support us. Here’s a bit of a walk through what we’ve done behind the scenes to make Mojo happen financially.  I feel exhausted just looking back at the photos!

In June we held a Canadian Gladiators Party at the Russian Hall.  People came and challenged us to Gladiator events including Tug of War Mayhem and Hungry Hungry Hippos.  It was a bichin’ night.  

The Canadian Gladiators getting pumped up for the big event.

In July we held our third annual ITSaGarageSale and it was absolutely massive. This one was the biggest amount of work as we emptied our storage unit and a board member’s house into a 3 tonne van, emptied that into my apartment and then the next day hauled it all onto my front lawn.  It was a small miracle.  

Everything shoved into my one bedroom apartment the night before the sale

Selling off all of our old costumes

A happy customer! Where else could you find a “Cock” vest?

No garage sale would be complete without a stupid hat and a beer.

Just this past weekend we held our third annual Patio Party at the home of the chair of our Board of Directors. It is a beautiful home in North Vancouver with a perfect backyard for a BBQ.  The board invited their family and friends and we entertained with a BBQ, sangria, beers and a performance.

 

Kyle the BBQ Man

 

The silent auction (Thanks Arts Club and Havana!)

Enjoying the sunshine

The bar run by the amazing Katie who helped out at all of our events this year.

 

ITSAZOO’s Co-Artistic Directors taking a minute to smile for the camera

Oh and let’s not forget all of this that we do…

Grant Writing! (Thank you City of Vancouver and The BC Gaming Commission!)

And the final piece to our fundraising efforts involves you. Now we need to sell tickets and lots of them.  Visit our Homepage and buy your tickets to Mojo and see the fruits of our labour.

I’m going to wrap this up with a giant thank you to everyone who donated, attended an event, gave their time, and just generally helped us make this happen.  It takes a community to run a theatre company and we genuinely couldn’t do it without you.

Rock N’ Roll was Dropped Like a Bomb

One of the best things about the time and location in which Mojo is set ,1958 London, is the music. Rock n’ Roll was sweeping across America and London was riding that wave.  Chuck Berry sang ’Hail, hail, rock and roll, deliver me from the days of old’ and that’s exactly what was happening.  Rock’n’roll was dropped like a bomb on postwar, post-rationing Britain and the kids were eating it up.

We asked the cast what their favourite song is from that period and here are some of their answers (Click on the blue links to hear the music). Enjoy the rockin’ tunes!

Elvis Presley – King Creol

Sheb Wooley – Purple People Eater

 

Chuck Berry – Johnny B Goode 

 

Jerry lee Lewis – Great Balls of Fire

Meet the Studly Dudes in Mojo

We are into our second week of rehearsals for Mojo and it’s shaping up to be a pretty wicked show if I do say so myself.  You may have seen our trailer and noticed all of the attractive, talented guys in the show and wondered to yourself ‘who are all these studly dudes?’.  Here’s your answer:

 

Sebastien Archibald is playing the role of Sweets, the pill popping, gullible side-kick who is never at a loss for words

Sebastien is a critically acclaimed Vancouver based actor and award winning playwright. He is also Co-Artistic Director/Playwright in Residence of ITSAZOO Productions. He has created and acted in several ITSAZOO shows, including: Chairs: A Parable (Presented by Neanderthal Arts Festival and Intrepid Theatre), Death of a Clown (Presented by Phoenix Theatre – Spotlight on Alumni), Bridge Mix 2011, Robin Hood, The Road To Canterbury, and Grimm Tales to name a few. Other credits include Of Mice and Men (Blue Bridge Rep), Charlotte’s Web (Kaleidoscope Theatre), and The Vertical Hour (United Players). Film Credits include: Generation Boomerang (CBC), Ripples (CTV) and The Girlfriend Experience (Mongrel Media). Upcoming: Clybourne Park (Arts Club).

 

Chris Cook plays the role of Skinny Luke, the nervous beta male who might want to have children one day.

Christopher received his theatre training from Concordia University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Acting credits include Sandy, Hay Fever (United Players) and Robin, Robin Hood (ITSAZOO). Also a writer, his play The Better Parts of Mourning was part of the 2011 Clean Sheets Festival (Screaming Weenie).  

 

Brett Harris plays Baby, the volatile, pop culture loving wild card.

Brett heralds from England, where he trained at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts and worked extensively in theatre, film and television in London and beyond for the past ten years. Canadian credits: Jim Laird’s Out of My Head at the Metro Theatre for the Victoria Fringe festival, Mack Gordon/ ITSAZOO’s Debts.

 

Mike Klemak plays Mickey, the big boss man who tries his best to maintain the peace and hold the gang together.

Mike graduated from the University of Victoria and has been working towards supporting his life with his art ever since. You may have seen him in ITSAZOO’s, Four Course Meal and Debts or in Supernatural and Smallville. 

 

Matt Reznek plays Silver Johnny, the wickedly talented teenager who’s skill with rock and roll turns the world of Ezra’s Atlantic upside down.

Matt is in his final year in UBC’s BFA Acting program. He was most recently seen galavanting around in London Assurance (United Players) and in Theatre at UBC’s Macbeth, Problem Child and Two Merchants. When not acting, Matt works as a graphic designer/illustrator and his work can be seen representing various theatre companies around town. He will be slightly changing things up in September where he will appear as Adolf Hitler in UBC’s The Duchess, directed by Sarah Rogers. 

Colby Wilson plays Sidney Potts, the power hungry dreamer who tells a good story and pops loads of pills.

Colby is one of the Artistic Directors of ITSAZOO Productions and has played everything from a lost German boy to a robot CEO with the little-company-that-could. He can be seen next in the Equity Co-Op The Mistakes that Madeline Made.

In case you haven’t yet seen these boys in action here’s our trailer http://youtu.be/IzeBBXJb5rU

A Walk Down Memory Lane

For the past five years we have been very lucky to have free storage and rehearsal space in the basement of Avenue Florists on the North Shore.  Because we had so much space we have been able to hang on to every costume and prop from the past five years. Sadly the flower shop was sold and on June 30 we had to clear out. This forced us to significantly downsize to 1/8 of what we previously owned. Going through the items was super nostalgic and a major trip down memory lane.

In honour of this big move we thought we’d play a game to see if you can identify what show these props or costumes are from. If you recognize anything just comment below. Help us remember the past as we move forward into a new era of the ZooCrew.

Before: A basement full of memories (and a lot of shit)

We’ll start out with an easy one. Do you recognize these signs?

 

????

 

Remember this little gem?

 

We did this show in Victoria, Vancouver, Gabriola, Saltspring and Tofino.

 

And here is all that remains. We did good.

Happy Holidays From The ZooCrew!

 

Thank you for your support of ITSAZOO!  This has been by far our busiest and most successful year to date and we have generous donors like you to thank for that.

We began our season by presenting Death of a Clown at the University of Victoria.  Then in the spring we took Chairs: A Parable, a new work by Playwright in Residence Sebastien Archibald, on tour to Tofino, Nanaimo, Victoria and Nelson. Then we hit the ground running in Vancouver with another year of Bridge Mix followed by a new work at the Vancouver Fringe Festival called Stay Away From My Boat @$$hole.

A most heartfelt thank you to all who attended ITSAZOO performances, volunteered your time, came to our fund-raisers, worked on our productions, offered moral support and donated much needed funds.  You have all contributed to our ongoing success and we could not do what we do without you.

In the coming year, we have several new works in development. This summer, we will present Mojo by Jez Butterworth as a site-specific production at the ANZA Club. Mojo is a dark comedy that won the Laurence Olivier award in 1995. It’s an immersive and ambitious project that we really look forward to taking on and are sure you will enjoy.

However, in order for ITSAZOO’s innovative and ground-breaking work to continue we need your help. We need to raise $2000 for our upcoming season. If everyone who reads this donation request gives just $25 – $50 we will be well on our way to achieving our goal. We thank all of you who responded to our call last year and hope that you can match or increase your donation this year. For those who haven’t previously donated, please consider doing so.

We will issue tax receipts for all donations of $25 or more. We know you receive many requests from non-profits asking for funds at this time of year.  We hope that you will seriously consider donating to ITSAZOO.  Every dollar donated will help us reach our goal of bringing high quality and unique theatre to Vancouver.

You can donate online through CanadaHelps (www.canadahelps.org) or by mailing a cheque to ITSAZOO Productions (#10-410 West 12^th Ave, Vancouver, BC V5Y 1V3).

Thank you for your ongoing support!

And That’s a Wrap Folks

ITSAZOO is wrapping up 9 months of consistent productions. Chairs: A Parable on tour, Bridge Mix, Chairs at The Neanderthal Festival, Stay Away From My Boat @$$hole at the Fringe and then Debts. It has been a VERY busy time. We feel super proud of what we’ve accomplished. We’ve grown as artists and as a company and feel great to be wrapping up the busiest period in ITSAZOO history with a very successful run of Debts.

But to be honest we’re tired, really tired. The Co-Artistic Directors have had some great chats recently and we’ve decided it’s time to turn our focus to fundraising and development for the next few months. Big things are in the works for the spring and the summer. We’re going to take a bit of time away from production and come back with more rigor, creativity, energy and general awesomeness.

We want to thank all of you for your fantastic support. So many people put countless hours in to our shows these past 9 months and so many more people came out to see the shows. During Debts we asked every person who bought a ticket how they heard about the show. Guess what they said? The vast majority said “I love ITSAZOO, I see everything you do”. What!!? That was such a pleasant and wonderful surprise. We have a support network and a large group of people who see everything we do. That really feels good, what we’re doing is being seen and being appreciated.

It is with all of these feelings in mind that we are ready to rest, get rejuvenated, write, study, create, learn, fundraise and come back in the spring with some more fantastic ITSAZOO theatre.

Up and Running!

After a fantastic night of 2 sold out opening night performances followed by too many celebratory drinksDebts is officially up and running. And tickets are selling super fast!

Here are some of the fantastic shots that were taken at the dress rehearsal by Adam Fedyck. I think they look like they’re from a movie.

Annie Darling terrified to go in to the house

The Scooby Doo Moment

Just straight up spooky shit

If you’re planning on seeing Debts be sure to book tickets soon as it will sell out quickly  http://brownpapertickets.com/ 

The Week before Opening

There is nothing quite like the rush a week before opening, especially on a site specific show. This is when problem solving becomes the term of the day. Things that should be simple never seem to work quite right and things that you never thought could work somehow fall in to place. There is always a flurry of emails and phone calls. Ideas get abandoned while other flourish. Everything really takes shape.

We have had many big problems to solve all along the way with Debts. How are we going to fit the audience in to these tiny spaces? How are we going to call a show on the move through a house? How are we going to transmit sound in to every room and outside? And on and on. With lots of creative thinking and loads of man hours we are finally finding concrete answers to those questions.
It’s a remarkable feeling to take a risk and trust that the impossible can be achieved. In my experience it always comes together in the last week. There truly is nothing like the feeling of accomplishment when those handsfree walkie talkies finally work, the audience fits in to the tiny room and sound fills the house, seemingly out of nowhere.

PS Debts is selling fast with Oct 20 sold out and 22 almost full. If you want to be sure to see the show book in advance through Brown Paper Tickets (http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/199800) as there will unlikely be tickets at the door.

The Haughty Mr. Poe

A guest blog post by Mr. Mack Gordon, Playwright and Director for Debts When approaching the stories of Edgar Allan Poe for adaptation, I came across a frequent stumbling block. His tales are rich in atmosphere and dense with theme but often have little to no narrative action. The Telltale Heart mostly revolves around a man explaining to us how sane he is and that he committed a grievous murder for reasons aside from his mental balance. The police show up, he hears a beating heart, and he reveals what he did. This is the ultimate action story in Poe’s oeuvre. The Premature Burial focuses squarely on the fear of being buried alive as opposed to actual events. Bon Bon – A Tale concerns a man conversing politely with the devil. The Oval Portrait tells of a fellow who swallows a little too much opium and reads an entry about a painting that sucked the life out of its subject. Nothing happens in The Raven at all.     ITSAZOO Productions has long been a company that focuses on storytelling. I’ve been around them for a while and was lucky enough to see shows like “Grimm Tales,” “Robin Hood,” and “The Canterbury Tales.” These productions have in common a similar formula: A guide, with his/her own objective, welcomes the audience and leads them on a journey. Along the way, we stop in to catch well-constructed vignettes that mirror the show’s subject’s work. There is often stylistic and thematic twists on these vignettes but they are almost exclusively stand alone stories.   I didn’t think this formula would work for Edgar Allan Poe. The show would be as static as promenade theatre could possibly be. That’s because Poe is less a story-teller and more a painter whose medium is the written word. That might sound haughty but, then, so is Mr. Poe.   So instead I decided to take his stories, his quotations, his moods, and use them as inspiration. I decided to use them as a springboard. Throughout the play, depending on your knowledge of ol’ Edgar, you’ll recognize a reference or a quotation or a plot twist in nearly every interaction. His ideas are infused into the characters. His set pieces are our climaxes. His names are our names and his atmosphere is where we’ll live and breathe. Instead of following a single host on a tour of Poe’s gallery we’ll take a hammer to the back of the poet’s head and climb into an approximation of what it might have looked like in his brain.

-Mack Gordon

If you want more Mack in your life you can follow him on twitter @Mackgord