Next Chapter

The Fringe has been over for weeks now, and I'm finally getting back to some semblance of normal life. What a whirlwind of a wonderful experience. I think we all learned a lot and are very thankful that we came out of the festival without any major crises or injuries. (I am very clumsy and often had waking nightmares of tripping up the stairs to the stage or smashing the contents of the suitcase and bleeding everywhere. Luckily I managed to avoid both!)

Now we are in the next chapter. For Misha that means SappyFest and touring around with Daniel Romano. For me it means more editing, some shooting and working on a Bruce Peninsula video. And for both of us, together, it means figuring out what we want to tackle next with In the Room. So stay tuned!

Fade to Black

Picture it:

Monday.

4:44pm.

One minute to show time.

Misha is in costume, ready to sneak across the stage for her entrance.

I am applying my final layer of lipstick.

And then: the power goes COMPLETELY out.

It wasn't quite a city-wide black out, but it was enough to shut down our show as well as the shows at a few of the other Fringe venues. We haven't heard horror stories of anyone being on stage when it happened, but I'm sure they will trickle out over the next few days. We waited it out for a few minutes, but when it became apparent that the lights weren't going to come back on right away, we packed up our set by flashlight (it was REALLY dark in there) and called it a day.

Our apologies to our audience members that didn't get to see the show! We hope you can make it on another day, but if not, we would be happy to perform G&L in your living room. By candlelight, if necessary.

Three shows to go!

HEART-STRINGS at the Fringe!

Still flipping through your Fringe program? We've got another recommendation for you!

Tanya Elchuk & Amy Crnkovic present their surrealist romantic comedy

HEART-STRINGS at this year’s Toronto Fringe.

"A disarming, two-woman, clown show… Heart-Strings is a find" – MONTREAL GAZETTE

Hearts. We've all got 'em. (Don't we?) No one knows what to do with 'em. (Do they?) But at least we can still laugh about it. (Can't we?!) HEART-STRINGS is a new physical comedy exploring the frustrating irrationalities of love and the long sought balance between reason and emotion. Fed up with the unpredictable impulses of her heart, one girl declares hers defective and sends it back where it came from. Her new-found life of reckless hedonism is cut short, however, by her heart’s unexpected return. A rollicking, irreverent adventure through love, hope, despair, and discovery, HEART-STRINGS is a dynamic fusion of theatre, movement, and music in a high-energy, 2-woman show! Skeptics of love, eat your hearts out!

Heart-Strings is playing at the Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse
79A St. George Street (South of Harbord)

Wed July 7 (11:00pm)
Thurs July 8 (7:45pm)
Fri July 9 (1:45pm)
Sat July 10 (3:30pm)

Go behind the scenes at heartstringstheplay.blogspot.com

Shells hardening in the Sun. I mean, the Eye...

We’ve caught wind of a terrible online Eye Weekly review. I admit that we haven’t read it yet, but our loved ones are telling us that it’s a classic case of reviewer/show mismatch – some consolation, for sure! But even if this is the case, any sort of in-the-ditch review makes you ask yourself the kinds of juicy and important questions that a great review does not.

Apparently, the person who reviewed our show doesn’t usually write about theatre – and if this is the case, I must say that I feel for the guy. Walking into a show like ours – theatrical, experimental, monological – must’ve been a bore and a half.

Before the show opened, I fantasized about the prospect of a shitty review and was sort of dreading it. But now that it’s happened, I feel surprisingly alright about it. It’s the sort of thing that makes you ask, “What do we want from this show? What do we expect? Why are we putting this material before an audience?” Lara and I have talked about this from the first and we know that Georgia & Leona is a peculiar piece that asks a lot of its audience. But some people like it. And if those some people get something from it – a bit of comfort or relief; a flash of memory or recognition...then what the hell, right? We’ve done our job. If our answer to “What do you expect from this show?” was “We think Georgia & Leona should follow up the Bourne Ultimatum,” then we’d be in the third or fourth ring of mega-disillusionment by now. But thankfully, we know what we’re about with respect to this particular show.

Third performance today! It’s a crazy rhythm to get into, a crazy experience overall...we can feel some of the soft spots in our souls getting harder by the day!

Sex, Drugs & the Holy Ghost!!

If you are perusing the Fringe program book and are overwhelmed with what other shows to check out, may we suggest you see "Sex, Drugs & the Holy Ghost"? We are going to go, and we're looking for (hot) dates, so give us a call.

Here's the important details:

Under the Blood Productions presents

Sex, Drugs & the Holy Ghost

by Diane L. Johnstone

Directed by Winnie W. Wong

Starring & Written by Diane L. Johnstone

Sex, Drugs & the Holy Ghost (SDHG) will make its world debut at the Toronto Fringe

Festival. SDHG is a one-woman show that explores ideas of sex, drugs and God, through experiences of church members; an Ex-Stripper, Deacon’s wife and ‘tell it like it is’ Grandma Word.

Sex, Drugs & the Holy Ghost is playing at the Walmer Centre Theatre

188 Lowther Avenue (Bloor and Spadina)

Friday, July 2 (7pm)

Saturday, July 3 (3pm)

Sunday, July 4 (9pm)

Monday, July 5 (7pm)

Tuesday, July 6 (9pm)

Thursday, July 8 (5pm)

Saturday, July 10 (5pm)

Sunday, July 11 (7pm)

Go behind the scenes at www.bourgee-bushwoman.com

TASHA SMITH, Hollywood Actor, says go see the show! (see website clip)

The dreaded TECH RUN

I only say "dreaded" because we didn't know quite what to expect. And the lovely Fringe people frightened us a bit by telling us horror stories about shows that didn't get through all their cues in their allotted time and had to go to opening night flying by the seat of their pants. We were nervous, but prepared.

Jacob started the day by taking a break.

Our whole set nearly fit into one Yaris.

We waited patiently in the courtyard of the Factory Theatre until we were called in.

Then, we were called in:

GO GO GO!

We set up.

Stage Manager Extraordinaire!

(Not to mention also a babe.)

We set our lighting cues.

We got into character:

...and we ran a cue to cue.

And, I'm happy to report, we are under control. All of our cues have been set and even though we didn't get a full run through on our stage, we are as ready as we'll ever be for opening night.

(WHICH IS TOMORROW.)

Thank you to Brian and Shawn for their help in getting us through the tech run process and to kp for documenting the whole thing.

MAKE UP

My pal Kenji came over to give Misha and I a lesson on stage make-up. I worked with Kenji last year on a short film (directed by Erica Leung) that required Kenji to do this to me:

Amazing, right?

Unfortunately (or fortunately...?) G & L aren't burn victims, members of the undead or Lady Gaga so our make-up is a lot more tame.

Kenji taught us how to age ourselves slightly by changing the shape of our faces and the results were amazing--when I looked at Misha I saw LEONA and it gave me a slight prickle of goosebumps.

Kenji is a great teacher, not to mention a lovely person and very good at what he does. Here he is drawing a map of a face so we know what the hell we're doing when he's not around:

Thank you, Kenji, for being patient with us--especially Misha who doesn't like when the mascara wand comes close to her eye. ("It's like a goddamn millipede coming at me..!") To check out more of Kenji's work and to see why he was recently named the winner of the 2010 International Make-Up Artist Trade show in Vancouver, visit his blog HERE.

If you want to see the results of what he taught us (and whether or not we can pull it off on our own!), you will just have to come see the show.