Scantily Glad Theatre in association with the Toronto Fringe Festival presents

PACK ANIMALS

July 4-13, 2019 at Randolph Theatre

Ever been to summer camp? Took a shit in the woods and wiped using pages from your guidebook?
Speared the patriarchy on a hot dog stick and toasted it over a roaring fire?

Inspired by co-creators Holly Brinkman and S.E. Grummett’s experiences as an overachieving Cub Scout and a slacker Girl Guide, respectively, Pack Animals offers up a queer camp adventure through the untamed forest of gender roles, sexuality, friendship, and bushcraft. Interweaving musical and physical comedy, puppets, and searing cynicism, Scantily Glad Theatre presents another raunchy feminist comedy sure to make the audience “laugh as much as it makes them squirm” (Cult MTL).

“If Tina Fey & Amy Poehler made Moonrise Kingdom… but more gay.” ★★★★ – Saskatoon StarPhoenix

One of the Hottest Shows of the 2019 Orlando Fringe Festival 
“Integrating scatological satire and strident feminist polemic with ukulele solos and horny hand puppets […]
A postmodern Lucy-and-Ethel pairing.” – Orlando Weekly
Best of Fest – “A knee-slapping, thought-provoking hoot of a show” – Orlando Sentinel
Best of Venue & Critics’ Pick – 2018 Saskatoon Fringe Festival

Pack Animals proudly makes its Toronto premiere July 4-13 at Randolph Theatre, as part of its 2019 Fringe tour from Orlando to Vancouver. In creating this show over the summer of 2018, S.E. Grummett was able to discover their own gender-queerness. Supported by fellow touring Fringe artists, Grummett came out onstage to friends and family in the audience while premiering the show at their hometown Fringe. This year, by taking this show on the road, Pack Animals hopes to empower fellow genderqueer and questioning folks across North America who may be having a similar journey.

Created and performed by Holly Brinkman and S.E. Grummett

Randolph Theatre (736 Bathurst St.)

Thursday, July 4 – 6:45pm

Saturday, July 6 – 6:15pm

Sunday, July 7 – 4:30pm

Tuesday, July 9 – 8:30pm

Wednesday, July 10 – 10:15pm

Thursday, July 11 – 1:00pm

Saturday, July 13 – 2:45pm

Tickets available now: $11 + $2 service charge | Available at fringetoronto.com or at 416-966-1062

Please note that there is absolutely no latecomer seating.

Maturity Rating: 16+ | Sexual content, language, nudity & BEARS!

Featuring a different guest artist “mansplainer” at every performance! 

For more information, visit scantilygladtheatre.com & follow us on Facebook/Instagram @packanimalscomedy

From Press Release

MoonCow Theatre Co. in association with The Toronto Fringe Festival presents

Night Cows

MoonCow Theatre Co.’s production blurs the line between human and animal, mother and daughter, sky and earth, inviting audiences into the milky ecstasy of liberation.

Night Cows begins at dusk. A baby cow, vachette, describes how her mother removes the shackles of the day and society, transforming into a sensual, grotesque, night cow. Her mother opens herself in two, she splits herself in four expanding into the milky way; her daughter riding her back as they go to wake the crows.

A movement poem; performer Eléonore Lamothe, who draws on Pochinko mask and clown technique,
invests her whole body and soul into our cow’s journey through the sky. “Hypnotizing narrative and expert choreography. Lamothe absolutely captivates her audience.” – The Link

Through the Montreal, arts interculturals (MAI) mentorship program, under the guidance of renowned director Micheline Chevalier, emerging Anishinaabe director Katey Lois Wattam, has developed a fantastical contemporary interpretation of Queer Quebecois Indigenous writer Jovette Marchessault’s, seminal yet underperformed text on the 40th anniversary of its inception. She presented her bold vision during a three-night run at the MAI in May 2018, at short feminist works festival Revolution They Wrote in Montreal this past March, and has been developing the work further for Toronto Fringe.

Bringing together Indigenous, Anglophone, and Francophone approaches, the intercultural production asks its audience to imagine: what do liberation and connection feel like today?
Wattam has earned praise for previous productions tackling difficult social issues, such as 2017’s Cherry Docs at Montreal Fringe, which earned her a Frankie nomination for Most Promising English Theatre Company. She is a recent alumni of Black Theatre Workshop’s Artist Mentorship program under the mentorship of Mike Payette. This latest work from the promising director is further proof of her ability to build immersive theatrical experiences with wide-ranging social and historical implications.

Night Cows is a story of Quebec’s past, present, and future; a fantasy built upon reality;
a flight you won’t soon forget.

MoonCow Theatre Co. in association with The Toronto Fringe Festival presents Night Cows
written by Jovette Marchessault
English translation by Yvonne M. Klien
directed by Katey Lois Wattam
starring Eléonore Lamothe
lighting design by Hannah Kirby

Opens July 3, 2019 runs to July 14, 2019 Venue #13 Factory Theatre Studio
Performances:
July 3, 8:15pm July 5, 2:00pm
July 7, 6:15pm
July 8, 4:00pm
July 11, 7:30pm
July 13, 10:15pm
July 14, 2:00pm
Please note that there is absolutely no latecomer seating.

Tickets ON SALE NOW:
Preview (July 3): $6:00
All other shows: $11.00
Venue #13 Factory Theatre Studio is located at 125 Bathurst St, M5V 2R2.

For more information about the show visit www.mooncow.co, our Facebook page.

Purchase online: fringetoronto.com
By Phone: 416-966-1062 In Person: During the festival at POSTSCRIPT, the patio at the Toronto Fringe. Located in the Hockey Rink at 275 Bathurst Street (Dundas + Bathurst).

From Press Release

Canvas Sky Theatre in association with CLUNK Puppet Lab and the Toronto Fringe Festival presents:

NIGHT FEED

A PUPPET PLAY ABOUT MOTHERHOOD

July 5–14, 2019 at the Tarragon Theatre Extraspace

Fringe veterans-turned-mothers Sarah Joy Bennett and Ginette Mohr return to the 2019 Toronto Fringe Festival with a team of renowned puppet artists, for their new piece NIGHT FEED, running at the Tarragon Theatre Extraspace, July 5–14. Featuring object puppetry, physical theatre, and the stunning design of CLUNK Puppet Lab, Night Feed is a hilarious look at the darker sides of becoming a parent.

As an exhausted new mother nurses in the middle of yet another night, her apartment comes to life; possessions possessed with the demons of fear, self-doubt and anxiety, a chorus of objects and body parts.

Created in collaboration with innovative puppet designer and director Shawna Reiter, as well as guest puppet director Mike Peterson (of Henson Company fame), Night Feed is a post-natal fever dream brought to life. The piece also features original sound and composition by David Atkinson (associate music director, Dear Evan Hansen).

After co-creating a string of Fringe hits, including The Last Man On Earth (Best In Fest, Edmonton Fringe Festival), Snack Music (★★★★★ – CBC), and Fish Face (NNNNN – NOW Magazine), Bennett and Mohr now turn their brand of imaginative storytelling to tackle motherhood, injecting a healthy dose of the bizarre and surreal to make sense of “the most meaningful time of your life”.

“I was not prepared for the loneliness that comes with first becoming a parent,” says creator Sarah Joy Bennett. “To desperately keep myself amused through the exhaustion and isolation, I imagined the dark voices in my head being voiced by objects in my apartment: an aerobics instructor breast pump, a guilt-tripping dust bunny, parenting books chanting spiritual platitudes… When the world shrinks to the size of your couch, you populate it with what’s at hand.”

Canvas Sky Theatre

in association with CLUNK Puppet Lab and The Toronto Fringe presents

NIGHT FEED

Written and Directed by Sarah Joy Bennett

Created in collaboration with Ginette Mohr and Shawna Reiter

Performed by Sarah Joy Bennett, Ginette Mohr and Corinne Murray

Puppet design, puppet direction, and set design by Shawna Reiter

Puppets by Shawna Reiter, Jonathan Davis and CLUNK Puppet Lab

Guest puppetry direction by Mike Petersen

Lighting design by Melissa Joakim

Stage managed by Stevie Baker

Music direction by David Atkinson

July 5–14, 2019

Tarragon Theatre Extraspace – 30 Bridgman Ave.

Performances:

July 5th, 8:30pm

July 6th, 7:00pm

July 8th, 6:00pm

July 10th, 2:30pm

July 12th, 6:00pm

July 13th, 10:45pm

July 14th, 2:30pm

Please note that there is absolutely no latecomer seating.

Tickets will be available as of June 6. Advance tickets – $11 (+ $2 service charge). Available online at fringetoronto.com or by phone at 416- 966-1062 (Subject to a $3 per order fee).

Tickets available will be available in person as of July 3 at the TORONTO FRINGE FESTIVAL Box Office located at POSTSCRIPT (in the hockey rink at 275 Bathurst Street) from noon – 10pm.

From Press Release

THERE’S A MONSTER IN THE WATER

Mourning After the Night Before at the Toronto Fringe Festival

Two drowned girls, a perilous love triangle, a mother-less child and a child-less mother. Chloë Whitehorn’s new play tackles the rippling impact of loss and the repercussions of drowning in every way a person can drown. Mourning After the Night Before premiered as a one act play at the Alumnae Theatre’s New Ideas Festival last spring where it was praised as “Beautifully and sensitively written, it’s haunting, darkly funny and mysterious.” (Cat McKim, Life With More Cowbell)

“It’s nothing, just a woman drowning.”

After 18 years of raising a child, Lucy (Mary Wall) doesn’t know who she is beyond the identity of “mother” to Pippa (Brianna Riché). When Drew (Dave Martin) moves them to a small coastal town to recover from a tragedy, they meet Everett (Jack Morton) and his “aunt” Fenwick (Loriel Medynski) who are also struggling with the tragic loss of Everett’s mother. There is an instant connection between Everett and both Lucy and Pippa.

“MILF. That’s a compliment right? But a cougar… A predator of male flesh, powerful and hungry. Well, god forbid an older woman appreciates the same embodiment of the male form that she did when she was younger.”

Producing partners Chloë Whitehorn and Cat Ratusny previously brought the BEST OF FRINGE hit Love, Virtually to the Toronto Fringe Festival. A mystery born of the depths of the water and the anguish of mental instability, directed by Heather Keith Mourning After the Night Before is a compelling new work delving into the trauma of suicide and the survival of those left behind.

“Water below and water from above and in the middle, that’s where all life is.”

Trigger warning: suicide and mental health

Mourning After the Night Before @ the Toronto Fringe Festival
Venue #8: Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse
Wednesday July 3 @ 9:45pm Friday July 5 @ 4:15pm Saturday July 6 @ 4:45pm Monday July 8 @ 7:45pm Thursday July 11 @ 2:45pm Saturday July 13 @ 10:15pm Sunday July 14 @ 5:45pm
Media members please note: absolutely no latecomer seating.
Tickets: $11 @ door, $13 in advance 416-966-1062 www.fringetoronto.com