Real Dead Ghosts – Toronto Fringe Press Release 2014

From Press Release

NYC-Based Shelby Company Makes International Debut With Award-Winning Real Dead Ghosts

Shelby Company is proud to announce the Canadian premiere of Real Dead Ghosts at the 2014 Toronto Fringe Festival. Graham and Amber are a young married couple who promise to spend their anniversary in a secluded cabin away from work, friends and other distractions. But disappointments, secrets and regrets bubble to the surface when they’re haunted by past choices and future responsibilities. A modern day ghost story. Unfinished business kind of shit.

Real Dead Ghosts is written by award-winning playwright Jonathan A. Goldberg (Sousepaw) and directed by Courtney Ulrich (White Hot). The cast features Lara Hillier (EXIT/ENTRANCE) and Nathaniel Kent (Trevor). The design team includes April Bartlett (scenic), Deanna Frieman (costumes), Kevin Brouder (sound) and Dan Henry (lighting). It is produced by Shelby Company. It premiered at the 2014 FRIGID New York Festival to sold-out houses and was awarded the Audience Choice Award.

Real Dead Ghosts will play at Venue #9 – The Robert Gill Theatre, located at 214 College St., 3rdFloor  (St. George St. Entrance) on Wednesday, July 2 at 7:00pm, Thursday, July 3 at 10:30pm,Sunday, July 6 at 5:45pm, Wednesday, July 9 at 12:15pm, Thursday, July 10 at 5:45pm, Friday, July 11 at 9:45pm, and Saturday, July 12 at 8:45pm.

Tickets are $10 for General Admission, $8 for Students/Seniors. Tickets go onsale on June 16, 2014 and can be purchased by visiting www.fringetoronto.com or calling the Toronto Fringe Box Office at (416) 966-1062 x1. For more information about the show and the producing company please visit www.shelbycompany.org.

Jonathan A. Goldberg (playwright) has had work seen at HERE, Ars Nova, Dixon Place, The Public Theater and many other venues.  His play The Jew and the Demon won the Rita and Burton Prize for Theater.  His short work was featured at Ephemerama at the Magnet Theater and he won the Israel Baron Award for How to Shoot a Bull Moose. He’s had plays developed by the Inkwell in Washington DC and won the 2013 In Process Short Play Festival at Hudson Valley Shakespeare.  His playSousepaw has received critical acclaim around the country. He is a contributor to #serials at The Flea. He won the 2012 L Magazine short fiction contest and has an MFA in playwrighting from NYU Tisch.

Courtney Ulrich (director) is a New York-based Director. Recent credits include Tommy Smith’s White Hot and #serials at The Flea Theater where she is a Resident Director. In New York, she has worked with New Dramatists, Target Margin Theater, The Foundry Theatre, Rising Circle Rep, The Culture Project and Powerhouse/NYSAF at Vassar College, in LA with Cornerstone Theater Company, and in DC with Sojourn Theatre Company and Arena Stage.

Shelby Company was founded in December 2008 in NYC. They are a playwright-centric theatre company devoted to creating new works for the stage. Over the past five years they have produced over a dozen original works in nine US states. Selected productions include Fallsway (MN Fringe 2013); Font of Knowledge (MN Fringe 2012); Sousepaw: A Baseball Story (17 Frost Space, Brooklyn 2013; MN Fringe, IndyFringe and SF Fringe 2011); The Land Whale Murders (Theatre 3, 2010); The Luck of the Ibis, The Mike and Morgan Show and You May Be Splendid Now (Access Theatre 2010); My Father Is A Tetris Game (HERE Arts, 2009); Winnemucca (three days in the belly) (San Jose Stage, MN Fringe and FringeNYC 2009); and New Beulah (The Creek and the Cave, Planet Connections 2009; The Pear Ave. Theatre 2010). As well as full-length productions, Shelby Company has produced a monthly comedy show, Ephemerama, which has amassed nearly 100 short comedic plays and played to sold-out houses all over the USA.

Spilling Family Secrets – Toronto Fringe 2014 Press Release

From Press Release

At age 11, Susan Freedman snooped in her mother’s closet and found a shoebox full of love letters written between1927 and 1937 by her parents when they were just 19 years old. Susan thought they were hilarious – and embarrassing. Today, can the letters spill the secrets of their inspiring marriage – and shed light on Susan’s own marital misadventures? Come to SPILLINGFAMILY SECRETS, playing July 2-13 at the Tarragon  Solo Room as part of the 2014 Toronto Fringe Festival. Tickets are available via www.fringetoronto.com or 416-966-1062 ext. 1, or at the door.

Sixty years later that shoebox of letters is Susan’s – given to her by her mother who said:“You’ve read them anyway!” Amid laughter and tears, Susan pared the letters down to the excerpts she felt best told their love story – and caused her to look at her own romantic life with fresh eyes. “Getting to know my parents at age 19 was an amazing gift.“  SPILLING FAMILYSECRETS is a touching remembrance of her parents’ love, and a wry, witty look at how Freedman’s own marital mistakes are a stark and funny contrast to her parents’ idyllic match.

This is Susan Freedman‘s fourth one-woman Fringe comedy. Her three previous shows have had critically acclaimed sold-out runs across the Canadian Fringe circuit. Directed by Dora-winning writer/performer Rondel Reynoldson (Stage: White Trash Blue Eyes, Platform 9. Film: Man of Steel, Warner Bros.)

“Funny and heartwarming” ~ Montreal Gazette

“Freedman is wise and witty company” ~ Edmonton Journal 
     
“Evokes both uninterrupted laughter and inner reflection” 
~Vancouver Province

SPILLING FAMILY SECRETS reminds us all that our parents really were young once; they experienced youthful romantic hopes, dreams, and disappointments just as we do. They were people long before they were parents, and their lives have wonderful stories to tell us…and unexpected lessons we may learn while we’re laughing.

Full Media kit is available HERE.

SHOW INFO for SPILLING FAMILY SECRETS:
Venue: Tarragon Theatre Solo Room, 30 Bridgman Ave, Toronto.

Dates & Times:
Wed, July 2 @ 6:30pm
Fri, July 4 @ 4:45pm
Sat, July 5 @ 6:45pm
Sun, July 6 @ 2:45pm
Tue, July 8 @ 3:15pm
Wed, July 9 @ 4:45pm
Fri, July 11 @ 3:30pm
Sat, July 12 @ 8:00pm

Tickets:
$10 at the door (cash only) or $12 in advance (Visa or MasterCard, service charge included)
Beginning June 12 via www.fringetoronto.com, by telephone at 416-966-1062 (ext.1), or at the door.
Show running time is 45 minutes.    **Please note that there is absolutely no latecomer seating**

birdy… or, how not to disappear – Toronto Fringe 2014 Press Release

From Press Release



 If you ask anyone who knows me they would tell you, “Birdy? She smiles all the time.”
 

Birdy is afraid she might be crazy. It runs in the family, she thinks. Her grandfather had religious hallucinations. Her father was hospitalized for depression and self-harm. Birdy spends her life worrying—wanting so much to save the world, to help each person she sees. She’s haunted by the fear she’s inherited her family madness and there’s nothing she can do about it. Part memory play, part manifesto of compassion, and part anxiety attack, Karie Richards’ deeply personal solo show BIRDY… OR, HOW NOT TO DISAPPEAR plays July 2-13 at theHelen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse as part of the 2014 Toronto Fringe Festival. Tickets are available via www.fringetoronto.com, by phone at 416-966-1062 ext.1, or at the door.
“The play’s honesty and unexpected universality make it powerful, its contrasts make it sad, and its humour make it hopeful.” ~ Plank Vancouver
BIRDY… is a beautiful and unexpectedly funny confessional about keeping your balance, and a near-tragedy suffused with hope. An intimate story of memory, fear, love and loss, and the power of art to save us—from madness.
“Nothing short of stupendous. 5 stars (out of 5).” ~ Winnipeg Free Press
BIRDY…OR, HOW NOT TO DISAPPEAR was created as part of a Playfinding Master Class with Daniel MacIvor at The Banff Centre. Creator/performer Karie Richards (interrogation, Fairly Lucid Productions; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? & Summer and Smoke, Alumnae Theatre) premiered BIRDY at the Vancouver International Fringe Festival in 2012. It went on to great reviews at the 2013 Winnipeg Fringe and Atlantic Fringe Festivals. The production isdirected by highly-acclaimed solo-show performer and director Jeff Culbert (as creator/performer: The Donnelly Sideshow & archy and mehitabel, Ausable Theatre; as director: 2012 Fringe circuit hit Underbelly; Fall Fair & Boat Load; Stars and Hearts).
Karie is donating 5% of the ticket sales from BIRDY… to the Yonge Street Mission, an organization which reaches out to meet the needs of people living with poverty in Toronto with programs that have made a positive difference in the lives of families, seniors, socially isolated adults, street-involved youth and children growing up in low-income communities.
Full Media Kit is available here.
SHOW INFO for BIRDY…OR, HOW NOT TO DISAPPEAR:

Venue: Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse, 79 A St. George Street, Toronto.

Dates & Times:
Thu, July 3 @ 8:45pm 
Sat, July 5 @ 1:45pm  
Mon, July 7 @ 9:00pm
Wed, July 9 @ 4:00pm
Fri, July 11 @ 11:00pm
Sat, July 12 @ 5:15pm
Sun, July 13 @ 12:00pm

Tickets:

$10 at the door (cash only) or $12 in advance (Visa or MasterCard, service charge included) Beginning June 12 via www.fringetoronto.com, by telephone at 416-966-1062 (ext.1), or at the door. Show running time is 50 minutes.    **Please note that there is absolutely no latecomer seating**

Think Bigg – Toronto Fringe 2014 Press Release

From Press Release
Trent Arterberry & FringeKids!
present the Toronto Debut
of
 “A perfect children’s performer…
He can have kids in awe one moment,
and then suddenly reduce them to
fits of giggles with a single glance.”
– Mooney On Theatre
 
“Proven crowd-pleaser” Trent Arterberry brings his globe-trotting, world-class comedy THINK BIGG, to Toronto audiences for the first time in a BIGG way. Combining mime, storytelling and puppetry to create a series of kid-friendly stories and characters, THINK BIGG is hilarious physical theatre with thoughtful, inspiring reflections on the importance of learning and the power of the imagination. It’s happening at FringeKids! July 2-13 at the Palmerston Theatre. Tickets are available beginning June 12 via www.fringetoronto.com by telephone at 416-966-1062 (ext.1), or at the door.
For over three decades Trent Arterberry has been delighting the young and young-at-heart with his multi-media mime and merriment. THINK BIGG’s medley of comedy, music, Roboman, and Mr. Bigg, a 3 ft. “mini-me” who grooves to rap and Russian folk tunes alike, will prove why Arterberry has earned such honours as Performing Artist of the Year (US National Association of Campus Activities) and Best Local Performer (Victoria Fringe Festival).
“Arterberry’s genius is… two-fold – storytelling that doesn’t patronize and the agility to make it vastly entertaining.” – Monday Magazine, BC
Trained with performance masters such as Marcel Marceau, Arterberry has gone on to earn rave reviews and distinctions for his work around the world. He’s performed everywhere – from Radio City Music Hall to underwater! – and Arterberry now returns to his first love – performing for children. His ability to vividly illustrate the universality of the elemental language of gesture is a lesson he’s shared at thousands of schools throughout the Atlantic Northeast, Pacific Northwest, Mexico, Far East, and beyond. Lucky for us, he’s bringing it back to Toronto!
“Arterberry is funny without being cute, and like a cartoonist his lines of gesture and movement are broad but precise and speedy as a whiplash.” – Boston Globe, MA

Venue: Palmerston Library Theatre, 560 Palmerston Ave, Toronto

Dates & Times:
Thu. July 3 @ 1:00pm
Fri. July 4 @ 4:00pm
Sun. July 6 @ 11:00am
Tue. July 8 @ 12:30pm
Wed. July 9 @ 4:00pm
Thu. July 10 @ 6:30pm
Fri. July 11 @ 5:30pm
Sun. July 13 @ 12:00pm

Tickets:
$5 for kids 12 and under
$10 for adults at the door (cash only) or $12 in advance (Visa or MasterCard, service charge included)
Beginning June 12 via www.fringetoronto.com, by telephone at 416-966-1062 (ext.1), or at the door.
Show running time is 45 minutes.    **Please note that there is absolutely no latecomer seating**