tippiseagram’s blog

Living on the Fringe
By GRAEME MCRANOR, 24 HOURS

The best thing about the Vancouver International Fringe Festival is, like Forrest Gump’s famous line about a box of chocolates, you just never know what you’re going to get. Performers are chosen using a lottery system that, while not ensuring quality, guarantees an eclectic mix of more than 500 performances by 65 groups from all around the world. So, whether you check out one of the Mainstage venues - like the Arts Club Theatre’s Granville Island Stage, Performance Works, and the Waterfront Theatre - or one of the BYOV (bring your own venue) shows, chances are it’ll be a unique experience.

Of course, if you like to play things safe, you could always hold out for the Pick of the Fringe. This year, the audience will use ballot boxes to vote on which shows get into the Pick and, from Sept. 18-21, you can catch the subjective best of the fest.

Still, the fringe spirit is all about letting it all hang out - you know, that whole risk and reward thingy - so check out the shows online and start planning your attack.

The Vancouver International Fringe Festival kicks off Sept. 3 and runs to Sept. 14. www.fringevancouver.com for more info.

THREE TO SEE

Here are three shows from Fringe veterans that we here at 24 hours think should be worth the price of admission.

- Who’s Afraid of Tippi Seagram? - Oh, Tippi. Having caught Tippi Seagram’s Happy Hour last year, we have no qualms recommending any show featuring this casting couch cougar, played by Collette Kendall. Always irreverent and always hilarious.
http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/Entertainment/2008/08/29/6602796-sun.html

Venue: Performance Works

- Barry Smith’s Baby Book: A Grownup Comedy About Stuff - Vancouver Fringe fans will no doubt remember Smith’s show, American Squatter, received the critic’s choice award at last year’s festival. Baby Book is a multimedia show about Smith’s rather compulsive need to document every aspect of his life from a very early age.

Venue: Waterfront Theatre.

- Totem Figures - Fringe veteran T.J. Dawe has been touring the fringe circuit for a decade and, in Totem Figures, he puts on a 90-minute monologue about personal mythology, with the idea that each of us is the main character in our own epic adventure.

Venue: Havana Theatre

Taking it to the fringe and beyond
Roll the dice and hope you come up with something really weird

When the 24th Vancouver Fringe opens next week for its annual 11-day blitz, local theatregoers won’t have to be quite as adventurous as in past years. Skim through the program on the Fringe website or at Blenz coffee houses and you’ll notice quite a few old friends and familiar names.

My favourites of 2007, Euro-trashy rockers Die Roten Punkte, are back from Berlin with Super Musikant. Diva Collette Kendall encores in Who’s Afraid of Tippi Seagram? Kinky Kiwi Penny Ashton does her burlesque bit once more in Busty Rhymes with MC Hot Pink. Daniel Packard is here again with his Live Group Sex Therapy Show, and so are Brit performance poet Jem Rolls, the great American broads of Broad Comedy, and multimedia storyteller Barry Smith. The folks who brought us Reefer Man return with Crude Love. Monster Theatre (Jesus Christ: The Lost Years) has a go at the Bard with The Shakespeare Show. And Jacques Lalonde appears in his 24th straight Vancouver Fringe in George Ryga’s One More for the Road.

Fringing at its best still involves a roll of the dice, a leap of faith that the bizarre title by a company you don’t know will give you something quirky or kinky, hopefully a little weird, at least entertaining. I’ll take a chance on Amateur Night of the Living Dead by Calgary’s Obscene but Not Heard, promising stand-up comedy from, among others, Hitler, Jesus and a zombie.

But as Fringe festivals have proliferated across the continent, the companies are less likely to be one-offs, recent acting school grads or local amateurs living their dream. Nowadays most Fringe performers are pros, working the circuit nearly full-time, developing brand-name recognition and audience loyalty with repeat appearances at specific festivals.

Take prolific TJ Dawe. Having written, directed or performed 22 different shows at 82 international festivals, he’s back for his ninth Vancouver Fringe with Totem Figures, a monologue about personal mythology. He’s directing Sev, a show about a 7-11 cashier who imagines himself a medieval warrior, written and performed by Charles Ross, who astonished us at past Fringes with his One Man Star Wars Trilogy and One Man Lord of the Rings. And Dawe also directs Mr. Fox, Greg Landucci’s new show about his years as mascot at radio station CFOX. Landucci and Dawe’s Dishpig was one of the best things on stage here last year.

Mr. Fox arrives via the Orlando, Toronto, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton and Victoria festivals. Advantage us, says Dawe, because Fringe shows “get tweaked as they cross the country . . . so the further west a city is on the Fringe circuit, the more polished a show you’re going to see.”

They must be exhausted, but I can hardly wait.

* * * * ½ Monday Magazine
The only people who should be afraid of Tippi Seagram are those who take themselves too seriously. Tippi will sense your uptightness and exploit it like the fabulous sabretoothed bitch that she is. The best part about her show is that it will change on any given night depending on the audience reaction. Let loose and let Tippi knock you down a few pegs. And though Tippi would be as fabulous as ever in any venue, it would be an even more enjoyable show if the audience were able to down a couple of martinis right along with Tippi.

Bill Stuart

*** Times Colonist
Who’s Afraid of Tippi Seagram? Well, everyone from Osama Bin Laden to the audience is a target in this funny comic monologue.
Colette Kendall’s martini-swigging loudmouth character Tippi is not mean, unless you’re Pamela Anderson. Her crass jokes and barstool advice on love, aging, celebrities and body hair are pleasurably offensive. That she’s an exuberant has-been starlet vying for renewed fame with today’s tactics - the paparazzi crotch shot -is as endearing as Joan Rivers poking fun at her own plastic surgery.

But what really makes this character fascinating, and even a little inspiring, is that she’s the exact opposite of her creator. Kendall was a housewife and mom to three young children in Hamilton, Ontario, when she made her stand-up comedy debut at age 40 - a gift to herself - with no theatrical training. She’s since written and performed two successful Tippi shows and become a top Canadian comic.

FYI….More deja vu in Victoria….in 2006, Tippi Seagram’s Happy Hour received 5 stars The Victoria News, 4 Stars Monday Magazine and 3 Stars Times Colonist.

Look out!…if you thought you could safely get on a plane and escape the media whore that I am well you would be wrong…much to my surprise I’ve found out that a film that I did a few years ago is being shown on Air Canada flights as one of their in flight Canadian content movies…in this particular case I might have to reword Tippi’s rant about god awful Canadian Content to exclude of course all delightful short films shown at 30,000 feet! So be on the look out for me playing Marnie in Marnie Love, about a woman who brings home a man to meet her husband and the open marriage collapses overnight.

As I sat staring out the window of the Airport shuttlebus I couldn’t help but feel that I had experienced a similiar sense of dread and melancholy just a mere 2 years prior..but for very different… and similiar reasons. The summer of 06 was my first cross Canada tour and as I touched down in Victoria from Calgary I had been on the road at that point for some 38 days with another 28 ahead of me. I remember missing my family so much. I was just plain weary of putting it out there night after night on stage hoping that the audience would love me, that the press would love me, that I could whore myself enough to be the new favorite girl at the press brothel and get a cover here or there..or at least a mention…my skin was pretty thin and I just didn’t have the stomach for this emotional rollercoaster….I had just left Calgary and my billet Mark Mahoney. Just 2 weeks earlier Mark and I were complete strangers to each other brought together by a mutual connection through my brother. Mark graciously extended his beautiful home to me, included me in all his outings, picked me up, dropped me off and doted on me and made me feel…well…at home, away from home..so when I left there I felt like I was leaving home all over again….so fast forward to 2 years later and I find myself swallowing tears on that same bus….I had just left Mark in Calgary, after an even more gracious stay, but this time to travel back to see my family before the big stint in BC…I said goodbye to Mark at the airport, giving him a hug, thanking him for everything and telling him to enjoy the rest of his summer…he hugged me and told me to come back soon…that was Monday…by Saturday Mark would be dead, dying suddenly alone in his home …and I would be back on an airplane leaving home heading for Victoria…in shock and now even more acutely aware of how much time I miss out on with my family to do this thing that I do…and at that moment…really not wanting to do it for fear that life will be too fragile for those that I’ve left and hope to come back to….so to Mark Mahoney, I thank you for your kind spirit, your generosity, your comfort and compassion, for making me feel like I had family in the middle of Canada and every way you extended yourself..thank you, rest in peace, may you finally take that trip to China and Tibet that you so looked forward to. I dedicate the rest of my performances in Victoria and Vancouver to you and your memory.

Sit back and get ready to laugh until you cry! With a stage presence that is powerful and uncomfortable Tippi explains why she’s at the Fringe. With many political jokes and antidotes, this show crosses many lines, including the one she pretends to draw on stage. Guaranteed to offend some and please others, Tippi’s show takes no prisoners. When she’s not taking jabs at celebrities she is picking on random audience members. I laughed so hard at times my eyes were watering! The hour went by far too fast. Tippi captured the audience and definitely owned that stage! This show is a must see, even if it’s just to see her newest ‘baby’! I want to say this show is retarded, because I am told not to! It is quite brillant and worth the money!

ALMOST HALFWAY HOME

The Fringe is almost halfway done, and so far things seem to be going really well in its new Inglewood home. The weather has been great and a number of shows have been enjoying relatively full houses, much to the delight of organizers and artists. But there are still six days worth of performances left, and judging by the size of some houses, there are a handful of plays you may want to get out early for, including Who’s Afraid of Tippi Seagram, Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical and Circumference. Other shows worth checking out include The Princess and the Peabrain and Pitch Blond.

By DAVE BREAKENRIDGE, SUN MEDIA

The only people who need fear Tippi Seagram are those who might not like being made a part of the aging “starlet’sâ€? darkly funny ruminations on life, love and celebrity. Everyone else should sit back and enjoy the show, and don’t think sitting in the back will make you safe from becoming a target.

Tippi Seagram, the aging “starâ€? of such Alfred Hitchcock “classics” as The Pigeons and Dial R for Really Roughed Up, is making her second appearance in Calgary at the Fringe, as part of an apparent trilogy. Over the course of the 45-minute show, the foul-mouthed, self-professed cougar takes shots at young celebrities, Ben Mulroney, marriage, sex, relationships, aging and its effect on a woman’s body, among other topics.

The creation of Hamilton-based Colette Kendall, Tippi offered a rapid-fire collection of smart, off-colour comedy, a barrage of jokes that will keep audiences in stitches. This is not family-friendly entertainment, she even refers to the play has her “special needs� middle child, but damn is it funny.

Well I’ve hit Calgary running…left Hamilton with very little sleep and even less organization, boarded a plane to Calgary, or at least I think I did…and hit the ground with some irons in the fire…Had what I deem, a successful appearance on the CBC ‘The Homestretch’…this is the second time I’ve been on this broadcast but the first time that I have been prescreened…this was a remote so they wanted to make sure that I behaved myself live to air..which after approval of 1 of my 3 submitted pieces, I did…although when I suggested that the host cheat on his wife with me and that we rename the location from the ‘hose and hound’ to the ‘ho and hound’ there were a couple of open mouths behind the scene….had a very good time though and CBC peeps are some of the nicest …aggressively worked the room after that and there were some very nice people in the crowd that made me feel welcome here in Calgary..and it paid off with a very good opening crowd..I didn’t even leave my venue as I was the first guest on the Musical, Debbie does Dallas…most excitement I’ve had in a while as my seat was situated to see behind the shower curtain scene and I got to see nudity!..and… they gave me free beer for being their guest…life is good…had a very fun time with the crowd and we seemed like a perfect match…Debbie and I are 2 of only 3 shows that have an R rating here so people were up for my shenanigans…it was really nice to see Michele and Blair Gallant, the festival organizers…if you check my past blogs from 2 years ago I have nothing but nice things to say about these people and their festival and I was very happy that Blair invited me to guest on Debbie Does Dallas…afterall I was an original fluffer!