Theatre: Theatre in the Raw Connects Today's Youth With Vancouver's 70's Flower Children

Cast of Yippies in Love (Clockwise) Steve Maddock, Rebecca Shoichet,
Artistic Director Jay Hamburger, Music Director Bill Sample, Bing Jensen, Danielle St. Pierre.

It's forty years since the "Invasion of Blaine" and other politically charged antics by local "Yippies" - members of the movement fathered by Abby Hoffman on the East coast primarily to oppose the Vietnam War - and playwright Bob Sarti, worries that the hard won victories his generation fought for may be in danger of being short-lived in light of current socioeconomic attitudes and climates.
With "Yippies in Love", the much anticipated prequel to the 2008 smash hit "Bruce: The Musical". Sarti, a Vancouver Sun reporter when the plays were set, has taken it upon himself to seek out and workshop the play with young people from East Van's Purple Thistle, a youth-run community centre for arts and activism.
"It's important for young people to know that many of the freedoms and challenges we - as a society -are facing today were first brought to light by the Yippie movement.
"Workshopping the play at the Purple Thistle was important to me," Sarti says. "Because i think the Thistle has that "Yippie spirit" and because I wanted to be sure this play has relevance today, too."
The music for this production was once again scored by BC Entertaiment Hall of Famer (and Drive Denizen) Bill Sample, who worked recently with returning star Steve Maddock in the Vancouver Playhouse production of The Fantastiks. Audiences familiar with that production will also recognize Bree Grieg as one of the chorus and taking on several of incidental roles in the show.
Rehearsals are well under way and the show is set to run March 17 - 27 at the Woodwards Sky Room near the site of the notorious Gastown riots (commemorated in Jeff Wall's mural in the Woodwards Atrium).
More info and tickets are available online at:
http://theatreintheraw.ca/tickets.html

Theatre: Bruce the Musical! Tix on Sale @ Urban Empire

Just a reminder that tickets for this great new production have gone on sale at Urban Empire (1108 Commercial Drive) or can be purchased online at www.theatreintheraw.ca


A full schedule is available online.


Bruce Eriksen is back in time for civic elections!

Theatre: Bruce the Musical Promo Shots Online

Theatre: Bruce the Musical @ The Russian Hall

An original two-act musical drama, Bruce – The Musical recreates key events in the life of Bruce Eriksen, the late founder of the Downtown Eastside Residents Association (DERA), and the individual most responsible for transforming the image of Vancouver’s lowest-income neighbourhood from Skid Road to residential community. It is a story of tragedy and triumphs, told with humour, action, human drama and song.


Writer Bob Sarti in a huddle with Director Jay Hamburger
Photo: Adam Abrams

The play is a blend of historical characters (Eriksen, Harry Rankin, Libby Davies, Jean Swanson) and representative characters (older single men and working people trying to survive and maintain their dignity, Chinese elders in a strange new land, politicians grappling with difficult issues - and you can expect a couple of SRO hotel cockroaches too).

The play chronicles events in the period 1973-76, when Eriksen overcame his addiction to alcohol, went on to become an ironworker on the Knight Street Bridge project and then fought successfully to make the beer parlors and hotels of the Downtown Eastside safer for the old loggers and other retired resource workers who lived there.
Bruce was written by past Sun Newspaper Reporter Bob Sarti, with lyrics by Sarti and music by Bill Sample (recipient of the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame award) and Earle Peach. It features a professional and semi-professional cast of nine, under the direction of Jay Hamburger, artistic director of Theatre In the Raw Society, a professional company which has a long history of commitment and work within the east side of Vancouver and to social justice issues – “Giving Exposure to Voices Seldom Heard” since 1994.

Community members will be admitted at low or no cost. Preview Night Pay-What-You-Can will be on Wednesday, November 5 and a 2-for-1 Matinee November 9, 2008.

Denizen of the Day: Jay Hamburger

We caught the Artistic Director of Commercial Drive's notorious Theatre In the Raw in a rare reflective moment.

Those who know the vibrant, passionate theatre maker, also know you don't often see him sitting still for long.
With their first ever Fringe production over, the little theatre company that could is setting it's sights on even bigger, better things next year.
Keep following Commercial Drive - Live! for all the latest updates.
By the way, people may not realize that Jay was a contributer to the words and music in the original Godspell when he was at Carnegie Mellon University.

Theatre In the Raw opens to a Standing-Room-Only Fringe Crowd!

The cast of "You Are What You Eat": Roger Howie, Maria Lakes, and Kevin Sloan.

TITRaw Fringe debut was met with wild applause and a room full of smiling faces at the Agro Café last Sunday night.

Remounting Patrick Foley’s funny and relevant “You Are What You Eat”, and premiering Manual Kane’s poignant “Duet in The Park”, the “little company that did” has taken “community” theatre to a whole new level and has introduced Vancouver theatre goers to some outstanding local talent.

“You Are What You Eat” features TITRaw veterans Roger Howie, Kevin Sloan and Maria Lakes. The shining star has to be Howie, who has a face like Silly Putty, which he moulds into countless, great comedic expressions. Sloan and Lakes both have to work hard to keep up with Howie’s relentless delivery, and they do. I completely related to their two characters in that type of situation: being cornered by someone who won’t shut up and feels it’s his right to proselytize regardless of whether the other parties are interested or not.

Foley’s script covers a lot of socio-economical and ethical ground, talking about the industrialized food chain we are the end-users of. I thought that setting the play in a café was brilliant; after all, when you think about it, it’s at a restaurant that we are most divorced from our food. We only want to see and enjoy the food, not think about where it came from.

The other one-act, “Duet in the Park” is an intimate tale about two young women – Bubbles, a prostitute caught under her vicious pimp’s thumb, and Florabelle, a “retard” (as the other kids in the foster home she’s left called her) - who find themselves lost together on the same park bench.

Bubbles and Florabelle (played by Julie Cohn and Edwina Cheer respectively) are charming and frank characters who seem destined to run into each other’s arms. The actors do a great job of fleshing out two roles which could easily become stereotypical.

By the way, Cohn looks great in her superhero knee boots and ultra mini-skirt! I mention this only because if you don’t get there early and get a seat up front, you’ll miss out – which is my only complaint about the production. With no raised stage or raked seating, the audience further back gets a slightly limited view of the show.

That aside, I loved the ensemble cast and the intelligent, deceptively simple story-telling.

If you have the chance, come out and see these shows. They alternate nightly with TITRaw’s other darker drama, a radio play by Bill Pollett, “The Toe Cutter”. You can listen to a short audio clip of it which was produced at CBC studios at http://ourmedia.org/node/348623.

For specific dates and times, check out the Theatre in The Raw website at www.theatreintheraw.ca

Theatre: The Toe Cutter One of TiTRaw's Fringe One-Acts

THEATRE IN THE RAW PROUDLY PRESENTS ITS VANCOUVER FRINGE FESTIVAL DEBUT

with three tasty original one-acts featuring a radio reading of The Toe Cutter by Bill Pollett.

Top: Toe Cutter cast members Kate Laktin, Serge Savoy, Delana Russell. Bottom: Olesia Shewchuk and Zi Paris. Photo: Steven R. Duncan. For more photos go to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/9057324@N08/sets/72157601742333635/show/

High res photos available upon request.

Pollett’s The Toe Cutter portrays a family’s battles with a deep secret that won’t go away. A tragic incident occurs to a family of girls, the memory of which will not go away without a chilling struggle that leaves its mark on a small quiet Saskatchewan town.

The Toe Cutter is an original radio play reading from our current Mythical Voices for Our Time play project. The play was premiered with a live radio broadcast on Vancouver’s Co-Op Radio’s The Arts Rational program - CFRO 102.7 FM in June, 2007. “…collectively excellent performances…” Beyond Robson website.

This dark and powerful production is just one of 3 original one-acts happening over 6 nights from September 9^th to 16^th – two shows alternating each night.

Theatre In the Raw will be part of the Vancouver Fringe Festival for the first time in its 13 years of producing theatre in Vancouver.

Also presented will be Paul Manuel Kane’s Duet In the Park - the winner of TITRaw’s 2005 One-Act Play Writing Contest; and one of the company’s most performed one-acts, Patrick Foley’s, You Are What You Eat (developed out of the Carnegie Theatre Workshop/Community Centre) will be revived once again.

Theatre In the Raw started out of a storefront cafe called La Quena Cafe on Commercial Drive, in 1994. They rehearsed and performed there for nearly three years, producing over 125 one-acts in over 43 nights of theatre within a period of time. While housed at La Quena they applied for and received a Canada Council Exploration grant, allowing the theatre to go on two tours along the Squamish corridor and Sunshine/Sechelt coasts. There was an outdoor theatre day of 16 performances at Grandview Park with the help of a Vancity Credit Union community grant. They raised a tent along with a wooden stage, and had over a thousand people come and see a full day free of Theatre in the Park. They have since performed in over 45 venues both in the southern/interior half of British Columbia and in Seattle, Washington for the 1998 Seattle Fringe Festival.

Since 1997, they moved toward mainstage performance work. Their mainstage plays usually consists of two to three acts with a show run of 2 to 4 consecutive weeks. They are also committed to organizing mini-tours, in and out of the Lower Mainland of BC for many of their dramas. This gives the actors, running crew, and administration members of the company greater experience with the nuts and bolts of running a semi-professional travelling theatre company. It allows for quality, risk-taking artistic works with substance. They have produced nine full-length mainstage plays. Five were revived classical plays and they premiered four original Canadian play works in Vancouver.

The work results in groundbreaking fresh theatre. “Theatre In the Raw… rises to the occasion…has notable successes…” The Georgia Straight.

All Fringe performances are at the AGRO CAFÉ on 1363 Railspur Alley - Granville Island; tickets to all of the theatrical evenings are $10 and $12 (in advance) are thru the Vancouver Fringe Festival box office. For a complete schedule, please check out our website www.theatreintheraw.ca, or phone the Theatre In the Raw office number at (604) 708-5448, or call the Vancouver Fringe office: (604) 257-0355 for further information, including synopsis of other plays.

Ò Showtimes & Shows (two one-acts per night/ alternating plays each night):

Sept. 9^th – 8pm ~ You Are What You Eat & Duet In the Park

Sept. 12^th – 8pm ~ The Toe Cutter & Duet In the Park

Sept. 13^th – 8pm ~ The Toe Cutter & You Are What You Eat

Sept. 14^th – 8pm ~ The Toe Cutter & Duet In the Park

Sept. 15^th – 8pm ~ The Toe Cutter & You Are What You Eat

Sept. 16^th – 8pm ~ You Are What You Eat & Duet In the Park

Special Events: Theatre In the Raw Festival of One Acts

THEATRE IN THE RAW

PROUDLY PRESENTS
A FESTIVAL of ONE-ACTS & RADIO PLAYS

F Place: The Beaumont Studios ~ 316 West 5^th Ave. @ Alberta St. in Vancouver

Doors open at 7pm. ~ Shows start at 7:30 sharp ~ July 4^th, 5^th, 6^th, 7^th, & 8^th, 2007

Tickets: $10 and under ~ please call (604) 708-5448

Produced by Vancouver’s

Theatre In the Raw
A FIVE-DAY MINI-FEST WITH FIVE EXCITING ONE-ACT PLAYS IN JULY ‘07

This July (4^th-8^th) at the Beaumont Studios, Theatre In the Raw is proud to present 5 great nights

(3 original shows a night!) of fresh new theatre. We will be showcasing the winner of Theatre In the Raw’s 2005 One-Act Play Writing Contest; a one-act from the 2005 Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival; a one-act originating from the Downtown Eastside Carnegie Theatre Workshop; an original radio play from our current Mythical Voices for Our Time project, and a revived one-act from UBC’s Brave New Play Rites 1994 one-act play presentation.

The production of shows include Dean Hoover’s Obsessions, Paul Manuel Kane’s Duet In the Park, Jay “Long Haul” Hamburger’s A Hot Box, Bill Pollett’s The Toe Cutter, and Patrick Foley’s Philomena (there is a synopsis of each play provided below). Theatre In the Raw now in its 13^th year has been producing provocative, informative and socially relevant grassroots theatre in BC since its humble beginnings in 1994 at a Commercial Drive coffee house/ cafe. It is a theatre that has produced hundreds of original one-acts, numerous radio dramas as well as performed in over fifty different venues in and around BC.

Live radio broadcasts of The Toe Cutter (June 28 @ 9pm); Duet In the Park (July 1 @ 5pm) and Obsessions (July 1 @ 5:30pm) were heard over Vancouver’s Co-Op Radio, CFRO 102.7 FM on the dial, also at the Radio Station Café, corner of Columbia & East Hastings Streets.

All tickets at the Beaumont Studios to any of the theatrical evenings are $10 & under.

For a complete schedule, please check out our website www.theatreintheraw.ca or call our box office: 604-708-5448 for further information.

About the plays:

Obessions ~ by Dean Hoover. Four obsessed urban characters grapple with cosmetic procedures that will change their lives. Boy meets girl and thinks girl perfect until he finds out that girl has a mind of her own and wants the shape of things the way she wants it. The sparks then do fly!

Duet In the Park ~ by Paul Manuel Kane. Friendships and escapes develop in the strangest of green places. A young woman recently from the Deep South of USA is waiting for a bus at a park in New York City where buses do not arrive at or leave from. She meets a stranger in the park who shows concern and also wants to move on.

A Hot Box ~ by Jay “Long Haul” Hamburger. A one-act in tasty delivery and a bit of protest. The story of a woman in the arts attempting to get some work completed when the door knocks from an unexpected visitor. With her ear to the ground for environmental matters, she manages to carry the Green movement onward and upward.

The Toe Cutter ~ by Bill Pollett. A family battles with a deep secret that won’t go away. A tragic incident occurs to a family of girls, the memory of which will not go away without a chilling battle that leaves a mark on a small quiet Saskatchewan town.

Philomena ~ by Patrick Foley. A young runaway girl Philomena meets an elderly man in a local Vancouver Park. They talk, getting to know each other, when two rough street characters try to entice the girl to go down the wrong road with her life. A surprise, warm ending helps save the day with this dramatic, poetic piece of theatre.

~ for further information and box office reservations please call: (604) 708-5448

June 25^th, 2007 ~ Theatre In the Raw