Awkward Stage

Big dreams, challenges

Eden Lyons as Emory (seated) and Nathan Cottell as Linda in Awkward Stage Production’s MilkMilkLemonade, which runs May 23-26 at CBC Studio 700. (photo by Javier Sotres)

True to form, Awkward Stage Production’s upcoming show, MilkMilkLemonade by Joshua Conkel, will challenge and entertain audiences.

“Eleven-year-old Emory dreams of two things – leaving his farm for Mall Town, U.S.A., and going on Star Search. His grandmother wants him to be a normal boy and be friends with Elliott, the tough boy from down the road. Meanwhile, Linda, his depressed best friend, dreams of surviving to the next dawn,” reads the synopsis, noting that Linda is a giant chicken who does stand-up comedy and that the show includes the music of Brittany Spears, Spice Girls and Nina Simone.

Jewish community member Eden Lyons plays Emory. With Arts Umbrella Pre-Professional Troupe, she played Mrs. Tottendale in The Drowsy Chaperone in 2016 and Hope Cladwell in Urinetown last year. Her resumé includes stilt walking as a special skill.

“I’ve been interested in acting and musical theatre for as long as I can remember, I was a very attention-hungry child,” Lyons told the Independent. Nevertheless, it wasn’t until her role in Urinetown that she knew she wanted to make a career of performing.

Born in Hamilton, Bermuda, Lyons has lived in Vancouver since she was 3 years old. She attended Vancouver Talmud Torah from preschool to Grade 7 and graduated from Point Grey Secondary School last June. When she left VTT, she said, “I felt somewhat disconnected to the idea of the Jewish community. Maybe because I didn’t feel I belonged from a gay perspective, because I always saw Judaism as more of a conservative traditional thing, as opposed to the ever-changing and loving thing I see it as now. In lots of ways, I feel my safest in the Jewish community.”

A sense of safety is particularly relevant to MilkMilkLemonade, which contains sensitive and explicit material. Producer and choreographer Erika Babins – also a member of the Jewish community – said the play “walks a fine line of comedy and heavy subject matter. Emory is subject to bullying at school because of his effeminate nature. Elliot attempts, and often fails, to reconcile his friendship and attraction to Emory with the internalized homophobia and misogyny that he was raised with. There are both scenes of intimacy and violence in the piece.

“We began rehearsing this play,” she said, “in the wake of controversy in the Canadian theatre community regarding directors and companies crossing professional boundaries in their rehearsal halls in the name of creating art. It brought to light a lot of practices that many theatre artists take for granted as part of the industry and certainly needn’t be. At the beginning of our rehearsal process, we outlined specifically what was deemed appropriate behaviour in rehearsal and what would not be tolerated, in order to create a safe environment for everyone. Actors have to be extremely vulnerable to create situations with physical intimacy and it is the job of the theatre company and the creative team to create and enforce that environment.”

Co-starring with Lyons are Demi Pedersen (Elliot), Stefanie Michaud (Lady in a Leotard), Sachi Nisbet (Nana) and Nathan Cottell (Linda). The producer is Sarah Harrison and the rest of the team is stage manager Laura Reynolds, light/sound designer Andie Lloyd, costume/prop/set designer Alaia Hamer, graphic designer Julia Lank and promotional photographer Javier Sotres.

“The age range of the cast is between 18-27,” said Babins. “All the cast members and creative team on this project are emerging artists.”

Winning the role of Emory came as a surprise to Lyons.

“When I went in for the MilkMilkLemonade auditions, I didn’t even think I would get cast at all, as I hadn’t yet been in a professional show and all I had gotten until then was a string of rejection emails,” she said. “When I got my email for MML, I was at work and I cried in the bathroom and called my parents saying, ‘Maybe I’m not a terrible actress after all!’ This is my first show with Awkward Stage, and I am really thankful that they are the first company I’m working with in my professional career.”

When asked what were the most challenging and fun aspects of playing Emory, Lyons said, “It was a challenge for me to get past my fear of being the youngest in a cast, especially since all of them have already graduated theatre school and worked professionally for years. It was also difficult to find the physicality for acting like a kid, and the balance between me being a woman, who’s playing a little boy, who is actually a little girl. Lots to unpack there. Emory is a really fun role because I get to play around and throw little tantrums and scream, and basically just be a kid. It offers me a lot of freedom to try new things.”

And Lyons is working on many new things in addition to this production.

“I’m currently assistant directing Oklahoma! with the Arts Umbrella Pre-Professional Musical Theatre troupe, which is playing at the Waterfront Theatre from May 18th to 26th, and I am assistant directing and associate producing Jasper in Deadland with Awkward Stage for the Vancouver Fringe Festival in September,” she said. “In the fall, I am moving to Toronto to attend Randolph Academy for Musical Theatre.”

While there is no specific target audience for MilkMilkLemonade – “There are pieces for all ages and walks of life in it,” said Babins – due to the subject matter, she said, “we do advise parental discretion for children under the age of 12.”

MilkMilkLemonade is at CBC Studio 700 May 23-26, 8 p.m., with a 2 p.m. matinée on May 26. Tickets ($20) are available at awkwardstageproductions.com/milkmilklemonade.

The Fringe is coming soon!

Seattle comedy couple Clayton Weller and Sophie Lowenstein are bringing Naturally to the festival. (photo from Amanda Smith)

Fear of death, making comedy and fighting prejudice are but a few of the topics Jewish community members will be exploring in their productions at this year’s Vancouver Fringe Festival, which runs Sept. 7-17.

Seattle comedy couple Sophie Lowenstein and Clayton Weller are bringing Naturally to the festival. It’s not one show, but two, with audiences deciding which they want to see: the one about grief, which also contains a dating scene, “the worst theatrical audition ever” and more; or the one about what sketch comedy is, how to make it – and why to bother making it.

“We have a variety of choosing activities at the top of the show, which culminates in the audience throwing paper airplanes at the stage for the show they’d most like to see. It’s going to be bonkers,” explained Weller. “As far as seeing both shows – how flattering would that be?! – the final two performances we’re locking in which show will happen.” So, Good Grief (Heart) will be on Sept. 14 and Understanding Sketch (Head) on Sept. 16; for the other performances, you’ll have to take your chances. Though, having seen them on video in preparing for this interview, it’s not much of a risk – both shows will have you laughing, and crying. There is a reason they dub Naturally “serious comedy.”

“As a duo, this has always pretty much been our style,” said Weller. “We’ve both done a bunch of plays, both serious and completely frivolous…. We thought that a laugh never feels as good as after you’re done crying. The contrast makes both the dark and light pop out more.”

“I would also say that we find a lot of beauty in that line between joy and pain because it’s not a very thick line. It’s blurred and sometimes nonexistent,” added Lowenstein, who is part of the Jewish community. “When you’re working with comedy, experiencing other emotions besides happiness while you laugh is sort of taboo – at least rare. We play in that playground. I think, individually, we are both curious about people’s emotions and we investigate them in our own ways, so we came together to run a joint study.”

According to the press material, Lowenstein and Weller have been performing comedy together for more than 12 years.

“Sophie and I went to the same college, University of Puget Sound, and both got cast in our college sketch comedy group,” Weller told the Independent. “We performed in several shows before we actually started living together as roommates, then we started living together, with feelings and stuff. Humour and comedy definitely permeate every part of our lives. Lots of laughter keeps our hearts light.”

With the comedy group Ubiquitous They, the couple produced about 15 shows. However, said Weller, the group “is more of an alumni network at this point. Several members have moved on to work in L.A., or across the country. We produced really regularly from 2007 to 2014, but, for the most part, it’s more of a club that hangs out every couple of months, and goes, ‘Wow, it’s tough to be an adult, am I right?’”

For the past few years, Lowenstein and Weller have been focusing on their performances as a duo. “Basically, Naturally is the only comedy project Sophie and I do now,” said Weller. “We’ll do a variety show or small play here and there on our own, but, because our lives are so crazy, we’ve pared the work we do down and this is where we put our real artistic push. I’ve never made work I’m more proud of than what I’m currently making with Sophie. She’s awesome. (Secret: This is all just an excuse for me to hang out with her more!)”

“Other secret: I feel the same way about him,” added Lowenstein. “He makes this process happen.”

In addition to Naturally, Weller runs two performance venues – the Pocket Theatre and the Slate Theatre – and Lowenstein works as a nurse practitioner.

“I look at it like this: some NPs have kids and they can do it. I have theatre and I can do it,” said Lowenstein about balancing her careers. Her recipe for success? “Save as many of your nights for rehearsals as possible. Dinner no earlier than 10 p.m. most nights. Make sure the other member of your group does all the administrative stuff and keeps you motivated when you’re dragging your butt and snarling. And, if the project doesn’t give you deep joy, don’t do it.”

In one of the Naturally shows, Weller mentions that he once had a lucrative high-tech job that he gave up for comedy. Does he have any regrets?

“I started a company called Freak’n Genius in 2012,” he said. “We made animation software, and we raised over half a million dollars in financing. At first, I was working with cool creative people and helping them make awesome things – then we slowly turned into an iPhone app for tweens. I learned a ton, but I 100% do not regret leaving. I give about three hours a week’s worth for tweens. Not the 60 hours a week I was putting in. Artists are who I really care about!”

About how he became one, or at least got into comedy, Weller said he had terrible stage fright until eighth grade. “I decided I was tired of being scared, and did improv comedy. After the first laughing crowd, I got bit by the bug, and I’ve been doing it ever since. There’s no better way to make friends than to make art together. Our relationship is proof to the point! I’m super lucky.”

For her part, Sophie said she first got into comedy “by loving that feeling of making my friends laugh. So, I practised how to do that more and more. I also had very funny friends. Now, I’m friends with the funniest human I know, and he also has a heart and mind. Bonus. As for the theatre part, I started performing when I was a little kid then throughout school: musicals, Shakespeare, etc. Stuck with it.”

The couple has been doing Naturally for a couple of years now. “After every performance,” said Weller, “we can’t help but do the ‘Oh man, next time why don’t we blah blah blah.’ The script is never permanent, and every remounting of the material we go through a rewrite and punch up all the scripts. Also, finding new ways to fit it together is a whole other way to make the thing new for us. Mostly, we just like hanging out and this is a great excuse.” Lowenstein agreed.

Naturally runs Sept. 8-16, at various times, in the gym at False Creek Community Centre on Granville Island. The 55-minute show is rated 14+ for coarse language and sexual content. Running Sept. 7-17 at the Firehall Arts Centre, also at various times, is the Canadian première of Cry-Baby: The Musical!, which is being presented by Awkward Stage Productions. It, too, is rated 14+ for the same reasons.

Jewish community member Erika Babins, who is artistic associate of Awkward Stage, choreographed the Fringe production, which features “a cast of 16 emerging artists” and runs 90 minutes.

photo - Erika Babins choreographed Awkward Stage’s production of Cry-Baby: The Musical! — Erika Babins choreographed Awkward Stage’s production of Cry-Baby: The Musical! *(photo from Awkward Stage)*

“It’s 1950s Baltimore, the conservative squares face off against the leather-clad delinquents in this rockabilly musical based on John Waters’ cult film,” reads the press release. The 2008 Broadway show was nominated for four Tony Awards, including best choreography, and won a Drama Desk Award for outstanding choreography. So, where does Babins begin?

“I start my choreographic process by obsessively listening to the music of the show so that it can live in my body,” Babins told the Independent. “Before we start rehearsals, I’ll meet with the director and we’ll talk through the shape of the show so that we know what purpose each song serves in the show, where we’re coming from and where we’re going, and how we’re going to get there.

“Then, when I get the cast in the room, I can take the story I know I’m going to tell and use them to tell it, using movement and music as my storytelling techniques. If I’m really stuck about how to tell a part of the story, I might look up a video or two on YouTube to see how a different company made something work, but I’m careful to only watch it once so that it only ever is for inspiration and I don’t accidentally steal something.”

Awkward Stage decided to mount Cry-Baby for several reasons. “Awkward has made a tradition out of presenting hilarious, and culturally relevant, full-scale musicals at the Fringe Festival,” said Babins. “Cry-Baby: The Musical came to us via artistic director Andy Toth. He brought it forward as a show that features a mostly young cast, great music and a lot of interesting and fleshed out female characters. Not only that, the messages in the show about systematic prejudices, classism and living your own truth so long as it’s not hurting anyone else, are still so relevant today.”

This is Awkward’s eighth musical at the Fringe Festival. “In that time,” noted Babins, “we’ve won three Pick-of-the-Fringe’s and the Joanna Maratta Award. We are committed to bridging the gap for emerging artists coming into the professional theatre scene in Vancouver and paying our artists for their efforts.”

For the full Fringe schedule and tickets ($14), visit vancouverfringe.com. (Note: a $5 Fringe membership is required for all shows.)

What is after death?

Theo Budd as CB, Eric Biskupski as Beethoven, Erika Babins as CB’s Sister and Ryan Nunez as Van in Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead, which runs June 8-11 at CBC Studio 700. (photo by Javier Sotres)

It would be interesting to know what Peanuts creator Charles M. Schultz would have thought of Bert V. Royal’s Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead, which premièred several years after Schultz passed away. Described as an “unauthorized parody” of the well-known cartoon strip, it seems more serious in its imagining of Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus and the rest of the gang as teenagers.

photo - Erika Babins plays CB’s Sister in Awkward Stage Productions’ presentation of Dog Sees God at CBC Studio 700, which opens June 9 — Erika Babins plays CB’s Sister in Awkward Stage Productions’ presentation of Dog Sees God at CBC Studio 700, which opens June 9. (photo from Awkward Stage)

Presented by Awkward Stage Productions next week, June 8-11, the show isn’t part of Awkward Stage’s regular season, said Jewish community member Erika Babins, who plays the character CB’s Sister. “This project sprung from a night of hanging out with friends and we were all lamenting the lack of opportunity to really sink our teeth into a meaty and relevant piece of theatre,” she explained. “I’m an artistic associate for Awkward Stage and I was chatting with artistic director Andy Toth, who more or less said, ‘This sounds like a show that Awkward Stage should be a part of.’ So, we’ve had the benefit of the support and connections that Awkward Stage has in the theatre community and as a not-for-profit, but we are producing it as a collective of emerging artists.”

The Wikipedia entry on the play goes into detail about the plot. In short, after CB (Charlie Brown) and his sister (Sally) hold a funeral for their dog (Snoopy), which degenerates into an argument, CB goes on a mission to determine what happens to us after we die. Among many other things, we find out that CB loves Beethoven (Schroeder) and they hook up, but Matt (Pig-Pen) can’t accept the relationship, so he harasses Beethoven, who eventually commits suicide. Also part of the story is that Van’s Sister (which would be Lucy, with Van being Linus) has been “institutionalized for setting the Little Red-Haired Girl’s hair on fire.”

“The only thing I would add,” said Babins about the Wiki synopsis, “is that the whole play is bookended within the context of CB writing a letter to his old pen pal.” The pen pal has the initials CS, referring to Schultz.

“The target audience for this play is anyone who is a teenager now or remembers being a teenager,” said Babins. “There is a lot of swearing and heavy subject matter so parental guidance is advised and it is probably not appropriate for elementary school-aged children.”

The promotional material for the Awkward Stage production notes, “Dog Sees God shines a light on homophobia, drug use, pedophilia, suicide, eating disorders, teen violence, rebellion, sex, mental illness and self-identity. And it’s funny!”

“I was taught at theatre school that comedy comes from the characters not realizing they’re doing something funny, and these characters definitely don’t know they’re being funny,” Babins said. “For them, everything that is happening to their group of friends is the worst thing ever but, for the audience, it’s an opportunity to look back and laugh at the dramatic highs and lows that are adolescence.”

photo - Theo Budd as CB and Erika Babins as CB's Sister — Theo Budd as CB and Erika Babins as CB’s Sister. *(photo by Javier Sotres)*

She describes her character as “a bit of an outcast herself. She’s younger than the other characters and, as such, is not included in their tight-knit group. She spends the course of the play drastically altering her persona in an attempt to figure out where she actually belongs. Without giving too much of the story away, she does find her way back to a close relationship with her brother, who she grew up admiring.”

Babins added, “One of CB’s big arcs in the play is trying to decide on what he thinks happens after you die, and each of his friends has a very different answer for him. Though none of the of the answers is expressly Jewish, it’s an interesting lens to look at how these teenagers interpret religion in a secular small town.”

Directed by Sarah Harrison, Dog Sees God previews at CBC Studio 700 on June 8, 8 p.m., and opens there June 9, 8 p.m., with performances June 10, 7 and 9:30 p.m., and June 11, 2 p.m. Tickets are $21, with $1 of every ticket sold going into the profit share for the cast and creative team (the preview is two-for-one). For tickets, visit dogseesgodvancouver.brownpapertickets.ca.

Goodnight boredom

Left to right: Kazz Leskard (Iago), Claire Rice (Desdemona) and Courtney Shields (Constance) in Awkward Productions’ Goodnight Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet. (photo by Derek Fu)

Have you ever wished you could change the course of a play, making the plot … well … just a little bit different?

What would have happened if someone had told Othello that Iago was tricking him? What if Romeo and Juliet hadn’t died? Would the plays have been successful as comedies and not tragedies?

These are the questions taken on in Awkward Productions’ Goodnight Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet, part of the first annual Fakespeare Festival.

Written by the award-winning Ann-Marie MacDonald, Goodnight Desdemona is an outlandish and hilarious romp that follows associate professor Constance Ledbelly (Courtney Shields), who is trying to prove a peculiar notion.

Doing her PhD in Shakespearean literature, her thesis revolves around a made-up tome written in code, called the Gustav Manuscript. She believes the work proves that Othello and Romeo and Juliet were originally written by an author who had included a wise fool and that the plays were supposed to be comedies. Shakespeare, she posits, got rid of the fool, turning them into tragedies. If she can only decipher the code, she can find out the identity of the fool and that will lead her to the original playwright.

The theory is laughed at by her colleagues, including a professor for whom she works (and with whom she is in love), who takes advantage of her desire to please him by having her write all his papers. Her work garners him a post at Oxford, which she believes she deserved, and, to top it off, he is running off with another woman, leaving her alone and out of a job.

Disgusted with herself, feeling hurt and betrayed, she begins to trash her office and finds herself transported into the world of Shakespeare, first landing in Othello, when Iago is about to trick Othello into thinking Desdemona has been unfaithful, and next in Romeo and Juliet, as Tybalt is about to kill Mercutio.

Like Alice in Wonderland, Constance is at first bewildered by her surroundings, but, as she is an expert in Shakespeare, she easily comes up with a backstory and picks up the language of the time. She impresses everyone with her knowledge and is accepted as a contemporary, allowing her to proceed on her quest to find the fool that Shakespeare had eliminated and, from there, find the real author.

But, her presence changes the course of events, and the two tragedies become comedies. This is where the play really takes off.

While in Venice, she reveals Iago’s trickery and befriends Desdemona, who, in turn, helps Constance find her own confidence, but also encourages her to revel in killing, which turns Constance’s stomach (being a vegetarian) and causes her to question her usefulness.

“Next to Desdemona, I’m roadkill,” a dejected Constance laments.

In Verona, the turn of events leads to a squabbling marriage between Romeo and Juliet, both of whom fall in love with Constance, leading Romeo to dress in drag, thinking Constance is a lesbian. The thought excites Juliet, who revels in the idea of a girl-on-girl tryst.

The hilarity of these ludicrous set-ups is enhanced by the dazzling wordplay that infuses MacDonald’s script. A “creep” becomes a “base annoysome knave,” for example. Calling herself an academic from Queens, Desdemona believes that Constance is referring to the queen of the Amazons and treats her as one. When Constance appears in Verona, she’s wearing pants and is mistaken for a boy, with uproarious results.

In the end, Constance finds her fool in an unexpected place (alas), and returns home with the confidence to finish her paper, academic derision be damned.

Though the dialogue is lightning-fast and the one-liners are nonstop, Shields carries the weight of the wordy script brilliantly. Jewish community member Zach Wolfman as Mercutio (as well as numerous other characters) calls upon his Shakespeare training to add his own comedic nuance to the production.

It’s not surprising that MacDonald has won several awards for this literary tour de force, including a Governor General’s Award and Canadian Authors Association Award. It is definitely one not to miss.

The Fakespeare Festival features Goodnight Desdemona, as well as Titus Andronicus: The Light and Delightful Musical Comedy of Titus Andronicus. Both plays run at York Theatre, 639 Commercial Dr., until Aug. 28. Tickets are available from tickets.thecultch.com or 604-251-1363.

Baila Lazarus is a freelance writer and media trainer in Vancouver. Her consulting work can be seen at phase2coaching.com.

Bard play becomes musical

Erika Babins, choreographer, and Zach Wolfman, actor, in Awkward Stage Productions’ Titus, written by Andrew Wade and Jenny Andersen. (photo by Corwin Ferguson)

In its sixth appearance at the Vancouver Fringe Festival, Awkward Stage Productions is presenting its first original work: Titus: The Light and Delightful Musical Comedy of Titus Andronicus, written by Andrew Wade and Jenny Andersen.

“Young William Shakespeare wants a hit,” reads the musical’s description. “After cutesy romances and sweeping histories, the young bard is attempting to fold together another blockbuster. He bemoans that no one seems to care for his Titus Andronicus! It seems the violence is not what people want – or at least they won’t admit it. Perhaps it just needs to be presented a little more lightly and delightfully?” Enter Wade and Andersen.

The idea came to Wade when he was acting in a fundraiser production of Titus Andronicus at the University of Victoria.

“I was playing Aemilius and Quintus, and it struck me as so ridiculous how there is a scene where people around him are deciding his fate – accusing him of murder and then sentencing him to be beheaded – and he doesn’t have a single line in his own defence,” Wade told the Independent. “The original play is full of strange, silly moments like that…. During the closing night gathering for that show, I sketched out a one-page brainstorm of ideas if the silly elements to this deeply tragic play were to be highlighted and set to music. I then put that page in a folder and left it alone for four years. And then I pitched the show to Awkward Stage.

“Titus Andronicus has been an excellent vehicle for lampooning [or] sending-up musicals, Shakespeare and our society’s selective obsession with violence as entertainment. The Shakespearean play is so riddled with issues, plot holes and strange character choices, and yet it is also so very, very compelling and touching and human. And what a strange and wonderful musical comedy it turns out to be.”

This is the first writing collaboration between Wade and Andersen, though they have acted together previously.

“While a part of that show,” said Wade, “she mentioned how she might want to write music for a musical at some point.” He made a note to follow up on that discussion and, when he started the first draft of Titus with a different composer and it wasn’t working out, Andersen came aboard, “and our styles clicked.”

“For most of the music, I started by writing some lyrics and sent them her way,” he explained. “Some songs, I added a little voice recording of what it ‘could’ sound like. For others, I included little taglines like ‘sounds like an instructional song from The Sound of Music, but sexier.’ A few of the songs, all I sent her were the words, and Jenny created musical masterpieces from those words, which blew me away.

“And then we would massage the lyrics back and forth for musicality and staging purposes, her telling me I need to cut or add a stanza here or there, me realizing the character needs to elaborate more here and there – a solid, near-egoless workshopping experience. We both dearly treasure what we have created, but we are also both willing to get rid of whatever isn’t working, or fix whatever needs tweaking. I am super-happy with how the collaborative process has gone thus far.”

When Andersen came on board, she said, “a first draft of the book/lyrics had already been written, and I was asked to set it musically.” So, she had no input into the musical’s topic and, she admitted, “a work from the Shakespearean canon would not have been the text I’d have settled on for my first foray into musical theatre composition.”

However, as she has worked with the story, she said, “I’m increasingly realizing the genius in picking this specific play. I think if we had made a musical comedy out of any other Shakespearean work, we would have received polite nods and moderate interest. When we say we’re setting Titus Andronicus as a musical, however, the (nearly universal) response is, ‘That play? How do you make a musical comedy out of that play?!’

“The fact that it’s widely recognized as Shakespeare’s darkest tragedy gives us a few advantages. Of course, people are curious to see how the original text is turned on its ear. More importantly, I think it serves as a statement of what we as a society find funny, what we find acceptable and what we still find as gruesome as we did in Shakespearean times. Why can we often find ourselves laughing at violence, mutilation, murder as comedic tropes, when other issues are still off limits as comedic fodder? Why should any of it be funny, really? What does that say about ourselves as a society?”

Since Andersen came later into the creative process, she said, “For the most part, in my first musical draft, I took Andrew’s lyrics, edited them slightly for smoother musical form/phrasing/syllabic purposes and tried to capture the overall mood of plot and character. We then sat down and parsed out the lyrics to make them universally relevant, to clean up the form and to make sure they were saying what we needed them to say about each situation. For the music, that meant everything from small lyrical tweaks to brand new sections and complete rewrites of certain songs. We went back and forth after that point (often electronically; I think we were in the same room a total of three or four days!) to finesse the flow of the piece. (We literally wrote one of the songs two days before rehearsal started for Fringe!)”

Awkward Stage was created in 2010 “to fill a perceived void of real-life performance and production opportunities for youth in that awkward transition from play acting to professional employment.” As with all its productions, Titus features a cast, crew and creative team “aged 15 to 30ish.”

“Titus has a wide range of ages and experience levels in the show and it’s great to be able to watch them all come together as a cast,” said Awkward artistic associate Erika Babins, who choreographed the musical. “The teenagers in the show are fearless and dive right into the comedic and dramatic high points in the text. During any down time in the rehearsal hall, you’ll find cast members lending their strengths to each other to bring up the overall level of the show.”

When asked about any highlights she could share, she said, “It’s hard to describe some of the funniest moments of choreography without giving away a whole bunch of spoilers but there is a super-serious rhythmic gymnastic dance (as serious as you can be while flitting about with a ribbon), communication through tap dancing, and both life-size and miniature deer prancing around the forest.”

Zach Wolfman plays Bassianus, the late emperor Caesar’s son, younger brother to Saturninus. For the role, he said, “I definitely draw inspiration from my relationship to my brother Jake, who is two years younger than me, and into everything that I’m not – he’s the athlete, sport guy, and I’m the theatrical one. We are both kind of fighting for attention from our parents: my parents divide their time between watching him and my sister in sports games, and me in theatre.

“Professionally, I had a fair amount of Shakespeare training at UBC and through Canada’s National Voice Intensive. It’s fun to examine the Shakespearean qualities that permeate through Andrew Wade’s script, and then go back and look at Shakespeare’s original play.

“I’ve played a lot of wimpy, ineffective princes, who are fighting to prove themselves in some manner or another, and that helps,” he added. “The idealism of Bassianus and the fantasy world that he lives in remind me of a lot of other roles I’ve played – characters falling in love for the first time, young love in a really tender, awkward stage. That kind of new romance seems to breed a certain over-optimistic viewpoint, or rose-tinted perspective in people. Things are new and fresh and awesome, so it’s easy to forget that everyone around you wants to kill you.

“The most challenging aspect of this show is finding the balance between truth and comedy. The show is so fast and funny that you have to fight hard to keep up while you’re laughing. It helps a lot that Andy Toth, our director, is on the side of finding the real heart and truth in this show. Andy opened a rehearsal one day by showing us a great TED Talk by Peter McGraw called What Makes Things Funny. McGraw basically says that, for something to stand out as funny, it needs to step outside of the norm, or background of normal, everyday reality. This show is a roller coaster that goes far off the rails, but is still grounded in characters with real wants, desires and ambitions. Although the show is very dark, at the core, it is a delightful comedy.”

About the most fun aspect of the show, Wolfman said, it “lies in the people I get to work with. Working on this show with three other classmates from UBC is a treat. I feel lucky to be learning so much from Jenny Anderson and Andy Toth every day in rehearsal. Andy drops wisdom bombs left, right and centre and is the perfect person to be directing new work because he asks the tough questions. Andy, Jenny and Erika Babins really bring Andrew Wade’s script to life. Everyone is crazy talented, and I am often in flux between laughter and utter shock.”

Titus is at the Firehall Arts Centre Sept. 10-20. For times, tickets ($14 plus one-time $5 Fringe membership) and the full Fringe schedule, visit vancouverfringe.com.