HNT #4 - '5 of a Kind' a Fringe play

Wow is it Thursday already?! Man did this one sneak up on me. Looking at it, I think a few more might be doing that in the near future.... so I better hold back on some of the half-nekkid photos.... ;-)

For today's HNT I will finally get around to the play I produced. Though it has some preamble before the photo.... so bear with me.

As mentioned previously mentioned (my first HNT post), I lived in the UK briefly. While there my good friend Hugh Kemeny came to visit. He came just around the time I left my job. I went off to attempt to bicycle from Land's End, Cornwall to John O'Groats, Scotland (a foolish journey that resulted in 3 days of bicycling - 4 if you count the day to get to Land's End - in the course of 10 days. At about the 80th mile I hit pavement and ended up in my first and only ambulance ride - with a couple of cute medics - and 5 stitches in my chin).

Hugh was planning on meeting up with me in Scotland. Instead I met up with him, along with another friend of mine, Matt, in Birmingham, backpacking it after the accident. After some time there I continued on to Scotland (I still made it to John O'Groats), and Hugh tagged along for some of that. We both made it back to Birmingham for Pride (2005), as we promised Matt and a mate of his Mark.

The story of the play is based on our journeys. Primarily Hugh’s time with Matt and Mark, and romantic interest with a bloke named Tom. He used some of my experiences to attempt to add more interest to the story (such as my cycling accident and journey from Land’s End to John O’Groats).

There is more information on the play (called '5 of a Kind') through his website: HughKemeny.ca

These events happened in April and May 2005, and around October 2006 Hugh was deep in writing the play, and very keen to get it produced at Fringe Theatre Festivals. I fronted the money to enter him in the Winnipeg, Saskatoon and Edmonton Fringes for 2007. And we managed to get into all 3 festivals.

My volunteering with the Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival meant that I had contact with a fellow volunteer, Adrian, who was willing to direct the play. Once the script was complete, and we had our director, we went out in search of actors.

The play has 5 main characters (David, Evan, Mike, Roger and Sean) and 2 minor characters (Naked Guy & Pride Guy). As I was fronting all the money, I quickly became the producer, and my interest in being involved grew. So I gladly took on the 2 minor character roles (knowing full well that one was walking across the stage naked).

Of the other 5 actors, 4 were selected in Edmonton, and 1 in Calgary (where I reside). Adrian lives in Grande Prairie, farther north of Edmonton than Calgary is south of Edmonton. So Edmonton was previously selected as our rehearsal city.

Roll Call: David was played by Sean (Edmonton), Evan by Sam (Calgary), Mike by Sammy (Edmonton), Roger by Alex (Edmonton), Sean by Kevin (Edmonton), and Naked/Pride Guy by me (Eric - Calgary).

June was rehearsals on weekend. Early July was final rehearsals, as mid July was the Winnipeg Fringe. The 7 of us (6 actors and Adrian directing/stage managing), drove the 1,350 km from Edmonton to Winnipeg in two days.

Winnipeg was a decent run for a new play, by a new author. Despite the fact we had a 300 seat venue (average 40 people per night), and critics panning it, citing most of all the multitude of set changes.

After the warm up in Winnipeg, we ventured to the Saskatoon Fringe (830 km back towards Edmonton). Where things slightly fell apart. One of the cast members asked to return home for personal reasons, I granted this provided we only cancel 3 of our 6 shows. The rest of the cast, along with Adrian returned to Edmonton during this time to promote our show there. After difficulty getting in contact with the actor that made the request, I finally got a hold only for him to informed me that he was to sick to perform the last two shows (we did one show before everyone returned to Alberta). So in the end I cancelled those as well.

I returned to Edmonton a little annoyed (as was most of the rest of the cast) - since my money was on the line here. The rest of the cast had agreed to profit sharing. With the cancellation of the Saskatoon shows it became very unlikely for us to break even (in the end I was still a grand or two in the hole).

The Edmonton Fringe run went fairly well, despite more problems with this one actor.

It was in Edmonton that we got one of our performances filmed. The photo below is a still shot from the DVD.

Just a little more about the play itself:
“An adventure of friendship, love, deception, betrayal, and self discovery.”
Although it was a gay theme play, Hugh and I were the only (openly) gay people involved in this production of the play.
Of the others, only one will I voice my opinion of, since I think part of his problems with the play was that he wanted more than just acting experience. But as producer I was not going to go there with him (or any of them).

About the photo: As previously mentioned, this is a still shot taken from the DVD - which was filmed on Wednesday 22 August 2007.

It is from the gay sauna scene, where David (the man Evan is infatuated with - sitting on the far left) convinces both Evan (sitting in the middle) and Sean (sitting on the right) to go to the sauna. Evan is interested, having never been. Sean tags along mostly because Evan is going, as Sean is not comfortable with nudity. David and Evan are gay, Sean is bi. As is typical in saunas, a man (Naked Guy) advertising himself, in this case showing his wares, walks past.
The point of this scene (which the critics did not get) was to show the reaction of the 3 main characters to a naked man: David is fixated, nearly drooling. Evan is interested, but more concerned with his friend Sean. Sean is horrified.


I was going to add a couple short videos here (the scene the picture is from and another), however I am not entirely sure how to get a clip from the DVD, yet.