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Workin Summer
Hillside Festival and Home County were both wonderful weekends full of fun workshop collaborations with great musicians, and hearing lots of good music…sharing stages with The Brothers Creegan, The Acorn, Rae Spoon, James Gordon, Jenny Whiteley, Oh Suzanna, Catherine McClelland, Melissa McClelland, Coco Love Alcorn, Brian McMillan…and getting to play with my whole band at Hillside, what a treat.
This week, on Augst 7, the SummerWorks Festival opens in Toronto — a festival of independent theatre and music which i have been involved in over the years (it’s where Clean Irene & Dirty Maxine premiered, and won the jury prize — so of course i have sweet associations..). This year, i am taking part in the festival with three different things, all of which i am pretty stoked about:
Number one! The festival is doing a music series this year for the first time, so on August 15th, I am playing (with band) as the opening act for Rock Plaza Central.
Number two! I am directing a show by my friend Morgan Jones Phillips, called The Emergency Monologues. It is all about his experience working as a paramedic in Toronto for the last 5 years — and his stories are AMAZING. you will pee your pants laughing, and be horrified and amused and amazed.
Number three! I am acting in The Pastor Phelps Project: a fundamentalist cabaret. Speaking of horrified, amused and amazed….I play Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of Pastor Fred Phelps, and a leader of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas: the hate-mongering, homophobic church who picket AIDS funerals and dead soldiers funerals…who will apparently be in attendance at the opening of the show this Thursday, picketing at our production (!) en route to Alberta where they’ll be picketing at a production of the Laramie Project. See their press release: 20080801_pastor-phelps-project-toronto
Check out the media frenzy that has happened since we discovered the Westboro Baptist’s intention to picket the show:Â The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, CityTV, Global TV all covered it…and then they didn’t show (The Toronto Sun reports).
Come check out the live action: the show takes place in the back room of The Cameron House, August 7-17 www.summerworks.ca
1 comment on “Workin Summer”
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So those pesky Westboro Baptists didn’t make it to their own protest: they got stopped at the border. Lucky for them, as they would have been greeted by a gathering of over 200 counter-protesters who gathered outside the Cameron House to show then how unwelcome their hate is in Canada. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XHU40rcF3Y