One of Victoria’s more successful independent threatre productions recently received the rather exciting news that they’d won a chance to tour their show at various Canadian Fringe festivals this summer. The creators of Kitt & Jane: An Interactive Survival Guide to the Near-Post-Apocalyptic Future, a local theatre favourite the past couple of years, won the Canadian Fringe Lottery and will be hitting theatre festivals in seven cities this coming summer.
“We work really hard to have the opportunity to create shows,” says the show’s director Kathleen Greenfield. “This is the first opportunity that we have won that can be chalked up to pure luck! We immediately went into planning mode. Should we fly or drive? How should we raise money? What cities should we go to? Who can we get to sponsor our meals?”
Choosing Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and their home base of Victoria, Greenfield and co-creators/co-stars Ingrid Hansen and Rod Peter Jr. are looking forward to seeing how their modern-day fable about two hyperactive 14-year-olds preparing us for the end of the world goes over on audiences in different cities.
“A Fringe tour is a place to smash your show up against audiences and hone it to perfection, quite possibly the best party of the year, and an immense amount of work,” explains Hansen. “It’s addictive, it’s a test of endurance, a test of your friendship, and it’s a festival not to be missed, whatever city you’re in. Fringe is one of those rare places in Canadian culture where you feel a sense of true community, of love and ideas being exchanged, risks being taken.”
One of only five Canadian productions picked in the lottery, Hansen and her cohorts understand the epic-ness of their play’s selection, and they don’t plan on taking it for granted.
“Many people apply many years in a row and never win the lotto,” says Hansen. “Although I do know of one friend who won the lottery, I believe. three years in a row? There was a Facebook thread of friends threatening him if he won a fourth year in a row.”
A sequel to Hansen’s one-person play, Little Orange Man, putting Kitt & Jane on a tour means Peter will be the brunt of a particularly funny part of the play, night after night.
“I’m happy…” jokes Peter, sarcastically, “happy that I get to have cake smashed into my face for three and half months.”
In the meantime, the trio is planning two Christmas-themed fundraiser shows to purchase a “dirty old van to drive across the continent next summer,” according to Hansen. Details on those shows are listed below.
Kitt & Jane: An Apocalyptic Christmas Special
December 16-17, 8 pm
Intrepid Theatre Club, $15-$30
snafudance.com