Theatre Under the Gun

Theatre Under the Gun: The Social Distancing Edition
April 21, 2020 – was a huge success! An enormous thank you to everyone involved, including the artists, the Vancouver Fringe and all the people who tuned in and watched the proceedings.

Theatre Under the Gun will be back at some point in the future, but for now you can watch this years shows on our YouTube channel. Don’t forget to like and subscribe to our channel!

Francois – by Color Sound Lab
Unzipped – by Sour Dog Theatre
The Muff Shop – by Dusty Foot Productions
Birthday Without Candles – by Mid-Youth Crisis
Apocalyptic Rhapsody – by The House Collective
3 Clowns – created by Woe Horsey

It’s deadline driven, insomnia fuelled creation at its best. Theatre Under the Gun, the 48-hour play creation challenge is back! This time with some social-distance-friendly changes!

The rules are the same. Six theatre companies receive an inspiration package, and have only 48 hours to race against the clock and create an original piece of theatre! But what does “theatre” look like when the performers and audiences are all isolated at home? We challenged these six groups to show us! They will have 48 hours to create and record a 10-minute play, and we’ll all watch their creations together on April 21 on a live stream. 

Their creations will surprise, invite, enthral, terrify, provoke and entertain you wherever you happen to be.

Hosted by Monster Theatre and co-presented by the Vancouver FringeTheatre Under the Gun is one of the most epic, exciting, surprising, and electric theatre events of the season.

Featuring: 

Woe Horsey
Colour Sound Lab
The House Collective
Dusty Foot Productions
Sour Dog Theatre
Mid-youth crisis

THE HOUSE COLLECTIVE (Jackie Blackmore, Sara Bynoe, Nita Bowerman & Donna Soares)

The House Collective is a collection of four multidisciplinary artists who met working in the theatre lobby of Performance Works. Between them, they have a total of 68 years of Front of House experience and 114 years of acting experience. Their debut as a collective will be online at Theatre Under The Gun 2020!

WOAH HORSEY (Tahina Awan, Jessica Gabriel and Priscilla Costa)

Shapeshifters from the 7th Dimension, they met several lifetimes ago as witches and made a soul contract to reincarnate and cast spells together. Upon finding a golden donkey turd in the 13th century the trio set out to conjure the spirit of the trickster. This astral dream manifested itself in the 21st century in the fall of 2019 through The Assembly; a 12 womxn collective of clowns in Vancouver, BC. Immediate sparks darted across the sold-out stage of the Redgate Revue during the “Life’s a Drag” Assembly show those 3 nights and the trio just knew there were more fires for them to ignite. Woe Horsey share a curiosity in both the comedy and pathos of life, courageously digging up the raw embodied human experience – tender, absurd, tragic and playful – through character shapeshifting, bouffon, puppetry manipulation, ecstatic or absurd movement and magic.  Woe Horsey can’t wait for this special opportunity to conjure a new golden turd nugget for the Theatre Under the Gun 2020 Festival! 

MID-YOUTH CRISIS (Zachary Dean Friesen, Jacqueline Welbers, Paul Jacob Little, Coan Roik)

Mid Youth Crisis is a new theatre company made up of four young artists whose aim is to tell fresh, new, exciting stories that make you think and most importantly make you feel. Each member approaches the work from a different background and with a different perspective. Collectively we have experience in improv, dance, music, theatre, and film. With 2 members hailing from Calgary, one from Winnipeg, and one from Mexico we all came to Vancouver at different points to pursue our love of acting. Since we’ve all been here beautiful friendships and professional partnerships have been formed, and now we’ve all come together as one for your entertainment! 

SOUR DOG THEATRE (Baraka Rahmani, Sarah Ferguson, Lili Beaudoin, Ali Froggatt, Claire Love Wilson)

After their huge success in Theatre Under the Gun 2019, Sour Dog is back! Sour Dog Theatre was founded in 2015 in Calgary, then relocated to Vancouver in 2018. Since then we have produced over 50 improv shows, 4 original formats, 2 Canadian Fringe Festival runs, The Canmore International Improv Festival, and 4 scripted play productions. Our mandate is to create work that explores what connects and disconnects us as human beings. With a strong value for honest storytelling we are constantly on the search for universal truth within the human experience. We strive to create theatrical experiences that are playful, poignant and professional, whether it be improvisation or scripted theatre.

DUSTY FOOT PRODUCTIONS (Patricia Trinh, Maddison Silva, Marguerite Hanna)

Dusty Foot Productions is an emerging, female (identifying) & non-binary centric, interdisciplinary, independent theatre company. Dusty Foot Productions launched in Vancouver B.C. with the world premiere of “Probability,” written and directed by emerging artist Patricia Trinh; presented by rEvolver Theatre Festival 2018. September 2019 DFP premiered a second production “Red Glimmer,” written and directed by Founder Patricia Trinh; presented at Vancouver Fringe Festival. DFP is currently in the development room creating a new work, with the dramaturgical mentorship of The Frank Theatre. Dusty Foot Productions aims to focus on producing new, interdisciplinary, queer centric theatre that gives voice to the marginalized outcast, tackling topics such as: Gender Equality, LGBTQ2S Equality, Diaspora and Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside Community. DFP’s mandate is creating strong, colour conscious, female/non-binary leading role opportunities by shining light on new work with such roles at the forefront and producing remounts with an all female/non-binary identifying casts.

COLOUR SOUND LAB (Dusty Hagerüd, Tara Travis)

Color Sound Lab is a Vancouver based puppet company with a cavalcade cast of humans, animals, creatures and monsters from hand & rod, table top, bunraku, and marionettes providing puppetry for film, television, and love performance striving to push the boundaries of style & function in puppetry.