Atlantic Fringe Fest: Wave On, Ocean Blue & Funny, Daddy
If you haven’t left town for the long weekend, you’ll be
happy to know that in Halifax a footlights-filled weekend awaits you. Today
through holiday Monday, Atlantic
Fringe Festival performances take the stage all afternoon and evening. And
if you are away, you can still get your Fringe Fix next week until September 8th!
Two of the productions that open today are Wave On,
Ocean Blue (2:45pm at the Museum of Natural History) and Funny, Daddy
(7pm at Neptune Studio).
Wave On, Ocean Blue
Last year, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia’s Kenzie Delo made
his Atlantic Fringe debut with his play If We Were More. The actor,
playwright, Busker and Halifax Citadel interpreter returns to the festival with
his heated fishing village drama, Wave On, Ocean Blue.
Tell us a little bit about your background in theatre/performance/writing.
KD: I've been acting since grade 7, when I starred
in a middle school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The role of
Puck was split between me and 5 other people, which was clearly enough to make
me want to do more performance. I kept with it, and now I write, direct, and
act.
What inspired you to write
Wave On, Ocean Blue?
KD: I've always been a huge fan of the atmosphere
of small shanty towns on the east coast. As a child, my family and I would
often go to Peggy's Cove and Fisherman's Cove, and we made a lot of summer
trips to P.E.I., and the feeling of being there, in the Maritimes, has always
made me feel at home.
In a nutshell what is Wave
On, Ocean Blue about?
KD: Gary Sharpe and Mickey MacTavish live in a
small fishing community which hugs the Eastern North American coastline during
the mid-1930s. They, and their wives, live a fairly routine life. While their
husbands fish, the wives, Gabby and Mary, clean and socialize. The routine gets
given what for, however, when Drew comes into town. Drew is a city boy who
wastes no time in causing a ruckus, made all the worse by a storm that Gary and
Mickey wonder if they can brave.
What do you envision
audience members will take away from the performances?
KD: Ideally, people will get a sense of the
importance of loyalty and of a bit of tradition from this show. If I had to
pick one thing, though, I would want people to feel that sense of how unique it
is to live on the edge of the ocean. It really is something special.
What are you looking
forward to at this year's Fringe Fest?
KD: Well, my brother has a show in the Festival, as
well. It's called Monument Valley, and it's looking awfully good. It's
also just really amazing to be a part of the theatre scene here in Halifax.
Being a contributor to the Fringe Festival gives you a real feeling of
community.
Wave On, Ocean Blue
SATURDAY, AUG
31 • 2:45pm
SUNDAY, SEPT 1 • 8:00pm
MONDAY, SEPT 2 • 10:45pm
THURSDAY, SEPT 5 • 6:45pm
SUNDAY, SEPT 1 • 8:00pm
MONDAY, SEPT 2 • 10:45pm
THURSDAY, SEPT 5 • 6:45pm
SATURDAY, SEPT
7 • 9:00pm
SUNDAY, SEPT 8
• 4pm
~Museum of Natural History Project Room
Funny, Daddy
Who’s your daddy? For all things comedy, Lloyd Ravn
is! “His material is autobiographical in
nature, focusing on his life as a husband, father of three, former chef, and
the youngest person named Lloyd most people have ever met,” shares his bio
featured on the website for Bay of Funny,
a Maritime comedy circuit company he founded. In Funny, Daddy the Sussex,
New Brunswick native will be sharing stories of fatherhood in his lively
gut-busting style, while weaving in a more serious side that’s sure to pull at
the heart strings. The Canada’s Next Top Comic finalist (2011), stand-up
comedian and radio host has one goal in mind—to remind us to find the funny
during the most painful moments of life.
What got you into stand-up comedy and then founding
Bay of Funny?
LR: I've been performing
standup since 2006, when I hit my first open mic in Toronto. It was a lifetime
dream, ever since I first saw Howie Mandel on the Alan Thicke show in 1982 (I
was 10). It took a while to get up the courage to do it, but as soon as I did,
I was hooked. My family and I moved home to Sussex NB in 2010 and I realized
there is a demand for standup in this region and very little supply outside of
the main cities, so I came up with the idea of starting a circuit around the
Maritimes. This past October I was caught up in a mass layoff at work and
decided to register the Bay of Funny business name and see if I could make a go
of it! So far, so good!
In a nutshell what does Funny, Daddy entail?
LR: Funny, Daddy is
the story of how I've discovered, through my time as a parent, the therapeutic
power of laughter. It's a mix of my standup material alongside some more
serious stories including the story of the time my son spent as an inpatient at
the IWK in Halifax. I learned a lot from the doctors, nurses and therapists
there about the importance of finding funny things when there's nothing funny
going on. It's a "you'll laugh, you'll cry" kind of show.
What do you envision audience members will take away
from the performances?
LR: Hopefully sore cheeks, and
a reminder of the importance of having a laugh even when things look bleak…especially
when things look bleak.
What are you looking forward to at this year's Fringe Fest?
LR: I love Halifax
audiences. And I just finished my first fringe experience at Fundy Fringe in
Saint John where I got hooked on Fringing!
How do you come up with your funny material?
LR: Everything in this show
is at least based on fact. Maybe the punch lines stray from the facts a bit but
for the most part these things just happened and I wrote them down.
I talk a lot in Funny, Daddy about finding
funny where there isn't anything funny happening. My Dad was really good at
that and I've tried to carry that on so I think it all stems back to my Dad,
who plays a key role in the Funny, Daddy story.
Funny, Daddy
SATURDAY, AUG
31 • 7pm
SUNDAY, SEPT 1 • 6:45pm
SUNDAY, SEPT 8 • 3pm
Neptune StudioSUNDAY, SEPT 1 • 6:45pm
SUNDAY, SEPT 8 • 3pm
