Hosted by: JACQUELINE BENNETT & MATT CLARKE

Featuring: * Michelle Bardach (HAIR); * Lucas Blaney (THE WIZ, BARE: A POP OPERA, GREY GARDENS); * Melissa Braun (SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM); * Michael Brock (HAIR, THE WEDDING SINGER); * Daniel Chai (HAIR); * Braedon Cox (BARE: A POP OPERA); * Lena Dabrusin (BARE: A POP OPERA); * Jennifer Doan (THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD); * Brandyn Eddy  (TICK… TICK… BOOM!); * Natalee Fera (FORBIDDEN BROADWAY, UNCOMMON WOMEN – AND OTHERS); * Janet Glassford (NUNSENSE); * Emma Leigh Hillier (BARE: A POP OPERA); * Shauna Johannesen (CATHOLIC SCHOOL GIRLS); * Robyn Leigh Johnson (AUTOBAHN, HAIR); * Jennifer Kuhl (THE WIZ, …FORUM); * Aaron Lau (FORBIDDEN BROADWAY, THE WEDDING SINGER); * Amy Jean McElwain (HAIR); * Alex McMorran (SWEENEY TODD, THE WEDDING SINGER, THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD); * Ranae Miller (HAIR, GREY GARDENS); * David Nicks (SWEENEY TODD, FORBIDDEN BROADWAY, THE TEMPERAMENTALS); * Sean Parsons (RENT, THE WEDDING SINGER, HAIR, THE WIZ); * Christine Quintana (RENT, DOG SEES GOD, THE DISTANCE FROM HERE) * Celia Reid (NUNSENSE); * Emma Rendell (THE WIZ, THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD); * Hal Rogers (RENT, HAIR, THE WIZ, GREY GARDENS, BARE: A POP OPERA); * Ashley Siddals(TICK… TICK… BOOM!); * Keri Smith (THE LARAMIE PROJECT, HAIR, THE WEDDING SINGER, NUNSENSE); * Nicole Stevens (NUNSENSE); * Jennifer Suratos (RENT, SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM, BARE: A POP OPERA, THE WIZ); * Georgia Swinton (FORBIDDEN BROADWAY); * Veronika Sztopa (HAIR); * Cathy Wilmot (SWEENEY TODD, RENT, FORBIDDEN BROADWAY); * Sarah Wolfman-Robichaud (HAIR, THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD)

Did we mention there are only 100 tickets available? tickets@fightingchanceproductions.ca

This one night only event promises to be amazing, with songs and scenes from each of our 25 shows by an impressive (and very long) list of performers.  There will also be a silent and live auction with some terrific items to be had, cash bar, appetizers, and a room filled with terrific people joining together to support the arts.  Join us to celebrate and to raise money for our 2012/2013 Season, which we hope will be our best yet.

“25 and Still Fighting” will be on Friday 4 May at 8pm at the Jericho Arts Centre.  Tickets are $25 and are available through a cast member or by emailing tickets@fightingchanceproductions.ca   Please notes that we are limited to 100 tickets for this event and we expect them to go quickly, so if you wish to attend, get your tickets early.

Grey Gardens is the musical based on the 1975 documentary about the lives of Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, who were the aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. The documentary found them living as eccentric recluses in their shockingly decrepit mansion in the Hamptons.

The Tony Award winning musical, which ran on Broadway from 2006-2007, follows the mother/daughter due from their days as glamorous aristocrats to their later days living in squalor. At it’s core, Grey Gardens is about the complicated mother/daughter relationship between “Big Edie” and “Little Edie”.

Our production of Grey Gardens will run Wednesdays to Saturdays at 8pm at the Jericho Arts Centre from 5-19 May.  (Please note, we have an added 3pm matinee on Sunday, 13 May and NO SHOW on Friday 4 May, as that we have a special fundraising event that evening.  Tickets are $15-$25 and are available now through http://www.jerichoartscentre.com/

“Fighting Chance Productions Fights for Survival“

We remain optimistic and with the help of our supporters, donors and subscribers, we are confident that there is a strong future for Fighting Chance in the Vancouver theatre community.

It isn’t too late to donate. Visit the IndoGoGo campaign, buy tickets to “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” or send us an email (fightingchanceproductions@gmail.com) to find out how you can help.

Review Vancouver:  http://www.reviewvancouver.org/th_drood12.htm

Burnaby Now: http://www.burnabynow.com/Burnaby+actors+onstage+Mystery+Edwin+Drood/6091552/story.html

Come Dressed as You Are:  http://www.comedressedasyouare.com/2012/02/review-drood-unique-enjoyable-romp-with.html

BC Local News: http://www.bclocalnews.com/entertainment/140796713.html

Dan With a Twist: http://www.danwithatwist.com/2012/02/theatre-pick-mystery-of-edwin-drood.html

Playing February 15th – March 3rd at the Metro Theatre, tickets are now on-sale!

Starring Alex McMorran (John Jasper), Jack Rigg (Chairman), Sarah Wolfman-Robichaud (Drood), Jennifer Doan (Rosa Bud), Alfonso Banzon (Neville Landless), Emma Rendell (Helena Landless), Mike Wild (Reverend Crisparkle), Linda Sum (Princess Puffer), Chris Lam (Bazzard), James Walker (Durdles) and Jesse Setka (Deputy) – the talented ensemble features Gordon Bruce, Mitchell Bryce, Emma Cawood, Lindsay Corbett, Angela Cotton, Spencer Fisher, Jeremy Fornier-Hanlon, Emily Nadeau, Jessica Nicklin, Nicole Smashnuk and Andrew Wade.

The show will be directed by Ryan Mooney with music direction by Vashti Fairbairn and choreography by Dawn Ewen. Stage Management by Aliya Rozenberg, Set Design by Keita Selina, Lighting Design by Mark Eugster, Costumes by Cathy Wilmot.

Devin Pihlainen, a Guelph University theatre graduate, returns to FCP after a great performance in The Lieutenant of Inishmore last season to play legendary fashion designer Rudi Gernreich in The Temperamentals.

FCP: Who is Rudi Gernreich?

DP: He was a Hollywood costume designer, and he was the designer of the first thong and monokini, actually! He moved to the US from Vienna when he was 16. The play centers on Rudi’s romance with Harry Hay, which brought about the founding of the Mattachine Society.

FCP: How much responsibility do you feel playing a real life character?

DP: The historic background of this play is so important, that I really want to get it right, and do service to the playwright and to the story. You can get lost in preparation though – at some point you have to drop it and just get into the character. I like to err on the side of “feeling like Rudi” rather than being technically perfect in terms of the accent and mannerisms. If I can communicate the emotional aspects of Rudi’s journey and his conflict, then I’ll have done my job.

FCP: What does Rudi see in Harry?

DP: He’s attracted to the fighter. They come from very different backgrounds and have very different viewpoints, and Rudi loves arguments. Obviously there’s a physical attraction too, but the initial draw is an intellectual one.

FCP: You mentioned that the historic background of the show is really important…

DP: It is – but it’s as much about finding who you are and having the courage to be it. This story can change someone’s life if they let it – the history is just the foundation.

Devin Pihlainen stars in The Temperamentals by Jon Marens, directed by Ryan Mooney. November 22 – December 3, 2011 at the PAL Studio Theatre.

Brian Hinson has been onstage for years, most recently in Las Vegas, where he performed in Take Me Out, Cloud Nine, and Amadeus. In his first show with FCP, Brian Hinson leads the cast of  The Temperamentals as Harry Hay, who founded a number of LGBT organizations, including the Mattachine Society.

FCP: Tell us about Harry Hay.

BH: Harry was a founder of the Mattachine Society and other LGBT organizations. He never made the cover of Time Magazine, like Rudi did – he’s woefully unknown, given what he did.

FCP: What is Harry’s relationship with Rudi like?

BH: There’s this constant fluctuation and dichotomy between the freedom they can feel in certain places and situations, and the constant threat of being discovered. Sometimes they play with that line, the way they touch, because it’s exciting – Rudi wants to do that, and Harry is resistant at first, but Rudi helps him learn to relax, and learn not to try to conform into the mainstream, but to be himself . Harry’s relationship with Rudi has a back and forth aspect to it, in terms of how far they go.

Harry’s had lots of lovers before Rudi, but Rudi is the first one who’s ever challenged him and stood up to him, and although I think Harry likes to think he’s always the one in control, I think Rudi also has a lot of control, and Harry loves that about Rudi.

FCP: Harry’s also a Communist.

BH: Yes, but Harry loves the party for its principles, not necessarily for what was going on in Russia and the Eastern bloc countries in the 1950s – those countries were presenting a very different picture to the rest of the world about how they were really operating. The ideology – the idea that the workers of society should have control – that’s what appeals to Harry. Harry grew up in the Depression, so he saw the complete downfall of capitalism and worked on a lot of farms, so I think he had a chance to see a lot of people were suffering the worse end of what that era had to offer. I can see why he and so many other people were actually drawn to the ideology of Communism, without knowing what it would later become. That helps me as an actor justify where he’s coming from.

FCP: The ideals of equality seem like a connection between Communism and what the founders of the Mattachine Society are trying to do.

BH: Harry is really interested too in how culture can be an instrument of change – he loves music, and he references songs from the Underground Railway and other political movements, to impose that meaning on what they were trying to do with the Mattachine Society.

FCP: How much is this a history play and how much is it a relationship play?

BH: In terms of words on a page? I’d put it at half and half, but for me I think the thrust has got to be the emotional arc of these characters. My hope is that – let’s put it this way – what would be of interest to me, what would grab me as an audience member is this desire for Rudi and Harry to be able to be together and stay together. That’s what we all connect to, is the love.

FCP: What does this show offer someone who might not be as interested in the LGBT history aspects of this play?

Beyond the gay audience, and the history lesson of this play, I think everybody, at some point in their lives, feels like they’re on the outside of something, looking in, and feels oppressed, even if they’re not. And this – the small victories that the men in this play achieve – it helps us feel hope and possibility that we can somehow get the things that we want, whether that’s love or just something else we want out of life.

Brian Hinson stars in The Temperamentals by Jon Marens, directed by Ryan Mooney. November 22 – December 3, 2011 at the PAL Studio Theatre.

This is Rob Monk’s first show with FCP. A Vancouver native, Rob is a graduate of Grant McEwan’s musical theatre program. He plays a variety of characters, including Dale Jennings, a founder of the Mattachine Society, in The Temperamentals.

FCP: What kind of characters are you playing in this show?

RM: I’m playing a carnie worker, and a cop, and Dale Jennings, who’s a bit of a tough guy. He helped found the Mattachine Society, and then went on to form “One Inc.,” which was another gay rights organization that also published a magazine.

FCP: How much responsibility do you feel to do these characters justice, given they were part of a real historical movement?

RM: The historical part of this gay rights movement is a big part of the play. It’s not all about that – a big part of this story is the love story between Harry and Rudi. But the historical part is just as important. What I like about it is, I think it’s a story that not a lot of people know, and so I do feel a responsibility, that people realize there were these pioneers out there working in a really dangerous time to get this out in the public eye and try to be accepted. It was really dangerous for them to do so. But it’s a nice mix of the history and the romance.

FCP: Tell us a bit about the political dimensions to this story.

RM: The founders of the Mattachine Society were all Communists, and to me that’s really interesting, that they took these principles of communism and brought them into the gay rights movement, which was radical, and scared a lot of people – even people who wanted to be part of it. They were scared of that communist history.

FCP: How relatable are the characters you play, for you on a personal level, and for the audience?

RM: The nice thing about these characters is, I think they’re quite relatable. I did have to research them, definitely. But they’re relatable just in the fact that they’re just so human. They’re not stereotypes – and that’s really a credit to how the play was written – their struggles with every aspect of their daily lives are very relatable to me, and I’m sure to audience members as well, regardless of anyone’s sexuality.

Rob Monk stars in The Temperamentals by Jon Marens, directed by Ryan Mooney. November 22 – December 3, 2011 at the PAL Studio Theatre.