A massive turnout at Menz Bar last night as DaPoPo celebrated the second anniversary of Café! Thanks to everyone for being there, your good-naturedness waiting for seating or orders and just going with the flow of the evening.
The Pinter combo; original poems by local writers; Steve Cloutier, Natasha MacLellan and Michael Melski in the house to witness the performances of their respective contributions (scenes); Michael's birthday sextangle; Garry's improvized opera; a sneak peak of a "Four Actors" scene; Nathan's new puppet discovering Brutus; DaBig Ensemble number medley frantic, fun and fabulous; so many new faces in the audience too. Wonderfulness.
The winner of the iPod raffle was Sarah McCarthy. Hats off to our Sher Clain for organizing the fundraiser and to all our ticket sellers, especially Holly Winter who far surpassed everyone else in number of tickets sold.
And now - we get ready for Monday! The Berlin-bound ensemble is doing another Café to preview the menu we're getting ready for the Café DaPoPo international premiere in Potsdam, Germany on Feb, 28.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
Second Anniversary & TWO Cafés!
There are TWO Café DaPoPos coming up:
January 29th @ Menz Bar
2182 Gottingen Street
7:30 pm - 11 pm
Second anniversary spectacular - as per the side bar over on the left of this page
PLUS
February 2nd* @ The Good Food Emporium
2179 Gottingen Street
3 pm - 6 pm
A special Café for fans, friends and family of our youth ensemble - and anyone else who wants to come . We'll preview the theatrical menu we'll be offering for the international premiere of Café DaPoPo at museum FLUXUS+ in Potsdam, Germany! A mix of Café favorites and featuring the work of Canadian playwrights, poets and musicians.
Join DaPoPo veterans (Eric Benson, Kim Parkhill, Annie Valentina & Garry Williams) along with the DaPoPo Academy ensemble (Aaron Andreino, Sophie Fong, Ali Richardson & Holly Winter) as we dish up theatre the way you like it. Order supper or treats from Good Food's amazing kitchen (until 5 pm) and taste some performances DaPoPo-style. First come, first seated.
(* February 1st as was inaccurately mentioned by none other than me in the CBC-TV announcement. *sigh)
January 29th @ Menz Bar
2182 Gottingen Street
7:30 pm - 11 pm
Second anniversary spectacular - as per the side bar over on the left of this page
PLUS
February 2nd* @ The Good Food Emporium
2179 Gottingen Street
3 pm - 6 pm
A special Café for fans, friends and family of our youth ensemble - and anyone else who wants to come . We'll preview the theatrical menu we'll be offering for the international premiere of Café DaPoPo at museum FLUXUS+ in Potsdam, Germany! A mix of Café favorites and featuring the work of Canadian playwrights, poets and musicians.
Join DaPoPo veterans (Eric Benson, Kim Parkhill, Annie Valentina & Garry Williams) along with the DaPoPo Academy ensemble (Aaron Andreino, Sophie Fong, Ali Richardson & Holly Winter) as we dish up theatre the way you like it. Order supper or treats from Good Food's amazing kitchen (until 5 pm) and taste some performances DaPoPo-style. First come, first seated.
(* February 1st as was inaccurately mentioned by none other than me in the CBC-TV announcement. *sigh)
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Some December Café Pictures
Blake, our Musical Theatre trained bartender and photographer, provided us with these pictures to wish you a Happy New Year! Thanks to everyone who's supported us through the year/s: especially Bonnie (who's never missed a Café yet), Doug (we need to get us more menz like dat) and to all of our patrons.
Friday, December 19, 2008
December 18/08 Café
a free association block of jan29 café inspired words and phrases
sock puppets finger puppets hand puppets the new and awesome sparkled green grouchy tiny fisted bonnie-made-this-for-garry-from-an-old-slipper puppet singing singing singing carols of christmas and consumerism tintinabulating rounds bosom buddies darryll dishing drinks good show tonight you guys improvized german song with bells for birthday girl droodles makes a monologue a dialogue shtick for everyone what is shtick oh shtick shtick shtick they have to leave at nine thirty ten ten thirty time now now now annie andrea chris meghan sher keelin cast in audience galore plus old friends new friends pptp-ing friends the people-met-on-set friends the director who-cast-you-in-your-first-show-when-you -returned-to-acting friends shakespeare at the disco and in the garden incubating scenes gun song previewings la cages and julius thanks brutus blake takes photos photos photos cast photo now cast past cast all cast casting shadows of a christmas tree in the wake of a masked santa claus morality play garbled gargoyles of the god of the sun and he saw anyone for a ticket on an ipod? secrets juicy secrets hugs and a partridge in the menz tree
sock puppets finger puppets hand puppets the new and awesome sparkled green grouchy tiny fisted bonnie-made-this-for-garry-from-an-old-slipper puppet singing singing singing carols of christmas and consumerism tintinabulating rounds bosom buddies darryll dishing drinks good show tonight you guys improvized german song with bells for birthday girl droodles makes a monologue a dialogue shtick for everyone what is shtick oh shtick shtick shtick they have to leave at nine thirty ten ten thirty time now now now annie andrea chris meghan sher keelin cast in audience galore plus old friends new friends pptp-ing friends the people-met-on-set friends the director who-cast-you-in-your-first-show-when-you -returned-to-acting friends shakespeare at the disco and in the garden incubating scenes gun song previewings la cages and julius thanks brutus blake takes photos photos photos cast photo now cast past cast all cast casting shadows of a christmas tree in the wake of a masked santa claus morality play garbled gargoyles of the god of the sun and he saw anyone for a ticket on an ipod? secrets juicy secrets hugs and a partridge in the menz tree
Friday, November 28, 2008
November 27/08 Café
November Café: wow. Menz was packed, some curious newcomers and some glowing familiar faces. Mark Wolf joined us as a performer (with his FaceBook Song hit) making our 4th Mt. A alumnus with Nathan, Kristi and GaRRy rounding out the Mt. A quartet. Plus: Steven, Eric and Kim. Amanda Jernigan's "Mad Tea-Party" and Matthew Trafford's "The People and the Stones", both created for DaPoPo's 2006 show "13 Ways of Looking at a Madman" by Allisonian graduates, were performed this Café. Depicted below: 1) a packed Menz Bar on Café Thursday during a scene from "Rhinoceros"; 2) GaRRy and Kristi rehearsing; and 3) Eric, Nathan, Kristi, GaRRy and Shtev rehearsing a scene from "R.U.R."
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Oct. 30/08: Café
yay! a café that felt like home. veteran café cast members (garry, eric, sher, amy, nathan, bonnie et moi) that had rehearsed together consistently. menz completely tricked out for h'ween so the atmosphere was so appropo. even the tv got turned off (and those of you who know, know 'zackly what i mean). cozy, candle-lit tables peppering the dance floor. patrons of the fan, friend, family and unfamiliar forms. thank you so much to all. so appreciative of having an audience.k
special notes... jenny m. and mary v. who dropped in to finally check out this café-thing during our "happy hour." igor who got our café card during one of our nocturne bus performances and actually bothered to make his way to gottingen street. he got a special four-part harmonic rendition of auld lang syne - on the house - when we discovered he was scottish. 
raymond who brought a friend who found inspiration for a documentary in one of the rants. amy macA who fought the call of her bed to come and see what the café was all about... subsequently inspiring the idea to have a mt. a reunion at a café!
raymond who brought a friend who found inspiration for a documentary in one of the rants. amy macA who fought the call of her bed to come and see what the café was all about... subsequently inspiring the idea to have a mt. a reunion at a café!k
performances... so many things to talk about! amazing eerie rendition of garry's arrangment of "full fathom five" with an impromptu 'father' finger puppet drowning and drifting in the waves of light from an upturned flashlight. taking one for the team in a dead-fall gone-wrong from a stool when a shoe heel caught on the rung. incubating 'erl king' with vocal vs. instrumental accompaniament. spontaneous laughter and clapping with the emergence of each "man" for the big ensemble number "menz" - biggest laugh for eric's literal interpretation of the line "who always tops the list to us."
k
darrell having a busy busy (read: great) night serving at the bar. keeping focus at the table in a quiet, dramatic, real monologue despite nearby showtune belting. rants about mice, herpes and halloween. keelin already busting a gut on the first line of daBig ensemble scene. running out of time with orders left to fill for latercomers, the dj graciously waiting to set up for his dance party. a new patron drinking it all in and reflecting that sometimes he couldn't tell who was acting and who wasn't - in a good way.Thursday, October 23, 2008
Oct 18/08: A Nocturne-al Café
Theatre in a diner, then a coffee shop, now a bar... how do you follow that up? On a bus, of course!
A bus? Yes, folks, it can be done! We had the great pleasure of participating in Halifax's first Nocturne festival (http://www.nocturnehalifax.ca/). Nocturne: Art at Night was planned to showcase and celebrate the arts scene in this city. There was an awesome program guide with maps highlighting all sorts of galleries, exhibitions and special performances. And there was a free bus from 6 pm to midnight that took people along a route dotted with the galleries and exhibitions. The people on the bus - besides going up and down - were also entertained by a roster of performers that changed hourly.
Which is where we came in. Danielle, the coordinator for the bus performers, contacted Garry about performing and then Garry passed along the invitation for the DaPoPoli to jump on board.
As it turned out, Garry did a loop himself (Nocturne Bus 2, Trip 4) digging into his purple bag of wonderfulness for - among many things - finger puppets to do sonnets, his Canadian maple leaf politician tie to deliver Steve Cloutier's satirical anti-arts speech, his pipe to do an existential monologue from "Biography: A Game" as Hannes. He had an involved audience who asked questions and responded so well to the performances. He says it was incredibly joyful to do.
Sher and Kim teamed up for still a different time slot (Nocturne Bus 1, Trip 4) and entertained both themselves and their ever-changing ridership with a massive cross-section of typical Café fare, passing out cards with Café dates and talking up DaPoPo to boot. There was a wonderful reading of a one-act play staged in the seats amidst the passengers. The play had the "audience" in stitches and even kept some people on the bus past their stop. We also had the opportunity to dig out some children's items... Creepy Crawly Caterpillar and James and the Giant Peach, when we two young art lovers joined us. Kim's waitresses made their appearances and at the request "...do something from My Fair Lady!" there was an impromptu, unrehearsed rendition of "Wouldn't It Be Loverly" - with choreography! Lamb puppets whispering in people's ears. Dinosaurs separated by the chasm of an aisle snorting and singing "I Get Along Without You Very Well" Brutus and Cassius soliloquizing and being interrupted by a bit of an argument at one of the stops. Clutching at seat backs and overhead poles to avoid being tossed to the ground during an exuberant excerpt from Good Night Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet. Good times!
Eric was on still another trip. He got on one of the last buses with merely a music stand and Shakespeare's sonnets. He read them in sequence with the encouragement of the four final riders and got all the way up into the 60's before the bus returned to the origin at the Saint Mary's University Art Gallery.
Ah... merrily we rolled along, and in such different ways. I wish I had pictures, but I was too busy enjoying the moments to take out the camera. It should always be like that!
If you missed Nocturne this year, fear not. They were already talking about next year's festival at the after-party that same night! So keep an ear to the ground and as always, read the arts and entertainment listings in the papers, wherever you can online and stay tuned to the radio. And pass the word along...
A bus? Yes, folks, it can be done! We had the great pleasure of participating in Halifax's first Nocturne festival (http://www.nocturnehalifax.ca/). Nocturne: Art at Night was planned to showcase and celebrate the arts scene in this city. There was an awesome program guide with maps highlighting all sorts of galleries, exhibitions and special performances. And there was a free bus from 6 pm to midnight that took people along a route dotted with the galleries and exhibitions. The people on the bus - besides going up and down - were also entertained by a roster of performers that changed hourly.
Which is where we came in. Danielle, the coordinator for the bus performers, contacted Garry about performing and then Garry passed along the invitation for the DaPoPoli to jump on board.
As it turned out, Garry did a loop himself (Nocturne Bus 2, Trip 4) digging into his purple bag of wonderfulness for - among many things - finger puppets to do sonnets, his Canadian maple leaf politician tie to deliver Steve Cloutier's satirical anti-arts speech, his pipe to do an existential monologue from "Biography: A Game" as Hannes. He had an involved audience who asked questions and responded so well to the performances. He says it was incredibly joyful to do.
Sher and Kim teamed up for still a different time slot (Nocturne Bus 1, Trip 4) and entertained both themselves and their ever-changing ridership with a massive cross-section of typical Café fare, passing out cards with Café dates and talking up DaPoPo to boot. There was a wonderful reading of a one-act play staged in the seats amidst the passengers. The play had the "audience" in stitches and even kept some people on the bus past their stop. We also had the opportunity to dig out some children's items... Creepy Crawly Caterpillar and James and the Giant Peach, when we two young art lovers joined us. Kim's waitresses made their appearances and at the request "...do something from My Fair Lady!" there was an impromptu, unrehearsed rendition of "Wouldn't It Be Loverly" - with choreography! Lamb puppets whispering in people's ears. Dinosaurs separated by the chasm of an aisle snorting and singing "I Get Along Without You Very Well" Brutus and Cassius soliloquizing and being interrupted by a bit of an argument at one of the stops. Clutching at seat backs and overhead poles to avoid being tossed to the ground during an exuberant excerpt from Good Night Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet. Good times!
Eric was on still another trip. He got on one of the last buses with merely a music stand and Shakespeare's sonnets. He read them in sequence with the encouragement of the four final riders and got all the way up into the 60's before the bus returned to the origin at the Saint Mary's University Art Gallery.
Ah... merrily we rolled along, and in such different ways. I wish I had pictures, but I was too busy enjoying the moments to take out the camera. It should always be like that!
If you missed Nocturne this year, fear not. They were already talking about next year's festival at the after-party that same night! So keep an ear to the ground and as always, read the arts and entertainment listings in the papers, wherever you can online and stay tuned to the radio. And pass the word along...
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