If you were unable to make Toronto’s Fringe Festival last summer, you are about to get a second chance to experience it right here in Peterborough. Renowned comedian Elvira Kurt and Toronto-based actress Megan Fahlenbock are bringing their acclaimed 2014 Fringe Festival show Parallel Play to The Theatre on King in Peterborough for two performances on Saturday, November 22nd.
“It’s called Parallel Play because we’re both moms and we’ve got little kids,” Elivra tells me in a phone interview. “Parallel play is a stage of development that they go through. Kids play together, but they don’t interact.”
“It’s a series of comedic sketches about the lives of women from our specific filter as mothers and daughters, girlfriends, and partners and people,” she continues. “I believe it really and truly has something for everyone, because those topics are just so rich.”
A multi-award winning comedian — including a Canadian Comedy Award for Funniest Female Comedian — Elvira put herself on the entertainment radar as host of the Canadian game show Spin Off, as well as being featured on This Hour Has 22 Minutes, George Stromboulopoulos Tonight and, most recently, Q’s Hall of Shame.
“I had been influenced from something I had seen in New York off Broadway in the late 80s called Parallel Lives with Mo Gaffney and Kathy Najimyin that just blew my mind,” she says. “It was about the lives of women and it was brilliant. I remember watching that back in the day and saying ‘Someday I’m going to do something like that.’ So this show is like fulfilling a dream.”
Elvira and Megan met while working on another Fringe show years earlier and decided they wanted to work together again. A voice actress on the animated series 6Teen and Total Drama All-Stars, Megan was a regular on the 2008 television series M.V.P and has made appearances on numerous other series including Relic Hunter, Mutant X, Being Erica, Suits and Haven.
Premiering in Toronto at the Tarragon Extraspace in July 2014, Parallel Play earned solid reviews and was deemed a Fringe Festival favorite. Through a series of comedic sketches, Elvira plays characters as diverse as a busy mother, a lesbian father, an Eastern Bloc grandmother, and a teenage boy while Megan plays a workaholic mother, a sexagenarian, and an over-protective mom.
“It got great reviews,” Elvira recalls. “It was such a bonus that people liked it because it was such a personal accomplishment. I get this high from doing this thing I’ve dreamed of doing forever. It was totally out of my confidence zone. It’s like one of those things that you aim to do, but you’re not sure if you can do it — and then you do it and you realize that you can do anything.”
Peterborough favorite Linda Kash directed the original Fringe Festival production and she’s rejoining Elvira and Megan to direct the Theatre on King show.
“I knew that I could write something like this, but the only person who I knew could direct it was Linda Kash,” Elvira says. “Before I started stand up, I’d go to Second City at The Fire Hall and I remember watching her. I was always drawn to the female performers.”
“Second City is famous for producing male performers, but for me it has always been the women who have always blown my mind,” she adds. “Linda just stood out. We’ve become colleagues. I’ve long admired her. So I said to Megan ‘I don’t even have a second choice. It’s got to be Linda.’ Luckily for us she was free and interested and it all came together.”
This is a unique opportunity not only to see two fantastic performers doing smart sketch comedy, but also to experience a piece of the Toronto Fringe Festival in our own backyard.
Parallel Play takes place on Saturday, November 22nd with performances at 3 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. Tickets are $20.
