The Shows
BREAKFAST
Created by the company
Written by: Evalyn Parry and Anna Chatterton
Directed by: Brendan Healy
Featuring: Karin Randoja, Anna Chatterton and Evalyn Parry
Set & Costume Design: Julie Fox
Sound Design: Richard Windeyer
Lighting Design: Laird MacDonald
Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, March 17-April 4 2010
first produced at The Theatre Centre, May 2008
Nominated for 3 Dora Awards
“Utterly compelling….titillating and threatening” Xtra! Magazine
The Aunties are thrilled that Buddies will present a remount of the Aunties’ highly acclaimed and unnervingly intimate production. Meet Marnie, a woman trying out a self-help program in an attempt to “move ahead” in her life. The audience is invited to her kitchen, as voyeurs to Marnie’s morning rituals. “Randoja’s absorbing, fearless performance” (EYE Magazine) anchors this surreal and chilling encounter with one woman’s psyche, which takes an unflinching look at loneliness, self-delusion and our cultural obsession with self-help and personal transformation.
You’ll never look at breakfast the same way again.
Developed through the Theatre Centre Residency Program.
“One of the top ten shows of 2008″ Paula Citron, Globe and Mail
Nominated for three Dora Awards: Outstanding Performance, Sound Design and Lighting Design
“…a highly strung and expertly crafted script…Breakfast is a prime example of text and tech blending seamlessly into an hour of funny, painful and often gripping drama….The Independent Aunties bring simple, evocative stories into our hearts and minds, titillating and threatening us with the joy of watching sharp, penetrating and politically empowering theatre unfold — in the kitchen.” Xtra Magazine
“…Moment by moment, this 70-minute creation is utterly compelling, even if Breakfast’s dark, absurdist progression eventually defies description….adventurers who surrender to this play about transformation will be rewarded by visceral theatre. Like an orgasm, it’s hard to describe but you know when you’ve had one.” EYE Magazine
Click here to view the PROMOTIONAL VIDEO CLIP
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Clean Irene & Dirty Maxine
A Deadly Comedy
Written and Performed by Anna Chatterton and Evalyn Parry
Directed by Karin Randoja
Set and Costumes by Sherri Hay
Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, 2006
A modern, moral and morbid tale of obsession and demise, in which an alphabetic procession of distressed damsels meet their absurd and untimely ends as victims of their fixations. Meet Arty Marty, Busy Lizzy, Clean Irene, Dirty Maxine, Efficient Millicent and many on this cheeky and hilarious trek through the alphabet. Winner of multiple awards, this highly physical, stylized black comedy has been described as ‘Edward Gorey meets Dr. Seuss’. Written entirely in rhyme, the show delivers its biting social commentary with dazzling speed, theatrical precision and playful charm.
“Wickedly funny…great physicality, smart satire and snappy, spot on performances!” - ~ NOW Magazine
“There’s no one quite like Toronto’s Anna Chatterton, Evalyn Parry and Karin Randoja around at the moment. They write dark yet funny cautionary tales for our time – Edward Gorey meets Hilaire Belloc meet the Brothers Grimm.” ~THE TORONTO STAR
…just the right mix of deadly earnestness and naughty knowingness.” ~ The Toronto Sun
“wickedly funny….beneath the show’s whimsy lies a subtle, satirical sting that spares no one.” ~ Eye Magazine
Clean Irene & Dirty Maxine was produced at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in 2006; between 2004 and 2007, it toured from Halifax Nova Scotia, to Dawson City Yukon, and many points in between!
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Frances, Mathilda and Tea
written and performed by Anna Chatterton and Evalyn Parry
Directed by Karin Randoja
Theatre Passe Muraille, 2005
Pound Pound goes Mathilda’s Head.
Stick stick sticky is Frances,
Stuck in the House.
In a Stuffy Victorian Mansion,
two Sisters trick each other with parlour Games and morbid Stories.
The days are Awfully Long.
A Dark comedy.
“NNNN…Hysterically funny and emotionally moving” ~ Jon Kaplan, Now Magazine
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The Mysterious Shorts
Created by The Independent Aunties
written and performed by Evalyn Parry and Anna Chatterton
Directed by Karin Randoja
Theatre Passe Muraille, 2005
What is the predicament of a woman?
The Independent Aunties bring you Four Short Plays, each with its own puzzle and style, in a kaleidoscopic view of women through the twentieth century. A Drop Dead Gorgeous, Tanned Thin, Sweet Valley Adventure; Kazoooom!; The Scoop and Gertrude &Alice get along Fine. Subversive comedy.
“You’d be hard pressed to find a better pairing of performers on stage than Parry and Chatterton.” ~ Kamal Al-Solaylee, THE GLOBE & MAIL
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Robbers Daughters
written by Evalyn Parry and Anna Chatterton
Directed by Brendan Healy
featuring Karin Randoja, Anna Chatterton, Claire Calnan and Alisha Stranges
Cooking Fire Festival, Dufferin Grove Park, 2006
Two rival robber gangs reside in Dufferin Grove. The two robber chieftans are bitter enemies. What happens when their daughters secretly become friends…and then decide they don’t want to follow in the family business of thieving? A new comedy about friendship, adventure, and the secret history of Dufferin Grove Park
“Part cheeky fairy tale, part postmodern history, part over-the-top comedy, Robber’s Daughters reminded us how good it is to have the Aunties in our theatre community.”
~ Jon Kaplan, NOW Magazine
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