Stage Door News
Stage Door News
Helen Donnelly, the Toronto-based theatrical clown, is pulling out all the stops on her new show Saucisse, a musical about friendship, fate and meat. She plays three characters, animates a puppet, sings five original numbers, and dances everything from a cowboy two-step to ballet. Following a week at the prestigious New York Clown Theater Festival, Saucisse: a Foo Musical returns to Toronto October 10 for two weeks at the Scotiabank Studio Theatre on Queen West.
Saucisse: a Foo Musical is the story of an unlikely friendship between Foo, a skeptical nomadic peddler and Saucisse, a new-age pig with a mission. The show is a both a tribute and send-up of musicals, with comedic and tragic elements woven around original music composed by Matthew Reid (Musical Director for Second City). Donnelly’s stellar production team includes Reid, Director Susanna Hamnett (of Broadway’s Nearly Lear), and award-winning designers Lindsay Anne Black (set/props) and Michelle Ramsay (lighting).
Donnelly is a seasoned comedic performer, a veteran of Cirque du Soleil as well as a regular performer with Circus Orange and Zero Gravity Circus. She has clowned everywhere from London, England to San Paulo, Brazil. (In November she is singing opera while flying on a crane over Dundas Square with Circus Orange.). This is Donnelly’s seventh original production and her second musical with Foo Productions. Her first musical was Posey’s Wig in which Donnelly played two roles, an alcoholic opera singer and her star-struck maid.
Donnelly’s new show was inspired by two things: a desire to expand upon a short cabaret piece about Foo’s obsession with a sausage, and she wanted to create a show that reflected her relationship with her former clown partner who died last year at age thirty-three. It speaks to how an unlikely friendship can blossom, and examines the process of letting go and coming to accept friend’s differences.
DATES:
October 10-13th 8pm, October 14th 2pm
October 17-20th 8pm
THEATRE: Scotiabank Studio Theatre, Pia Bouman School
6 Noble Street, Toronto (Queen @ Dufferin)
TICKETS:Adults: $20, Arts Worker: $15, Children (ages 8 and up): $10 www.fooproductions.com
To buy tickets: www.totix.ca, at the door and http://www.eventbrite.com/directory/Canada/Toronto
2012-10-03
Toronto: Helen Donnelly’s “SAUCISSE: A Foo Musical” opens October 11 for a 2-week run