Ten Questions. Ten Answers. And One Big Decision: Rock, Paper, Or Scissors?
Confessions of a Redheaded Coffeeshop Girl
Production Company: Ginger Galore Productions
Rebecca Perry’s award-winning one-woman “show-sical”(“4 STAR Performer”, CBC Canada) for the graduate in all of us. Stuck paying off debt, feisty little Joanie makes the most out her barista job by reporting her “findings” on the creatures of “The Coffeeshop Jungle” much like Jane Goodall did with the gorillas! Hilarity ensues.
Show Times:
- Fri 2/21 @ 5:30PM
- Tue 2/25, 5:30PM
- Fri 2/28, 10:15PM
- Sun 3/02, 2:05PM
- Wed 3/05, 8:40PM
- Fri 3/07, 8:40PM
Answers by Rebecca Perry
(actor/playwright)
1. Your tag line is out there on postcards and press releases so we know the PR version of what this play is about. But when you talk to your family and friends, how do you explain the show to them?
RP: It’s a story that stems from the real life experiences myself and other twenty-something graduates had while working at a coffee shops in Toronto. Every graduate gets out into the big, bad world and is eager to prove themselves…except in this economy a lot of us have to grab a full-time service job immediately to start paying off debt before we even receive our diploma. So what do you do? How do you make the most out of this “in-between” time in your life? And THAT is what this story is about: enter Joanie Little, a feisty redhead and wannabe biologist/primatologist ready to take on the world. If she can’t immediately be “the next Jane Goodall” of the world (because she has to pay the bills first) then you better bet she is gonna make this hip coffee shop her new “jungle” and the customers will be the “chimps” she shall observe! Cue: lots of caffeinated situations, songs and scenarios.
2. Here’s a scenario: After the show some audience members go have a drink. What’s the part of the show you hope they’re discussing?
RP: How they can relate to it! Be it comparing their crappy university jobs or the job they use to pay the bills (as an artist I know we’ve all had odd “survival” jobs at various points in our lives) and knowing that it happens to the best of us. Everyone has had an “in-between” point in their lives and everyone gets through it in a different way.
3. What drives your show – character, theme or plot?
RP: Character and how she deals with the overall theme of standing on your own two feet.
4. In rehearsals, read-thrus, or prior incarnations, what’s the one thing someone said about the show so far that made you (or the team) the most proud?
RP: When at The Winnipeg Festival someone wrote an anonymous review and commented on the songs in the show saying “This girl sounds like Judy Garland…I wanted to take a bath in her voice”. We laughed for hours because it was an odd compliment but it also attests to the hard work we put into our songs used in the show.
5. Let’s fantasize for a moment. Let’s take the “off-off” off. Imagine this show is on Broadway. Would that change the production itself?
RP: Hello making coffee onstage! I also would have a full orchestra behind me for the songs I sing.
6. Taking that one step further – after paying everyone what they’re worth of course, what is the most lavish, luxurious, pointless thing you would spend money on if there was no constraints?
RP: A flashing sign that represents the sign for The Coffeeshop! As glamorous as possible.
7. Is there a scene, a moment, a gesture … anything at all in the show that you anticipate may get a completely different reaction depending on the audience that night?
RP: YES! Oh man…every night I have no clue how the audience will react to a situation Joanie gets into with Sonia (a not-so-nice co-worker) where she discovers Sonia is quite friendly with cocaine. Some people find it funny and others find it shocking.
8. What’s your favorite line from the show?
RP: “Everyone has their guilty pleasure…what’s yours Sonia?”
9. Is the world of this play sustainable outside a theatre? In other words … do you think people live the way the characters do? Would you want a world where they do?
RP: Yes, this show is based on a myriad of experiences I had in a coffee shop that exists in Toronto. Half of these situations happened to me and the other half to previous co-workers. Joanie is, in a way, representing the experience of the graduated twenty-something and their first experience out of school and into the real world.
10. You scan the audience and you see a face that stops you dead in your tracks – who is it? And why are you shocked?
RP: Because I am covered in maple syrup. (You will understand once you see the show).
Rock, Paper, Scissors Tournament of DEAAAAATH
In the THM virtual Rock, Paper, Scissors Tournament of DEAAAAATH which FRIGID Show do you take on? And what do you throw?
CHALLENGES: THE CANUCK CABARET!
THROWS: We had to go to the randomizer for this one, and choose one for you. WE CHOSE ROCK!
CHALLENGED BY:
~ THE CANUCK CABARET who threw ROCK — that’s a draw, plus another draw for the round where you challenge them. So that’s two draws.
~ EAST IN RED who threw SCISSORS – that’s a win!!
Congratulations, Redhead, one win and no losses! That’s better than finding extra foam on your latte!
Thanks Confessions of a Redheaded Coffeeshop Girl for participating in The Happiest Medium’s FRIGID New York Festival 2014 Q&A. And for playing our game! You’re officially ROCK in any and all challenges. You may win, you may lose – who knows! This is how it works in the crazy world of the Rock, Paper, Scissors Tournament of DEAAAAATH!
For the rest of you don’t forget to check out Confessions of a Redheaded Coffeeshop Girl !
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Feb 28, 10:15PM
Mar 02, 2:05PM
Mar 05, 8:40PM
Mar 07, 8:40PM
UNDER St.Marks | $10.00 / $15.0
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Horse Trade Theater Group will present the 8th Annual FRIGID New York Festival at The Kraine Theater (85 East 4th Street between 2nd Avenue and Bowery) and UNDER St. Marks (94 St. Marks Place between 1st Avenue and Avenue A) February 19-March 9. Tickets are available for purchase in advance at www.FRIGIDnewyork.info or by calling 212-868-4444.
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