18 Twitching Cheerleaders

18 Twitching Cheerleaders

A modern day Crucible… With Jell-O!

In 2012, in the small town of LeRoy, NY, eighteen high school cheerleaders begin to exhibit Tourette’s-like symptoms, suffering uncontrollable tics, seizures and fainting spells, with no medical consensus about the cause. Is it mass hysteria? Conversion disorder? Or could it be toxins from the city’s long abandoned Jell-O factory?

Directed by Maya Rabinovitch, 18 Twitching Cheerleaders follows Jell-O Judy, in her quest to find the truth of the LeRoy mystery. After causing a horrible chemical accident at the Jell-O factory, Judy fled the city of LeRoy. But when news of the twitching cheerleaders surfaces sixty years later, she returns to prove her innocence. Judy investigates every possible answer until she’s left with only one option: she must prove the cheerleaders are faking their illness…

18 Twitching Cheerleaders

Written by Maya Rabinovitch Rachel Blair, David Levine, Liam Toshio Morris, Jessica Moss and Daniel Sadavoy

Performed by Ashley Marie Comeau and Melanie Hrymak

Producer/Lighting Designer: Pip Bradford
Producer/Dramaturg: David Levine
Set Designer: Randy Lee
Graphic Designer: Danny Tran

Venue #2: Fringe Cabaret Lounge
10330 84 Avenue (Northeast corner of Arts Barns)

Dates: August 16 @ 2pm, Aug. 17 at 7:45pm,
Aug. 18 at 10pm, Aug. 19 at 12pm,
Aug. 22 at 4pm, Aug. 23 at 6pm
Tickets: Visit http://www.Tickets.FringeTheatre.ca or call (780) 409-1910

COMPANY BIOS

Melanie Hrymak – Performer
Melanie is a Toronto-based actor, director, and fight choreographer. Born and raised in Hamilton, Ontario, she is a graduate of the Theatre and Drama Studies program at Sheridan College and the University of Toronto. Some of her favourite roles include Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Urban Bard), Sonya in The Russian Play (Erindale Fringe), Pierre Elliot Trudeau in Trudeautopia (Toronto Fringe), and May in the North American premiere of S-27 (Intersection Theatre). She is also a certified Intermediate Actor-Combatant with the Academy of Fight Directors Canada. Please visit melaniehrymak.workbooklive.com for more information on her work!

Ashley Comeau – Performer
Ashley Comeau is a Dora and Canadian Comedy Award nominated actress hailing from Brampton Ontario. She is a Second City mainstage alumna who has a penchant for acting, improvising and writing. Selected theatre credits include: Road Trip Mixed Tape (Bad Dog Theatre), Dreams Really Do Come True (And Other Lies) (Second City Toronto), Throne of Games (Next Stage Festival/Factory Theatre/Bad Dog Theatre), Live Wrong and Prosper (Second City Toronto), Just for Laughs Festival (2009), Theatresports (Bad Dog Theatre) and Guys and Dolls (Meadowvale Theatre) She’d like to thank her friends, family, The State Steady Theatre Project, cast and crew for love, support and inspiration. Special thanks goes to her sketch comedy partner and partner partner, Connor. You can follow Ashley on Twitter @ashleycomeau.

Maya Rabinovitch – Co-Playwright/Director
Maya is a Toronto-based director, dramaturg and collaborator. Since her time at York University studying dramaturgy and collective creation, she has focused on developing and directing new plays. Recent writer/director credits include Double Double, I Will Not Hatch! (Edmonton and Toronto Fringe) and collaborator/co-director for The Green Show (Mixed Company). Recent directing credits include Don’t Look (Next Stage Theatre Festival), How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Abortion (Toronto Fringe) and nisha ahuja’s A World of Bananas (Hysteria Festival). Maya has collaborated on a number of projects including The Famous Remains of Piggy Palace (18 Hands Theatre Collective) and Rule of Thumb (Toronto Fringe). Maya is the Artistic Producer of the Steady State Theatre Project, which focuses on creative methods for new play development.

Currently Maya is directing Zero Visibility for the A.M.Y. Project (Artists Mentoring Youth), which will be a part of Toronto’s SummerWorks Festival in August.

Maya was named Outstanding Director in NOW Magazine’s Fringe Wrap-Up in 2009 and 2010.

David Levine – Co-Playwright/Producer
David is a writer and producer of theatre, television and online media. In 2009 he wrote and produced Reflections on Giving Birth to a Squid ( “5 Stars” -Vue; “A+” -Uptown; “4 Stars”
-Edmonton Journal; Honourable Mention – Best Original Production (English) – Montreal Fringe). Recent productions include the Annual Script Scrap Festival, I Will Not Hatch! (Berkeley St. Theatre; Toronto Fringe, Edmonton Fringe), and Allie Has an Affair, an upcoming webseries.

Jessica Moss – Co-Playwright
Jessica Moss wants to be a writer and an actor. She is from Toronto. Most recently, she wrote
and performed Polly Polly at the Toronto Fringe, which won Patron’s Pick and has been included in the 2013 Best of the Fringe. Recently Jessica took part in the Ghost River Theatre National Devised Intensive in Calgary. Other recent acting credits: The Clockmaker (Sudbury Theatre Centre), The Faroe Islands (Rhubarb). Other acting credits: Was Spring (Tarragon), Tout Comme Elle (Necessary Angel), Alice in Wonderland (STC), Long Dark Night, the WITCH of edmonton, dust (Summerworks) and five other Toronto Fringe performances, including TICK in
2012 and Swoon! in 2011. Her first one-woman show, Modern Love, was presented as part of the 2012 Next Stage festival. Her full-length play, Next to Him, was developed with the support of the Steady State writer’s unit, and then shortlisted for the 2012 RBC Tarragon Emerging Playwriting Competition, and came second in the Herman Voaden playwriting competition.
@JessieMercury

Rachel Blair – Co-Playwright
Rachel Blair holds a Masters in Performance from the Central School of Speech in Drama in
London, England and is a graduate of York University’s Theatre Program, specializing in Devised Theatre and Playwriting. While studying in London Rachel became a founding member of The Tearaway Project, a collective dedicated to creating work that examines how our proximity to others affects our identities. Their first piece, Limited Connectivity, used rotating spaces and intimate seating structures to explore cyber relationships. In Instructions on How Not To Be Lonely, the collective hosted a series of socials run by the ‘loneliest citizens of London’. Rachel’s performance installation Lady Strip (Spelt with a Y), pairing non-sexual feminine stereotypes with stripper culture, was a recurring piece at Proud Camden’s Horseplay Arts Club. She has
also performed at the Old Vic Tunnels and Shunt Vaults in Lautes Licht, a play of layered monologues and movements controlled by the audience through a lighting board. Rachel’s Canadian playwriting credits include Wake (2008 Toronto Fringe New Play Contest Winner, Patron’s Pick, Best of Fringe Festival) and Seventh Stage Theatre Production’s This is About the Push: Opinions of the Invasion (Now Magazine Best Production). This is About the Push was expanded into a collection entitled The Comfort Women and was short-listed for The RBC Tarragon Emerging Playwright Competition in 2012. She also served as a writer and script coordinator on Seventh Stage’s collective piece The Red Queen Effect (Next Stage Festival). Her

Toronto acting credits include The (W)hole of Emily Scheller (Eye Weekly Best of Fringe), Sunday Afternoon’s My Favourite Thing short film series and NBC/Universal’s The Firm. Rachel is currently studying comedy writing with Toronto’s Second City.

Liam Morris – Co-Playwright
Liam studied collective-based theatre creation at York University. Alongside fellow alumni he helped write and perform material for 18 Hands Theatre Collective’s The Famous Remains of Piggy Palace. Most recently he co-created and starred in The Green Show with Mixed Company. Liam was named for Outstanding Ensemble in the 2009 NOW Magazine Fringe Wrap-Up for his work in Hank Marvin Theatre Company’s I Will Not Hatch! and received a “My Theatre Award” from myentertainmentworld.ca for his performance as Jean Paul Marat in Soup Can Theatre’s Marat/Sade. Liam recently receive an emerging playwright’s grant from the Toronto Arts Council to develop is new play Undeath in Midsummer. He is also part of Fu-Gen Theatre’s playwright’s unit.

Acting credits include Steady State’s I Will Not Hatch!, Banquo’s Banquet’s Trudeautopia and Bury the Dead, and The Pied Piper of Toronto at Lab Cab. This Toronto Fringe, Liam participated in the end of the world with ZED.TO.

Daniel Sadavoy – Co-Playwright
Daniel is a Toronto-born comedian and writer. His focus is on self created work where he can use his own voice. He has performed his work as part of the SummerWorks Festival, NextStage Theatre Festival, and LabCab. Recently Daniel has been exploring extra-territoriality, where seemingly disparate disciplines converge, by providing technical support and expertise for site-specific art installations like the Candid Call Centre and Mapography Toronto.
He contributes to new work development with The Steady State Theatre Project where he is a writer and dramaturge.

Pip Bradford – Producer/Lighting Designer
Sarah ‘Pip’ Bradford has lived and worked in the Toronto theatre community for the past five years. While she spends most of her time running shows as the Mainspace Technician at Tarragon Theatre, she also freelances as a technician and stage manager for other companies, and worked as the Outreach Coordinator for the Toronto Fringe last season. Pip has a BA in Technical Theatre and Scenography from The University of King’s College in Halifax, where she worked as a performer, stage manager, and technician for companies including Neptune Theatre, OneLight Theatre, and DaPoPo Theatre, and co-founded RightPro Shows with Alicia Potter. Pip is also the founder of Art Is Hard, a grassroots arts philanthropy project, and writes a column for Praxis Theatre Blog called Dispatches From The Booth.

Randy Lee – Set/Props Designer
Randy Lee is a Toronto resident and York University graduate, majoring in Theatre Production. Previous Set Design credits include Grease (Bravo Academy of Performing Arts), Marat/Sade (Soup Can Theatre), and Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead (Fly By Night Theatre). Lighting Design credits include The Very Very Girl (Gayatri Productions), Love is a Poverty You Can Sell 2: Kisses for a Pfennig (Soup Can Theatre), Matt and Ben (The Theatre Elusive), The Vagina Monologues (V-Day Toronto), How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Abortion (Caterwaul Theatre), and This Is For You, Anna (Cranes Performance Company). This is Randy’s first foray into the Edmonton Fringe, and he is pretty darn excited.

Danny Tran – Graphic Designer
Danny is a graduate of George Brown College’s Graphic Design/Advertising program, and a recent graduate of Humber College’s Theatre Production program. He is proud to be working with a great cast and Production crew for this show. He also enjoys listening to all kinds of music, sports, and designing the impossible. Danny would like to thank his family, friends, and mentors who have helped him be who he is today!