
Theatre Under the Gun: The Social Distancing Edition is a 48-hour play creation challenge streaming online on April 21. Vancouver-based theatre companies receive an inspiration package and have just 48 hours to race against the clock and create an original piece of theatre, along with not being in the same room.
The event is produced by Monster Theatre and co-presented by the Vancouver Fringe with Artistic Direction by Jeff and Ryan Gladstone. In the interest of keeping the event accessible in these challenging times, tickets are pay-what-you-can, including an option for $0 tickets.
Over the years, many of Vancouver’s theatre companies have participated, including The Electric Company, Neworld Theatre, The Virtual Stage, Hardline Productions, Contingency Plan, and more. Theatre Under the Gun returns with a brand-new batch of young, talented, ground-breaking artists.
The one-night-only event will be hosted by brothers Jeff & Ryan Gladstone. Tickets are available at theatrewire.com.
The six theatre companies featured this year are:
The House Collective
The House Collective is a collection of four multidisciplinary artists who met working in the theatre lobby of Performance Works. Between them, they have a total of 68 years of Front of House experience and 114 years of acting experience.
Woah Horsey
Shapeshifters from the 7th Dimension, they met several lifetimes ago as witches and made a soul contract to reincarnate and cast spells together. Woah Horsey shares a curiosity in both the comedy and pathos of life, courageously digging up the raw embodied human experience—tender, absurd, tragic, and playful—through character shapeshifting, bouffon, puppetry manipulation, ecstatic or absurd movement, and magic.
Mid-Youth Crisis
Mid-Youth Crisis is a new theatre company made up of four young artists whose aim is to tell fresh, new, exciting stories that make you think and most importantly, make you feel. Each member approaches the work from a different background and with a different perspective. Collectively, they have experience in improv, dance, music, theatre, and film. With two members hailing from Calgary, one from Winnipeg, and one from Mexico, they all came to Vancouver at different points to pursue their love of acting.
Sour Dog Theatre
Sour Dog Theatre was founded in 2015 in Calgary, then relocated to Vancouver in 2018. Since then, they have produced over 50 improv shows, four original formats, two Canadian Fringe Festival runs, The Canmore International Improv Festival, and four scripted play productions. With a strong value for honest storytelling, they are constantly on the search for universal truth within the human experience. They strive to create theatrical experiences that are playful, poignant, and professional, whether it be improvisation or scripted theatre.
Dusty Foot Productions
Dusty Foot Productions is an emerging, female-identifying and non-binary centric, interdisciplinary, independent theatre company. Dusty Foot Productions launched in Vancouver, BC with the world premiere of Probability, written and directed by emerging artist Patricia Trinh, presented by rEvolver Theatre Festival 2018. DFP’s mandate is creating strong, colour-conscious, female/non-binary leading role opportunities by shining light on new work with such roles at the forefront and producing remounts with an all-female/non-binary identifying casts.
Colour Sound Lab
Color Sound Lab is a Vancouver-based puppet company with a cavalcade cast of humans, animals, creatures, and monsters from hand and rod, tabletop, bunraku, and marionettes providing puppetry for film, television, and live performance, striving to push the boundaries of style and function in puppetry.