Bryce Hodgson & Charlie Kerr of Blood Pact Theatre

Bryce Hodgson (Director, Co-Writer, Co-Set Designer)
Bryce is a graduate of the Neighbourhood Playhouse in New York City, co founder of the Blind Pig Theatre in Vancouver, long time member of the Godlight theatre company (NYC) and Artistic director of the Blood Pact Theatre. Bryce writes, acts, and creates music for theatre productions. Bryce also shoots pictures, makes zines and over the years has played in many different punk bands. Theatre credits include In the Heat of the Night, Deliverance, (Godlight) Much Ado About Nothing (Unit 102), Piranha Club (Blood Pact), Kitty Kitty Kitty, Suburbia, This is our Youth, and Frankenstein (Blind Pig). Some TV and Film credits include The Killing, Kid Cannabis, Supernatural, Farely Legal, Diary of a Whimpy Kid, Falling Skies and is currently has a regular role on the series iZombie which is about to start production on its 4th season.

In 2015 he was nominated for a drama desk award for his work in Deliverance

Instagram: @bryce_hodgson

Transcript

Welcome to episode 117 of Stageworthy. I’m your host, Phil Rickaby. Stageworthy is a podcast about people in Canadian theatre featuring conversations with actors, directors, playwrights, and more.

You know, if you haven’t subscribed to the podcast, I’d like to remind you that subscribing is the best way to make sure that you never miss an episode of Stageworthy. And there are some great episodes coming up, so trust me when I say that you don’t want to miss them. Make sure that you subscribe to Stageworthy on Apple Podcasts, Google Music, or Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts so that you can get every episode of Stageworthy delivered right to your device.

If you want to drop me a line, you can find Stage Worthy on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at stageworthypod, and you can find the website at stageworthypodcast.com. If you want to drop me a line, you can find me on Instagram and Twitter at philrickaby, and my website is philrickaby.com. My guests this week are Bryce Hodgson and Charlie Kerr of Blood Pact Theatres After Wrestling, with occasional interjections from producer Brie Prok. After Wrestling is currently in its final week of performances at Toronto’s Factory Theatre, closing on March 18th, 2018. So guys, tell me about After Wrestling.

Wait, are we recording? Well done, Phil. Secret podcaster over here. Yeah.

This is how I trick you into being comfortable enough to have a conversation and not think of it as an interview. Yeah, great. After Wrestling, what’s it about? Yeah, tell me about After Wrestling.

After Wrestling. What’s After Wrestling about? You guys have been rehearsing all day, so I don’t, you know, maybe it’s unfair to make me make you use your brains, but… After Wrestling, I think, is about siblings. I think it’s a play about two siblings.

Okay. I think it’s a play about grief, and I think it’s a play about how far people are willing to go to protect a secret. That, to me, is what I think the play is about.

Okay. It’s also, to me, out of any of our plays, I don’t know if you feel this way, but out of any of our plays, it’s the most undescriptive play, because there’s, like, with the other ones, there was always like, it’s about, like, you know, with Kill Your Parents, it was like, it was about, like, three siblings getting together to, like, hash over, like, you know, their grandmother’s will, and, like, hilarity ensues, and everybody’s able to be like, I know that play. Yeah.

I, you know, that play makes sense to me, whereas this one is, like, it’s about siblings and some stuff, you know? Otherwise, you give too much away. Sure. That’s always the trick with something that has, like, you know, you don’t want to give too much away.

How does wrestling play into it? Can we? In a lot of ways, but not incredibly obvious ones, considering we went with that for the title. But there’s one character who is obsessed with wrestling the way that we’re obsessed with the theatre and film, and, like, it’s his ultimate passion. Okay.

And then some things in the play are kind of almost structured like a wrestling match with the way things flip and flip back. Yeah, those are the main ones. And then the idea of someone dealing with an illness or a trauma, wrestling, that’s the double entendre of the one character wrestling and the other character wrestling as well.

I mean, I will admit to having a brief obsession with wrestling. Yeah. With the spectacle of it.

This was in the, I guess, in the early 2000s. Attitude Era. That’s me too.

Yeah, like Stone Cold is my all-time fave. Yeah, yeah. When, you know, just… Mankind, The Rock, that’s my era.

Oh, Golden Age. No, that’s not even the Golden Age, that’s like… No, Golden Age is like Hulk Hogan. Yeah, yeah.

Rowdy Roddy. Yeah, yeah. They live.

Yeah, great, great film. Except for the 20-minute wrestling match in the middle of the film. You’re talking in the alleyway when they beat the shit out of each other? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Put on the glasses! Yeah. It goes on for so long and, like, this is what you decided to spend time on. Well, then it cuts to, which Carpenter is really good with shit like this, then it cuts to, like, them in the back alleyway, like, slung over top of each other with, like, western music, like, looking at everybody, like, yeah, man.

That’s, like, one of my least favorite John Carpenter movies. I fucking love that. Yeah, yeah.

You and I would argue about it. No, it’s one of my favorite John Carpenter movies. I love it.

I absolutely love that movie. Isn’t Big Trouble in Little China his as well? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

That’s, for me, that, like, I watch that film, like, all the time. The Thing. Oh, shit, fuck.

The Thing is just that crazy. Pound for pound. Yeah.

Yeah, it’s unstoppable. You didn’t just stop recording. No, no, no, no.

You didn’t just pause for that John Carpenter. I didn’t. I’m not, I’m not going to interrupt John Carpenter.

I would walk out of this fucking interview if you did that. Please, please, sir, don’t do that. Now, I mean, we’re sort of hedging around some of the stuff that I think, I mean, there’s, after wrestling, it sounds like it’s, I mean, it sounds like it might, if you think only about the wrestling part of The Thing, it sounds like it might be something a little light, but there’s actually something kind of dark and deep underneath that.

It’s, I mean, you’re dealing with suicide in this. Yeah. And that’s, I find that, or I’ve found, and I have a couple of people who’ve had, people that they love who’ve died by suicide.

It’s not a thing that ever goes away. You learn how to deal with the fact that it happened, but it’s probably one of the hardest deaths to come to terms with. Do you agree? Yeah, I would say that it’s the least blueprinted death to be able to come to terms with.

Even like you just now saying saying died by suicide. Like, that’s some new shit. Being able to say that died by suicide, you know what I mean? Like, to be able to like, to have, like, you know, the circumstances that kind of inspired this play, like of our friend who died by suicide, like, when that went down, like, there was no, like, I didn’t, you don’t, we weren’t able to find anybody to rap about it.

And we’ve always kind of chatted about this as like, over the years of kind of developing this story, it was a little bit more like out of the woodwork. Out of the woodwork came some more people that like, were able to kind of talk about the subject. Whereas it’s a very sort of like, it’s, it kind of feels like the desert out there when someone close to you died by suicide.

Because number one, it’s a thing that we, our society doesn’t talk about. And really hasn’t for a long time. There’s a slow change now.

But it’s, there’s, we treat it like a shameful thing. And so we don’t talk about it. And which is bad, because the people who have had people who have died in that way, need to fucking talk about it.

You know? Well, yeah. And, you know, one of the best ways that like, you know, somebody explained it to me, was, you know, one of the things you don’t process is the fact that it’s like, the person who you’re grieving, has killed themself. Yeah.

And, and we, you know, there’s, there’s a circumstance that surrounds that. But also, at the same time, there’s like a lot of having to grieve the fact that like, the person who died, did that to them. So I don’t know, I’m seeing the image that I’m trying to create, and I’m trying to explain, but it’s, but it’s, it’s seeing, it’s, you know, and it as it does in this story, like a lot of like, a lot of anger comes up with that a lot of confusion comes up with that a lot of, you know, like a lot of things that are not graspable.

Yeah. Because you’re dealing with something that we are, we love to make saints out of people who die. And it’s another thing.

Yeah. So, you know, somebody dies, and now all the things that they did that were shitty, we don’t talk about. And all the things that they did, they were questionable, we don’t talk about.

So you can’t stay mad at the dead. And yet, when somebody dies by suicide, when they’ve done that, you have to deal with the fact that you are grieving their loss. Yeah, man.

And fucking angry. I’m so angry at them. Yeah, you Yeah, you have to compartmentalize this part of yourself that is so natural.

Yeah. Of like, fuck you, you took away my friend. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. As much as I’m, it’s so confusing. And it’s one of the like, it can really like tear you apart.

Right? That’s, you know, that is a big inspiration of where the show moves through. It’s funny, because I was thinking about how, you know, I got to a point when I had somebody I love, who died by suicide, where I felt like the only way that I could deal with it, was to make art was to try to create something. The only way I could process what I was feeling was through making something creating a play.

And did you guys find that that there was something, if not healing something cathartic about creating this play? Certainly, certainly. But you’re also talking to us on a day where we’re like, literally driving, driving here straight from rehearsal. It’s a bit of a it’s a bit of a shock right now.

I mean, especially like, I don’t I don’t know if I mean, we’ve checked in enough throughout creating this thing. But like, for me, I don’t I don’t, I probably won’t know until it’s over. Yeah, I won’t know until it’s like done.

It’s kind of just because we’ve been sitting in it for so fucking sure. I mean, there’s a different thing because there’s writing it. Yeah, which is one part of the process.

And there’s performing it. Yeah. Which is entirely different.

Yeah. You know, different parts of the brain, different parts of the heart. Yeah.

Yeah. But I but to what you’re saying of like that, you know, that creating something is the being able to like, look at it from, you know, now I’m able to actually look at this thing, I’m able to look at this thing with something to sort of protect me, I’m able to look at this thing with, you know, some sort of other perspective, instead of it just being like, this is my experience. And I’m just living in the experience.

Yeah, I mean, it there, you know, the the circumstances, the circumstances that inspired this play. For me, you know, it really did allow me to start being able to talk about my friend in in a very distant kind of way. Sure.

You know, being able to just talk about it more as fact, more as something that I had moved through, whether or not I fully had, I don’t really know. But I do know that, like, being able to talk about something like it was just like, very matter of fact, it was just being able to like, we’re just being able to use this as like, notes to be able to work on this particular thing that Yeah, yeah, that has been that has been healing. That has been that has made things simpler and easier.

You know, do you find it hard difficult to rehearse this play to dredge things up? Yeah, yeah. It’s not it’s not a stupid question at all. But it Yeah, the fact is that, you know, a really awful thing happened in Bryce’s real life.

Yeah. And, and in yours. Yeah, you know, yeah.

And, and, you know, and to honor the story that we’re trying to tell, you really have to get into the muck of what actually happened. Yeah. This stuff.

Yeah. I mean, thank you guys for coming out right after rehearsal. Yeah, talking about this shit, but that they can’t be easy to shake that off at the end of a long day of rehearsal.

This is this is the weirder play of being able to put to rest when you go home. Out of out of all the plays we’ve done, this has been the one where it’s like you go home at night, and it doesn’t really just got it, you know, but I also I don’t know, I don’t know if that’s the content. I don’t know if that’s a subject.

I don’t know if that’s like, the fact that we’ve been working on it for so long. This was a weird one for us. We always like really like not writing for very long.

We’re like bit like we we like writing for a week and then doing a couple months of drafts and then just putting on a play. Yeah. And then this one was like that weird one that hung out for a long time.

We’ve been writing it for like fucking two years. Okay. So it’s been kind of like the the, you know, the play that follows us around.

Sure. And then Factory took it on. And, you know, we didn’t expect we weren’t really we weren’t planning on doing this one.

Right. And so it’s just kind of been there the whole time. And now we’re suddenly working on it.

And I almost feel at times like I’m like, wake up and I’m like, Oh, fuck, we’re rehearsing after wrestling. Like, how did it how did it come about that? Like, if you guys didn’t really think you’d be performing this one, how did it come about this? This ended up at Factory? We I mean, you should. So we did submit this play to storefront for their 2017 18 season, right? And then storefront had the unfortunate event of being shut down their bricks and mortar.

And so a couple of months after that happened, Nina, who’s the artistic director of Factory went to Claire Burns, who’s the artistic producer of storefront and asked if she had any submissions from their now failed season that she wanted to bring forward. So Claire opted after wrestling Nina read it. She loved it.

And that’s how it happened. Nice. Yeah.

Yeah, we wrote another play. And and then finished it. And we were like, fucking finish that one.

And then I went to New York to do a play. And then Brie called me like a week later and was like, so Factory wants after wrestling. Yeah, and then we had to, you know, improve it and make it a lot better.

So you had this thing for two years. And then how long was it before went from the time that the factory said we wanted to now that you had to polish it? I think all together seven months, eight months more than that. We found out in like, April of last year.

Yeah. So yeah, almost a year, 10 months. So we’ve been doing it for about, I think when it goes on stage, we’ll have been working on it for three years.

Wow. Yeah. So it’s Yeah, man.

It’s it’s been a long haul with this one. Yeah, heavy. And it’s, you know, yeah.

But I also want to say it’s it’s a dramedy. Like, yeah, yeah. You know, I don’t want people to just think it’s no worthless.

Yeah, you know, but like, you can’t. I think that you can’t really deal with this shit. By like, just sitting in the sad shit all the time.

Like, you have to deal with it in like so many different ways. And an audience needs to laugh and fuck sometimes, like you need to laugh. Well, but also, I mean, especially for you and me, that’s something that you and I have always talked about, especially surrounding death.

And like, it, you naturally, you and me have always talked about how when somebody dies, we naturally gravitate towards each other or people like us who are able to like sneak into a corner and make jokes about the scenario. And that’s not out of some perverse need to take down what is going on. That’s out of like, part of processing, it has to live and being able to laugh.

Oh, absolutely. And not everybody’s not everybody’s cool with that. And that’s fine.

I am Yeah, you are. And that’s how we’ve been able to do this thing, you know, it’s also, you know, it’s a tiny bit more untreaded to, you know, ground your comedy and things that are this. Yeah, this rough.

Yeah. I think that’s when almost things become like more fun. That’s where I get to is, you know, you know, the most watchable comedies are ones that you care about the stakes.

Yeah. Yeah, the stakes have to be high. Otherwise, it’s just like, people flipping on banana peels.

Yeah, that’s only funny for ever. I mean, you’re talking to like two of the biggest airplane fans. We watch airplane all the fucking time.

But granted, like, no granted, that movie’s perfect. Yeah. And also, you know, he has to land a plane, a plane, there’s a lot of people on board that I mean, the stakes are high.

Yeah, good luck. We’re all counting on you. Yeah, the stakes are high, because there’s a bunch of people gonna die.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. They just happen to wrap a whole lot of crazy shit.

That movie is in this later effect. Okay, but yes. It’s based on a movie and the plot is exactly the same.

Oh, I didn’t know that. All they’ve done is like, it’s a lot of the dialogue is actually the same. Oh, I didn’t know.

Wait, like on a straight movie? Wow, which movie? I don’t remember the name of it. I’ll have to find that. Great.

But like Googling, it’s like a shot for shot. And like, like the story is the same. And all they did was like, find the funny in it.

Yeah. Yeah. When did you guys start making theatre? 2014.

Okay. Yeah. Is that when you started together? Yeah.

What about before that? Like, what was what was like, like, when did you guys know that theatre is I think you were gonna do? 2010. Seriously, 2010, never really had any interest in theatre. Made a lot of music, played in a band that was like a very like theatrical, okay.

You know, big band with lots of like costume changes. And we would like build puppets and like things like that. Like it was like, it was a big performance thing.

And that was probably the closest I’d come to it. I’d done some like theatre and stuff in high school. But that was most of my creative energy was spent playing in that band.

Right. And then was a child actor and did some TV and stuff like that. And then was taking acting classes.

And really, like, you know, really, really fell in love with acting through doing acting classes, but never really fell in love with acting outside of those classes. And, and yeah, and then and then wasn’t able to finish high school. So I went to theatre school that didn’t care about a high school requirement, because it was a smart option.

And then when I got out of theatre school, um, I was living in New York. And then a friend of mine took me to an audition with him. And we both auditioned for a play.

And we both got to play. And then I fell in love with doing theatre. But it was like, it was never really on my radar.

Until I was like, yeah, like 21. And, and I, and I always thought it was kind of silly. I thought plays were kind of silly.

What was it about plays that you thought was silly? Well, we grew up in Vancouver, man. And like, no good. No good.

I thought about this when we were driving over here. I was like, it’s Vancouver comes up and theatre. Am I gonna pretend and I’m gonna Am I gonna fuck that shit? We grew up in Vancouver where it’s like, it’s trash, dude.

It’s not trash. It’s it’s just very conventional. It’s boring.

From what I’ve heard, Vancouver is a TV and film town. Yes. It’s not a theatre.

And the theatre that is there is stuff that our parents go to see nothing that we would find exciting. No offense to our parents. No, but that’s the thing.

So that was my perception of theatre. And I like moved to New York and like was like, going to theatre school, and wasn’t going and seeing plays. Because I was like, I don’t, I’ve seen theatre.

I don’t like it. And that was my that was my thing. And I was totally happy going and seeing music and movies.

And then and then I was I was wrong. Then I went and saw some plays. And then I did a play and I realized I was completely wrong.

It’s funny because I’ve encountered people, they’re like, I can’t get my friends to go to the theatre because they’re like, I saw a play once and I didn’t like it. I think that’s I think that’s the oldest story in the book. I think that’s a very bummed out entire media.

No, but I think it’s that like, when you were little, you saw a movie and when you were a little boy, you watch the movie and you weren’t like I saw Aladdin, I wasn’t blown away. So I kind of was like, I’m not into movies anymore. You saw Aladdin, you were blown away because you were a child.

Yeah. And then from then on, you just always had movies being put on in front of you. So you eventually just kind of built up the, the palette for things on a screen.

Yeah. Whereas if you go and watch a bad play, that’s like, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s a whole other thing. You have to sit in the dark.

Yeah, there’s real people in front of you. You can’t leave. You can’t turn it off.

Like that’s invasive. That’s like really a difficult scenario. It’s also, I mean, so I don’t blame those people.

If it’s bad. Yeah. You know, if it’s a movie and it’s bad, you get up, you walk out, the people on the screen don’t know you walked out.

They don’t give a shit. For a play, if it’s bad, you get up, you walk out and they’re probably watching you going, oh, fuck you. Yeah, totally.

Walk outs are tough. Yeah. In plays.

So that was me. What about you? Yeah. Yeah.

Like, I think my dad took me to see shows in New York when he was on business as a kid. So I always really liked the medium. And, and I kind of always wanted to be an actor kind of because my eldest brother was kind of interested in it.

He was in school plays and stuff. So I’d, I’d see that and I just wanted to emulate him in every possible way. And yeah.

And he gave, uh, when I was like way too young, he gave me a copy of, uh, like Reservoir Dogs and Godfather and a bunch of other gangster movies. So I went up to him and I said, I want to watch Scarface and I was 10 and he was like, well, you can’t watch Scarface until you’ve watched all these other movies. So he gave me all these like really incredible, like golden, uh, you know, era film films to, to get into and, and Steve Buscemi and, uh, and Reservoir Dogs kind of made me want to, you know, have acting in my life.

And, and then, um, and then in high school I was so bad at everything. Um, and, uh, my only good grades were in drama and, and through that I’d, I’d write plays and direct them. And, um, we didn’t really have that much of a program, so I just kind of got to do whatever I wanted.

And then, um, and then, uh, through that, I didn’t know what I wanted to do, uh, post-secondary. So I went to an acting school in Vancouver and, uh, fell kind of deeper in love with it. And then, you know, I studied acting in a bunch of places and just was always into both, you know, film and, uh, and theatre, but because I’d go to New York and, and, uh, and see plays, you know, there’s, there’s something really special about good theatre.

And, um, and, uh, and yeah, so, um, we’ve been friends since we were 10, by the way. I was going to ask when you guys, uh, I was 10, he was 12. We went to the same, uh, elementary school and then we have just kind of always been friends.

And, uh, he played in bands and I played in different bands. And at one point we thought maybe we’d have a music project together and it didn’t quite work. Um, and then, uh, and then I was playing a show in New York while he was doing a play in New York.

Um, and I got to see his play and then he got to come see me play at the Bowery Electric in the same night. And it was just a special moment of like, wow, this shouldn’t have happened. We’re both from Vancouver and, you know, don’t really, you know, whatever.

But, um, then we got back to Vancouver after playing and, and, and doing the play and both kind of felt a little bit on, uh, satisfied with our artistic lives. And he proposed the idea that we write a play together and just really just trying to make each other laugh. And I remember at 20 pages into writing the first play, I was like, this is where most people give up and I’m still feeling good about it.

Like let’s keep going. And then his tenacity is phenomenal. Like, so then we got to 40 pages of this thing and he’s like, okay, let’s like do a read through of what we have so far.

So we got over the actors that we’ve kind of wanted for this play. And he pretty much announced like, it’s not even written yet, but we should definitely do this play in like a month. And, uh, and then just kind of through, uh, you know, hard work and tenacity, all that happened.

We, we, we did finish the play doing 12 hour writing sessions and, and then put it up and I went away to go play shows in Europe and we put it up in a church in Vancouver. Um, yeah, that’s how it started. Well, yeah, it started because, because, because I just really wanted to write a play for our buddy, Brandon Taylor that took place in a storage locker.

Cause I also just really wanted to like build a storage locker somewhere and get one of those like sweet orange doors that goes up. That was all I knew. And then that didn’t, we, we didn’t turn it into an attic.

Well, then it turned into a basement suite, like a basement crawl space. And then it turned into an attic. Um, but yeah, and then, yeah.

And then we started writing that was, and then we’ve been writing since then. Yeah. And then during the, uh, rehearsal process of that, he and I were kind of getting together and writing, uh, kill your parents, which was yeah.

Just from that point on, when we started writing Piranha Club after once that thing kind of started to get on its feet, I think that was when we were kind of like, I think this is like, we have a good thing going here. Like, let’s keep going with that. And we just, we’ve been writing together ever since.

Yeah. So when you guys, um, we’re putting on your first, your, your first play in Vancouver, um, a place where you’ve, you’ve said, uh, that there’s not a lot of good theatre. How did that go down in a place where they’re used to seeing things like what your parents would? Well, all our friends came out and that was kind of it.

All right. And that was all right. And we were pretty happy with that.

And it was like, you’re getting like 15 people a night. We’re pretty stoked on that. It was kind of a test run and like the place could fill 15 people.

I’m still stoked on getting just 15 people. Yeah, absolutely. Um, but yeah, it kind of was like a test run.

We didn’t want to have a space that was massive. Cause it’s like, what if we suck? Yeah. What if we entirely suck.

And this is like something that we would never talk about. But also at the same time, it was that, but it was also like, you know, in 2010, like I had moved from living in the States back to Vancouver and I started a theatre company with another friend of ours who’s actually acting in the show right now. Um, but I started a theatre company with him.

We’d done a bunch of shows in Vancouver and it’s really expensive to do theatre in Vancouver. Huh? It was just, it’s just not a lot of facilities for it. It’s not like here kind of thing.

And, and then there’s not an audience on top of it to be able to support how much money you have to put in in order to do it. Right. So it’s just, it’s not, it’s just not economic.

And so, you know, for this, when we were doing this, it was like, let’s not, let’s like, I didn’t want to like go rent it. We were like, we’re not renting a fucking theatre. Like, let’s figure out, you know, what’s the, what’s the smartest way for us to go about this.

So we, you know, we went to the United church down the street from my house and we did it, we did it there and it was great. It was really, really great. And they were super helpful and really supportive of it.

And, uh, and all our friends came and it just kind of, I mean, I would say that that show kind of set the table for also what our theatre company turned into, which was kind of like, you know, feeling like it was like a family run thing. And that, and that to me, that to me felt different from other theatre experiences I had had. And I always kind of felt like this thing shouldn’t be so fucking expensive.

Yeah. You know, and it should, we should be able to charge five bucks at the door. We were able to charge five bucks for that show.

People were into that. And, um, it was cool. It was really, really cool.

And that kind of just set the tone of being like, you know, maybe we got a good thing going here with like the company itself. Yeah. Now what was the trajectory that brought kill your parents? How did, sorry, I’m going to get the title wrong.

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, kill your parents in Viking Alberta.

How did that get from, thank you. How did that, how did that end up in Toronto? Yeah. I mean, like we like, it was the thing is like Bri and I, you know, we’ve been friends for a number of years.

We grew up in the same neighborhood and then Bri had been out here for a number of years. And then, and then my partner and I, she was the one who was like, we can’t live in Vancouver anymore. We, we need to move to Toronto.

Sure. And then it was like, great reproach there from doing theatre and called Bri, called Bri. Bri was like, yep.

And then gave her that play and then, and then she gave it to storefront and the storefront picked it up. Yeah. Did you have a connection with, with storefront before that? No, no, no.

I mean, I knew them in the industry cause I’ve, I’ve been working in the industry here since 2014. So I knew some of the people, but I’d never done anything artistic with them. So it was just a blind submission and they picked it and yeah, it’s been a great partnership ever since because they’re also affiliated with the show as well.

Sure. Yeah. I mean, Christina is the reason why we’re talking.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

So I mean, I’ve always really liked what storefront does. They were able to do much more of it before, before, before. Um, but the quality of what they turn out is always, is always really good.

So I’m really happy to see the, the, the collaboration between you guys and, and them and factory come together. Um, now we’ve talked a lot about, about, um, the seriousness of, of after wrestling, um, and, uh, you know, some of how, how you guys got together. Um, blood pact is the name of the theatre company.

Where did that name come from? It’s a bit, this is a big disputed problem within Okay. Okay. You’re digging up some problems.

So do I have problems? No, no, no, no, no, no. I didn’t even know it was the origin of the name of the company until about a couple of months ago. So at one point when, when we were putting, we were putting up Piranha Club at that church in Vancouver.

At one point I wanted to call the company little, little guy and I wanted the logo to be a hand-drawn Brontosaurus and everybody was pretty on board. Everybody was like pretty on board with that. I was like, I think it was a great idea.

Charlie was like, great, fantastic. I showed him the logo and he was like, I’ll fuck with that. You know, Libby who, I don’t even know if Libby and I were dating yet, but like Libby and I were like freshly trying to get together and Libby was like, great.

I love it. I remember drawing it out in her living room one day, Brendan Taylor was into it. And then, so I thought the theatre company was going to be a little, little guy Brontosaurus logo.

And then I, I went down to California for two weeks right before we started to go into rehearsals for it. And then I remembered a story. I was thinking a lot about the theatre company and I was like, what does the theatre company represent? And, and, and, and to me at that time, it just like felt like what the theatre company was, was like, I felt like we were like 12 year olds in a basement getting up to no good.

And then I was like, well, you know, when you’re 12, like, what do you do? You like play with Ouija boards in the basement and you like make blood oaths and stuff. And then I thought about our friend, a good friend of ours, it’s like a really sort of like around the neighborhood story back home of our friend and Bree and another friend all got drunk on 40s. And then our friend smashed the 40 and pulled out a shard of glass and it was like blood oath.

And they all did a blood oath together. And I was like, that’s a good, and then blood oath doesn’t work with theatre. So it turned into blood pact.

And that’s the long-winded version of it. And it’s, I still have the scar. She still has the scar.

And so Bree, they, yeah, that’s the person to talk to. When we’re kids, we do stupid shit. Yeah.

So I’m not even gonna worry about that. Funny thing is you guys weren’t really kids. How old were you at the time? Like 19.

Still kids. That’s generous. No, no.

It was when I was living in the basement in Canby and he, the person was living across the street by the park. Oh yeah. So that was when we were like 19.

Still kids. Still teens. Yeah.

So did they ever until like recently, like now you’ve heard, not the first time you’ve heard the story. Now that you, you, you know, that you were instrumental in the inspiration for the name of the company. How do you feel about the.

I love it. I remember when Bryce told me the name, I was like, no, like I didn’t like the name at all. And, and we even had like an argument about it, like after kill your parents clothes, where I was like, we should change the name.

Libby was like, we should change the name. And you. Libby’s like, Libby’s like never.

Hellbent, like no blood pact. And then it wasn’t until a couple months ago that Bryce was like, you know why it’s called blood pact and told me that story. And I was like, oh, now I feel so much more involved in like the origin of this company.

And it just transformed the name for me in a lot of ways, even though it’s an embarrassing story, but. And now immortalized forever. Yeah.

Um, what kind of, what kind of humor are you guys drawn to? I mean, obviously airplane, but aside from airplane, um, what, what, like when you guys are like, you know, you’re mixing, especially with this with humor, with some serious stuff, what sort of. I mean, you’ve caught us on a week where we’ve been having like serious issues with me making fucking poo jokes and Charlie being so not on board with them. Oh.

It’s, and I’ve been like really, especially cause we’ve been rehearsing and I’ve been trying to get under Charlie’s skin a lot lately. I know that I can always get there with a good poo. Um, there’s definitely, definitely there.

Um, in, in like, uh, in a more, uh, serious answer. Um, I’m trying to like happy, sad stuff, I guess. Like, uh, take away TT’s movies.

That’s probably our best overall inspiration. Um, he’s incredible. Um, Christopher guest.

Yeah. Uh, is pretty unstoppable. Um, where we really kind of divert from humor, not only with Frazier, hugely with Frazier because our biggest, but, um, also just like, I very much grew up on SNL.

Yeah. And he very much grew up on faulty towers. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That’s yeah.

That would sum it up. And, um, yeah. And then, and then, and then like literature wise, like the, I really like, um, like the absurdity of like Kurt Vonnegut and, and, uh, what he does with humor as well.

I’ve been reading a lot of Eden Robinson lately and she’s funny as fuck, man. She’s like dark, heavy, like really, really heavy, but like there is some shit in her new and her new, or well, it’s yeah. It’s her newest book, son of a trickster where like, there is some, there is some of the funny shit I’ve ever had in there.

Um, uh, I mean, I, oh, and stand up. Like I love the art form of standup, just like crafting jokes, which is funny though. But that’s also where you and I have not always seen.

Like I like comics. I don’t really like standup. I don’t really like going and sitting down and watching standup or watching standup specials.

Granted, I did go see John, we were at the same John Mulaney show and that was like one of the fucking greatest things I’ve ever seen. Mulaney rules. Mulaney rules.

I mean, I fucking love Mel Brooks. Yeah. Um, yeah.

And, um, yeah, I don’t know, man. Yeah. Um, I mean my, like, I’d say my all time favorite actor is Peter Sellers and I love John Candy, you know? Yeah.

Yeah. Um, Robin Williams, when he’s like fighting through, like how sad he is to do things that are funny. Well, you and I also have this conversation all the time.

No, no, but like birdcage, but like you and I also talk about how like some of the funniest shit ever is Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting. Oh my God. It’s but like, and that’s the thing is people always love being like Robin Williams when he gets serious, like in Good Will Hunting.

I don’t think about that. I always am like Robin Williams is so fucking funny. And it’s like, to me, it’s like the fucking, it’s like the secret jokes within that to me.

It’s like the, it’s, it’s, it’s, it feels like there’s moments in that movie where I feel like he’s, he’s so fucking present. And it goes back to this thing that we started the conversation with, like, it’s like, he’s playing a dude who’s like, he’s playing a widower. And he’s so present in that, that like, it transcends above it just being a man living with a, you know, living a heavy life to like, there’s a hilarity in it.

Sure. You know? Yeah. Long winded answer.

That’s, that’s, you know, the, the, the, you know, Tig Notaro? Yeah. The one thing I love about that movie is how, you know, there’s, you know, all the stuff that she’s going through in her life, but there’s, you see the genesis of a joke from when it’s really bad. The one about the, uh, her chest, right? She just tells us, I remember what the, I remember what the joke is, but I remember seeing it near the beginning of the film and she keeps telling it.

You get to work it and how, yeah. If I paraphrase it, it’s, she’s maybe you have it better. It’s, it’s, um, she makes it fun of her whole life.

She makes fun of herself for being flat chested and not having boobs that are big enough. And then the joke is that her boobs one day go, you know what? Let’s kill her. It progresses though.

And it’s, and it’s great watching her try it out where she’s like, you know, she doesn’t appreciate us. We should just leave, you know? And then by the end it’s let’s kill her. Yeah.

No, but like, that’s a great example of, you know, she’s funny. That whole documentary, like at the worst point in her life and the new Patton special, that’s very much about Patton Oswalt. The Patton special is like, because like he’s, he’s so raw because he’s still fighting through like the death of his wife.

But that combination of being able to communicate these things that like people don’t even want to get near. Yeah. And then he not only like knocks it out of the park in terms of like getting us all kind of in on this human connection and experience.

It’s also laugh out loud funny. And, um, it’s not such a gift and his books are the same way. It’s almost like when you make somebody laugh, you break down the barrier towards what makes them cry.

You, you make them vulnerable through the laughter so they can actually reach where you need them to go when you go serious. Yeah. And something like Patton, somebody like Tagg, totally able to do that.

Yeah. Yeah. Sounds like, sounds a little bit like some of what you guys are doing with, uh, with After Wrestling.

Well, I want to thank you guys.