Triple Bypass Productions

Melanie Pyne
A Founding member of Triple ByPass Productions (Producer/Actor) – playing Denise inJohn Patrick Shanley’s ‘Savage in Limbo’ at Toronto’s Storefront theatre, Sandy in George F. Walker’s’The End of Civilization’ at Fraser Studio’s Toronto, Jo-Ellen in Eric Bogosian’s “Skunkweed’- InToronto’s 2015 Fringe Festival at Theater Passe Muraille, and Boochie in Stephen Adley Gurigis ‘Den ofThieves’ at Toronto’s UNIT 102.

Well versed in theatre, she has tackled such playwrights as, Timothy Findlay, Michelle Trembley andmost recently Mohammad Yaghoubi’s ‘A Moment of Silence’ – w/Nowadays Theatre Company/Summerworks 2016 Theatre Festival Toronto. Recent film and TV credits: ‘Conduit’ directed by Anastasia Cronkite,’Lakes’ directed by Tim O’Brien. ‘Shadow Animal’ -Paranormal Investigator.For The 48 Hour Film Project, producing,writing and acting in- 2014 “Lemonade” ,2015 “Strapped”, 2016 “Fumbled”Studied at Humber College’s Theatre Program, Seneca College, Fanshawe Theatre Program graduate and StraeonActing Studios alumni.

www.melaniepyne.com
@PyneMelanie
instagram- melsp13

Chris Whitby
A professional actor of 15 years, Chris has been working in all facets of the industry whether it is theatre, film, television, voice and new media. He is a graduate of Second City’sConservatory and for the past ten years honed his skills as an actor and storyteller at Carter ThorStudios and later Straeon Acting Studios. Most recently Chris played the role of Paul in Stephen AdlyGuirgis’ ‘Den of Thieves’, Jerry in Eric Bogosian’s Skunkweed and Henry Cape in George F. Walker’s The End ofCivilization. He also made his directorial debut with the Canadian premiere of Freeway Strangler, which had asuccessful run in 2014. Other theatre credits include Savage in Limbo by John Patrick Shanley, Neil Labute’s Bash –The Latterday Plays, A Clockwork Orange, Moat & Castle and the cult hit Coed Prison Sluts – The Musical. Some ofChris’ film and television credits include: Murdoch Mysteries, A&E’s The Breakout Kings, Rogue and the web seriesAsset which was screened in the LA, Vancouver and Toronto Webfests. He also voices multiple characters in theanimated series The Bagel & Becky Show.

https://vimeo.com/113521648
@chriswhitby17

Adult Entertainment
Get up, go to work, come home…to what? Day after day, trying to be good, fighting incessant mundaneness; the facade of forced suburban niceness is fading fast.

George F. Walker’s ‘Adult Entertainment’ opens to a seedy room in a suburban motel. Max, a weary detective, finds himself back in this room with Jayne, a defence attorney, six months after they decided never see each other again. Why are they again, secretly meeting? For sex? To exchange information? To make a backhanded deal? Jayne used to care about her job, Max too, but now they’re just putting in time. Maybe they’ve just given up. Jayne mentions a young client of hers, whom she feels sorry for. A glimmer that perhaps Jayne still cares, but needs Max’s help to sway the case in her client’s favour.

Max’s gives his volatile partner Donny some instructions, not Donny’s strong suit. Donny is fighting his own demons, having an infinity for booze and hookers, yet still has a deep love for his estranged wife Pam. During an attempted reconciliation with Pam, Donny’s sloppy police work comes back to haunt them.

One action starts a chain of chaotic events that leads to Max, Donny, Jayne and Pam finding themselves in a situation far worse than any of them could have anticipated.

Cops, lawyers, husbands, wives, truth and lies. Sex, liquor, secret deals, fist fights and perhaps even love. You never know what your going to find behind the door of a motel…

www.triplebypassproductions.com
http://www.facebook.com/triplebypassproductions
@triplebypass_to
instagram- triplebypass_to

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Transcript

Welcome to episode 84 of Stageworthy. I’m your host, Phil Rickaby. Stageworthy features conversations in Canadian theatre with artists of all stripes, from actor to director to playwright and more.

If you want to draw me a line, I would love to hear from you. You can find Stageworthy on Facebook and Twitter at Stageworthy Pod, and you can find the website at stageroolypodcast.com. My guests are Melanie Pine and Chris Whitby from Triple Bypass Productions. Triple Bypass presents Adult Entertainment, playing now as part of the 2017 edition of the Toronto Fringe Festival.

Enjoy the read. And sometimes, I mean, when we pick our plays, it’s hard to put into words exactly why we are drawn to a play. Usually it’s just, it’s instinctual, like, that we are drawn to something.

And then, and then we kind of, through the process, discover why we actually, we find those answers. Do you tend to be like, dark comedies with some heart? Yeah, there’s always like a, you know, we have our tastes, but, but, but yeah, but then we end up discovering even deeper throughout the whole process, which is always kind of fun. Aside from dark comedy, is there some, are there other themes that you are drawn to in the, in the things you’ve done previously? So we met in an acting class.

It was Carter Thor, right, when we first started, and then it turned to Strayon. It turned into Strayon, they changed the name to Strayon. And so Chris was a coach.

I came with Amanda Armagon, and TJ Chesley was also a coach monitor. And there’s sort of a focus on telling stories, and the four of us are sort of drawn to each other, and we have the same sort of sensibilities, yeah, vision. And so we just, we did a scene in the class from Savage and Limbo that Amanda brought, and then TJ really liked it and was like, let’s put it on.

And we invited Chris to be in it, and our other friend Amy, and it kind of formed Triple Bypass. And then we did that, and it was really successful at Storefront. And then we decided, let’s do another one.

And it developed, now it’s our fifth. It’s our fifth production in, I guess, like three years. So yeah, it’s been good little runs that we’ve been doing and kind of building.

How’s the Fringe preparation been going? Fringe is sort of in flux. They’ve moved offices. They no longer have that rehearsal space.

It was so great. They don’t have, you know, they’re moving to a different place for the Fringe Club, but how has it been getting ready for Fringe, I don’t even want to say 2.0, like Fringe 3.0? Well, this year they’ve like redid the website and everything that you’re doing, all the online sort of questionnaires and publicity and all that. So it’s helpful in the sense that they give you deadlines and sort of outlines, so you just plug in the information as best you can to the knowledge that you have, whereas when you’re doing on your own, you’ve got to sort of set your own deadlines.

Yeah, I mean, it is sometimes overwhelming because it’s a lot like organizing rehearsals and then acting yourself and then producing with, of course, a great team, but it’s a lot of late nights, but we love it. But Fringe is so cool to give you the opportunity to do work in a theatre that normally we would never be able to afford, right? So we did Passamurai, which is… Yeah, we did theatre Passamurai main space two Fringes ago when we did Skunkweed there, and I mean, that was such an amazing theatre to perform in, and now this time we have Terragon main space. So we’ve been lucky with the spaces that we’ve been granted from them.

So yeah. That’s one of the, I mean, to get to work in spaces like that for, you know… At least on high school, it’d be like, one day. Oh, welcome, that’s great.

Fringe offers you the opportunity. So yeah, we’re really grateful. In terms of the new website and the new stuff like that, are you able to see your ticket sales in real time? Have they moved over that kind of system? I don’t think they’ve quite gone on sale yet.

I would have to double check that date. I’m not sure. That is one thing.

They release information as sort of the steps unfold so that I would have to read more documents. That could be a bit of a curse though, like being able to see your sales in real time. They did that in Edmonton, and you could really fall down.

I’m just going to refresh the page again. I’m just going to refresh the page again. Yeah, and especially if, you know, when you got to get ready for a performance that day and you’re worried about, oh, we only have three ticket sales for, you know what I mean? And sometimes you just got to let it go and just trust that you’re going to get 15 or 20 walk-ups that day.

Most of Fringe are walk-ups, I would say. Well, they were. I mean, now because you can sell out in advance, there’s fewer opportunities for walk-ups.

In the last couple of years, people can buy like 100% of the tickets in advance. So like the show can sell out even before it opens, if you’re lucky. I mean, that’d be nice.

Can I ask you both about your theatre background? Like how did you come to the theatre? What made you want to get involved in theatre? Did you go to school for theatre? What did you? Well, I started back when I was in college. I was doing something completely different. And I ended up going down, a buddy of mine and I, we just decided we wanted to go explore like improv.

So we started taking classes at Second City. And yeah, our first class, I was like right in the little beginner level. I’d never done any acting before before that.

But I was always a bit of a mimic and growing up as a kid and stuff. And about halfway through the class, our teacher, Janet Van de Graaff, she said, because we’re doing very basic things and she’s like, but I want you to see what this can lead to. So she took us over to the Tim Simms Playhouse, which is no longer around anymore.

But she took us over there to see there was a free improv show. There were some of the more advanced improvisers around Second City and went and saw it. And I was like, I want to do that.

Like that was it. It changed my life that day. So yeah, so that’s where I started.

I went through the conservatory there and graduated out of the conservatory, did a lot of like kind of sketch and improv. And then I just kind of started veering into scripted material, doing plays. And I always like, I was looking at myself and thinking, who are my heroes? Who do I look up to in this industry? And it was always more dramatic actors.

And so I started looking and exploring more into more theatre and studying for like film and TV on camera stuff. And that’s kind of what that’s where it went. And that’s where I’ve been going ever since.

Can I ask you what your initial college, what you were in? Oh, I was in for radio broadcasting. Okay. Yeah.

So it’s still performance based. It’s still performance based. I actually went to radio because like I said, when I was a kid, I was always a bit of a mimic.

I do voices and stuff like that. And I was like, I want to get into doing like voices for cartoons. Right.

And how do I do that? I was like, well, maybe I’ll start with radio. And I went in there and I actually built through if there was anything I got from radio broadcasting program was that I, when we always did commercials and all that kind of stuff, I always made sure I was doing character voices. And when I was writing the commercials that we had to do for assignments, I would make sure that they were very character based so I could do voices and stuff like that.

And I was able to cut myself a little demo reel from it. But I didn’t finish radio. I was a little bit short, but at that point I had already decided I wanted to move into going to acting and stuff.

So it didn’t really bother me. I didn’t really care that much. But then funny enough, I never really got into doing any kind of animation voiceover stuff initially when I came out, but it’s just been in the last few years through acting and stuff like that.

Now I have been doing some, I’ve done some voicing on some animation and that kind of stuff. So it’s kind of funny how it became full circle. Oh yeah.

Yeah. And that’s just how I help. But I have some friends who, who kind of get projects that I have a friend who’s got a recording studio, gets projects, stuff like that.

So whenever we need people doing voiceover, I’ll call my actor friends. He needs help. He needs help.

He needs help. So we come and do it. Yeah.

So was it difficult making that transition? Like, did you, sometimes people change a major or a focus in their life. They worry about not just, if it’s going to be difficult, they worry about what other people are going to think, friends, family, that sort of thing. You mean the transition from radio to acting? Radio to acting.

Yeah. It was a little, well, it wasn’t a difficult decision for me to go from radio to, cause I did discover when I was in the program, I didn’t, I didn’t love radio. And it’s one of those things, I think you do have to love it.

Cause there is a, it is, it’s not a, uh, yeah, it’s a struggle. Like, like, like, like, you know, like acting is, it is a struggle. And I think you, especially if you want to be an on-air personality, you gotta, you know, you gotta go pay your dues and, you know, armpit Manitoba, you know, and they pay nothing to do those, those, some of those, uh, hosting shows out there and stuff.

So, um, yeah, so it wasn’t a hard decision for me to make it cause I just fell in love with, with, with performing and acting and stuff like that. But the, the dilemma I did have coming out was whether I should go back to school. It’s like, does this mean I should go to theatre school now? And, uh, that I did have cause I was already, you know, I had two years at college and in debt from that.

And then it’s like, do I want to accumulate more debt to go do this? And, you know, especially for a profession that’s, you know, you’re not coming out getting a doctor’s wage, you know what I mean? Or anything like that. So, uh, I did wrestle with that for quite a while. And then ultimately I opted just to, there were so many independent workshop schools in the city that you could do it as you go along and stuff like that.

So I opted to just, I didn’t end up going to theatre school. I just started doing it basically. Was it when, when you went in, when you finished and you started, that was what you’re doing, taking the classes and stuff.

How long did it take for you to start finding your footing as an actor? Was that in Toronto that you were doing that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I’ve been, I’ve been here, um, the whole time. Um, to find my footing, it’s, it’s, uh, I’d say it probably took, it took a few years, I guess. Like in what sense do you mean like, like, I mean, I don’t in other, somebody who was in another profession, I might say, when did you start working? But I mean, theatre is like, so hit and miss finding like your niche, your footing, like, like learning that you were wanting to produce work and things like that.

How long did that take to find, to find that? Oh, I think, you know, I think you go through phases as, as an actor when you first, when you first, um, jump into it and you just like, and you know, you do that first show and, and people come out, Oh, you were great. You were great. You were great.

That was so good. And you had such an amazing experience and you’re on top of the world, whether you really were that great, who knows, but like, but you know, you’re, you’re on top of the world and you, and you’ve hit that first, you caught the bug, you know, you’ve caught the bug and now you, you just want to go full throttle and then, and then you start getting into it. And then all of a sudden you, you start to, um, you know, um, hit challenges, right.

And you start to hit challenge and you start to realize you need to work. You need to keep working at this. It’s not something when you realize it’s not going to happen overnight or in a few years or this and that.

And then, and then you, you start to hit these crossroads. And I think, um, I think it was probably, you know, one of the things, uh, Melanie mentioned, uh, the acting studio we, we met at was Carter Thor studios. And I think it was when I went to that studio, which was about, I think I was 29, 29 or 30 when I started at that studio.

And I, it was just like, that’s where I kind of discovered what it meant, what it was to be an actor and the importance of being an actor. And, and I had the freedom to really explore, you know, unapologetically what I need to explore into whether characters I’m playing and stuff like that, and not afraid to be judged or, or any of those kinds of things. And I think that’s, it was when I went into that studio is when I really kind of started to get my footing and starting to be a professional really.

I mean, I had had an agents and stuff like that leading up to that stuff, but, you know, as far as like, making the work more important and, and, and such, it was really at that studio, I think. And then they tell you value and that you can say no to some commercial, like that you have, um, yeah, certain strengths that you can. Um, and then when you go into an audition room, don’t ask permission, tell them, I’m going to put this chair here and you’re ready to go.

He gave you, you know, that your integrity, that you, he, they always said, don’t lose your integrity as an actor. And, and, and, and that, you know, that don’t worry about what other people are doing and don’t worry about, yeah, he said, just trust the process and, and, and, and understand, and just go in there and say, well, this is how I’m going to play this role, whether they like it or not. That’s out of my hands, but this is how I would play this role.

They cast me. I think that every actor should spend some time or at least one day on the other side of the table, not auditioning, but as an auditioner, whether you’re reading, whether you are, you learn so much about mostly what not to do, which is helpful. Yeah.

I sat behind the table of a, of a, of a TV series. I was, I was the reader and they were casting a TV series. And so they were, and this was a, a series that had, there was a lot of different ethnicities in the characters.

And there was a lot of characters, like a lot of, it was a, it was an ensemble cast. And so they were seeing a lot of people. And, and so, yeah, I saw so many people come in and I was reading and, and, and, you know, I saw, you know, working actors, people you, you, you, you kind of recognize and stuff that would come in there and you’re like, Oh, wow.

And, and, and what surprised me was that, like, you know, they weren’t blowing people out of the water. Like they came in and they were just doing pretty average auditions, you know, and stuff like that was, it was a bit of an eye-opener. Some people came in and were fantastic.

And then some people were disappointing and, and who knows why it just goes to show everyone has off days and that’s right. And, or sometimes these roles are just not right for that, for that person or whatever it is. Right.

But it just goes to show, you know, like you just have to go in and, and, you know, prepare yourself for it and go in and do it. And yeah, I’ve watched people lose their, lose their role, that role the moment they walk in the door. Sure.

Just something about the way they walk in the door and everybody’s like, well, not them. Yeah. I saw someone walk in and they were just so insecure that there’s like, there’s no way they’re going to get hired.

It’s that whole thing you were just saying Melanie about, about not needing to ask permission, like it’s your time to take up space and feel comfortable doing that. Yeah. I think when you do that in an audition, it gives, it gives them the confidence to go, okay, we can, we don’t have to worry about that.

You know, especially if they don’t know you as an actor, they’re seeing you for the first time, at least they can go, well, they seem to know what they’re doing. So, and they know they, you know, they’re not like, ah, is it okay if I do this? Was that all right with you? You’re showing them that, you know, I’ve got you, we’re okay. Yeah.

Just let me take care of you for these 10 minutes and then we’ll go. And if you want me to go in a completely different direction, I can do that too. Just, you know, but this is my, yeah, my sort of interpretation.

And I think that’s ultimately, they just want to see you make some, some choices, you know, and then they may not be the best choices. It may not be the right choices, but at least you’re making choices and then they’ll adjust you. And then I think that’s the other thing they want to see is like, can you take the adjustments? Cause if you can’t, then you’re not going to get hired either.

That’s a big thing. Yeah. Cause even when we’ve been, uh, auditioning for different parts and different shows that we’ve put on to be on the other side of the table, even if it’s, um, sometimes we know the people and sometimes they’re complete strangers to see someone, they may not be perfect, but they absolutely go for it.

And we are cracking up and we are so behind them and they try different stuff and they go up. Nope. Never mind.

Let me do some. And it’s just, and those are the people because we see the enthusiasm and the love and that’s, yeah, they just went for it. And then we’re like, yeah, fully committed to it.

Even if it wasn’t what we envisioned are perfect for like, but look what they did just without on their own. And that’s some, yeah. Some of the people that we’ve worked with have been really great.

Yeah. And then there was some other auditions that we’ve, we’ve seen where I’m like, I just can’t believe how not prepared these people are. Yeah.

Right. That they’re coming in and, and you know, it’s like they’re reading the script for the very first time. And yeah, well that always tells you that you’re not going to work with that person.

Like if they’re that unprepared for their audition, how, how prepared are they going to be for the actual thing? And also to see some people that are so prepared and they’re really great, but something like our director goes like, not for this part. And that’s an interesting lesson as an actor as well, to know that you may be so great, but it just isn’t your role. Now you have to be gracious and just sort of be like, Oh, that’s great.

Well, next time you were fine. Do you find, I’ve found this during auditions, like two days of auditions. And at the end of each day going over all these headshots and going like, do I remember these people? And I’d be like, I remember that guy.

He was terrible. Like those are the people that stand out. And so you end up having to have these conversations like this guy, do you, does everybody, does everybody remember their audition? What notes did I take? Was he good? Was he, cause the good people don’t stand out quite as well as the bad for some reason.

Probably because the bad are so bad. So bad. Yeah.

Like they tend to be like, that’s a story. Yeah. That I will tell, you know.

But courage, what courage? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

But generally I find that the people who were right for the part, most of the time we’ve been in an agreement, like we can say we narrowed down to maybe three or yeah, two, three, four people where we go, okay, I think, I think it’s going to come down to these people. And we’re usually all in agreement of that. It’s usually kind of obvious.

Yeah. It’s in, it’s rare that we’re like humming Han over to people. And sometimes it does come down to like the body type that is mentioned by the playwright or it has to be in relation to another character.

And it’s just like, well, we need a smaller guy for this, even though somebody who was six foot was fabulous, but so, but yeah, it’s interesting to be on the flip side and there’s way more things that sort of. Yeah. Cause there is something to be said about the picture, you know, the picture, like whether it’s, whether it’s a movie, but also the picture on stage when you sit there and if you were to look at everything with the, with the, with the, with the, like all the cast and in costumes and then the set, the lighting and stuff of that, and you see it as a whole, there’s something, there’s something to be said about that.

And, and, uh, so it’s important. Yeah. I mean, I’ve been in a situation of like, knowing that we wanted a particular girl for a role.

And then like, when we were talking about the gentleman who might be acting with her, the question became like, can I see him with her? Like for that particular role, like she’s really bloodthirsty. Can he hold his own against this or in that role? No. You know, we couldn’t see that.

Yeah. Well, I think one of the best examples that we have of that was from our last show we did was Den of Thieves. Uh, and, uh, and, um, uh, Michael Eisner, um, played the role of Flacco, who was like this white guy.

He thinks he’s kind of Spanish. You know, he thinks he’s like a street. Yeah.

Right. And, and so he’s, he’s with, uh, Melanie’s character, who’s, who’s a stripper. Right.

And, and Melanie is how tall are you, Melanie? You’re five, nine, and we had you in heels too. So you were probably about six one. Right.

And Michael is probably, you know, he’s probably what, like five. Uh, I don’t want to, I don’t know, but he’s short, he’s on the shorter end of things. Right.

But that dynamic for that particular play, it just worked so well. Yeah. Right.

And, uh, massive, massive, like he just took over that, you know, he held his own against anybody, but just the image of it was just so, it was so funny, but so that worked really well. Cool. Melanie, I want to make sure that we get some time to talk about, about your, cause we can keep going with all this stuff, but, um, your, your theatre background, what drew you to the theatre? What was your journey to get to where you are? Uh, it’s, it’s funny.

I think I wanted to be, I, I, I watched a little mermaid and I realized, I know it was a cartoon, but I was like, I want to be the voice. And then my mom took us to see when we were quite small, the Phantom of the Opera. And she said, I’ve never seen you sit so still, but I didn’t want to be Christine cause she’s boring.

I wanted to be the Phantom. And then I realized that I can sing, but I’m not a singer. That wasn’t my forte.

And then I just was in speech competitions and lip syncing and silly things like that when you’re a kid. And then I went to Unionville high school and the arts York for drama. I met some really great people.

And then I have really supportive parents and they’re like, if you want this, it’s not going to be easy, but we’re going to, you love it. So we’re not going to force you down a path that you don’t want to go down. So I went to a theatre school.

I went to Humber for a year and a half. And then I was kicked out of their program. And then I went to Fanshawe and did some courses at Seneca and then went to Vancouver thinking, you know, it’s all going to happen out there.

I’ll be the next Julian Anderson and then came back when it didn’t. And then, yeah, I went to Carter Thor and yeah, sort of everything took off from there. Was there a point when it went from, you know, a little girl saying, I want to be the voice of the mermaid to realizing that you would did this because everybody else, you know, they might in your, in your class or your friends might’ve been talking about like other careers they were going to do.

And maybe at one time it was, we’re going to be doctors, policemen, astronauts. And then it became like business. I want to be an astronaut, but I’m awful at math and science.

I didn’t know how much math and science was involved in being an astronaut. I just knew I had to go to space. My dad’s like, well, you need to know your times table.

Well, I’ve seen Apollo 13, so I can play and I can do anything without being anything. Isn’t that exciting for a kid to, yeah, just to be able to always play. But I think it was probably, yeah, getting to high school and then being in, we did like Waiting for Godot and I had a teacher who cast me as Lucky and the boy.

And I was never like, I was shy and just probably quiet and stuff. And he was the first one that sort of gave me a chance. And he’s like, you can hold silence.

And he was a teenager. I was like, that’s interesting. I don’t know how or why.

And then it was just from there, I figured out that I love this. I love it. This is the most terrifying, but magical feeling in the world.

And then I was just like, I want it for better or for worse. This is what I wanted to do. And when do you decide that you wanted to be producing your own work? Yeah, I think it definitely came out of meeting these other lovely folks into a bypass and just because how long are you going to wait and maybe nobody will ever think I’m going to be the next Meryl Streep.

So we have to do something that you can give yourself opportunities and other opportunities and do the work that you want to put on and tell the stories that we wanted to give a voice to. Yeah, I mean, that was one of the things. Another thing that Carter Thor was really big on was was creating your own work and not sitting by the phone waiting for your agent to call.

So and just getting out there and meeting people and working with people. And if there’s people in the class that you like working with, you admire their work, write a script with them, do something with them, you know, and get out there and just do stuff. Because, I mean, it’s not like, you know, we’re going to the, you know, our, our actors cubicle nine to five every day, right to sit there and do acting work for some company, right? Like, it’s, it’s, it’s, you can sit there and go through long droughts.

And, and so it was, it was about, you know, who had discipline and passion to sort of pursue it. And then we’d have each other’s backs to go like, don’t don’t quit. Don’t quit.

You’re really and Chris is a coach to and a director and stellar. Like he very, very clever. Like he’ll come over and say one thing to you in a scene.

And I’m like, your heart blows open. And I’m like, of course, why can’t I do that for myself? So it’s also great to have. And you’ve helmed a lot of our shows.

I feel like you’ve been the rock and some of the, the characters. And it’s so great to have those different energies that, yeah, sort of put together our company. Yeah.

It’s amazing to see how in the last 10 years or so how creating your own work has become an essential part of a theatre career. Well, I, it’s also, I think of, of, of film and TV too. Like, I, I love theatre.

I love storytelling generally. And I, I love film and TV. I love doing voice work.

I love being on stage. And it’s, to me, it’s, it’s all the same thing. And, and, and it’s the same with film and TV too.

Like getting out there and creating your own work. You can, you know, like, I think they, they call Toronto a satellite city and, and with satellite cities in the industry, you know, a lot of like with film and TV stuff, like, especially with American stuff that comes up here, it’s, it’s you know, they cast a lot in LA and then they just, they cast all the kind of smaller roles here. So, so when you are lucky enough to get an audition, you’ll get in there and it’s for half a page or whatever.

Right. And it’s not really getting the, your, your, your juices going, you know what I mean? And then, and also, I mean, theatre, it can be, it can be clicky too. Right.

And so, and it’s hard. Like, I mean, like I said, I didn’t go to theatre school and so I’ve never auditioned, had an audition for Cannes stage. I’ve never had an audition for Terragon.

They won’t, they’ve never called me in. So it can be difficult too. Right.

So, so it’s just like a matter at some point you just go, fuck it. Yeah. You know what I mean? If, if no one wants to see me, then I’m just going to go do the work that I want to do.

And I think more often than not, people, it leads to more work that way because people will come and then they see you work and they see you in a position where like you are, you know, playing a lead role in a play and you get to do the full arc of a story. You know what I mean? Rather than just, you know, playing a couple of pages or something like that, you get to really explore and, and really kind of challenge yourself and stuff like that. So there’s.

Passion also goes a long way. Like if somebody sees, Oh wait, this guy produced this thing and it was good. And like the passion that like, I want to work with that kind of, that kind of passion to, to, to put something together.

That can, that can really help too. Yeah. Also, um, not being a dick.

There’s also that, right? Like people, yeah, there’s also that element too, right? That, yeah, like, like talent, passion, and not being an asshole. Like it’s just, uh, and the want to always learn and learn from other people and see what else you can collaborate to do together. Like, uh, we’ve brought on Tom Summerall is another member of our company and he’s from the States and he’s an awesome addition and also like brings a different flavor and yeah, is very well worth burst in acting in theatre.

So yeah, it’s, uh, it’s an adventure. It’s a lot of work, it is a lot of work. Yeah.

Well worth it. When you can say like, without anyone’s permission, we, other than the playwright giving us permission to do it, but we did that and for better, for worse that because it’s, if you’re a carpenter or something, you see the product at the end of the day. So to be able to see the show, whether you’re in it or not, but just know that that was my creation.

That’s the object that you put out into the world is, uh, yeah, I don’t know, satisfying or just, it’s, it’s, you just feel, I don’t know. I think it’s pretty fun. I think when you’ve made it like, not like made it like at the top, but when you made the thing, like when that curtain goes down, whether you’re in it, like when that show is over, you made that and that’s pretty awesome.

Yeah. Yeah. And also, and knowing that like, assuming it’s well-received and all that kind of stuff and just what, what effect it had on someone in the audience, you know, like where they were moved to something.

To have someone on the street after the French show we did and just at the lights and I was like, why is this guy looking at me? And he was like, skunk weed right on man. And I was just like, Oh wow. I certainly don’t expect someone to wreck it.

But then yeah, that’s for whatever reason, there’s something that, that, when, when we did skunk weed at, uh, at fringe two years ago, I was sitting in the beer tent and I had, there was some guy standing, uh, just kind of a little bit off from me. And I, and I thought he was like waiting for someone to finish the conversation to go. And, but he was actually waiting for an opportunity to come up to me.

And, and so when his window came up, he came up to me and he goes, Hey, he goes, Hey, I goes, I just want to say to you, I really loved your show. He goes, he goes, it was so, uh, amazing and, and, and funny and scary and, and exciting. And, and I was so moved and it was, it was one of the best nights in the theatre I think I’ve ever had.

And I was like, Whoa. I was like, wow. And for him to come up to a complete stranger, just to go out of his way to say that to me at that, like, that’s when you go, wow, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s pretty amazing feeling.

Yeah. I love when people like, especially people you don’t know, it’s something you don’t know what comes up to you. It takes the time to say, I really liked that.

Or I was moved by that or thank you for doing that. It’s amazing. And then he apologized to me for not seeing the show earlier because we were towards the end of our run.

I was like, dude, I go, don’t worry about it. Thank you for seeing it. And thank you for coming up and we still have a few shows left.

So pretty spread the word. But yeah, no, it was, uh, sometimes you don’t know, cause that one was going into it. We thought it was a great, fun story and stuff, but we didn’t realize like the poignancy of it until we were in it.

And then we’re like, Oh, this is, we really found it. And, and, and, and what, what on paper looked like kind of like a fun kind of romp it, you know, by the end, it was really sad. We had a really sad, pretty sad ending.

It was. And so it did, it really did have a massive arc in the show. And, and it’s something again, that, that wasn’t necessarily on the page, you know, and it was something we discovered through rehearsals and, and, and such.

And, and, uh, it was cool. Yeah. It was a play that we thought would just be fun.

And then in the end it moved a lot of people and it moved us too big time. That was great. When, when those kinds of revelations happen, like in the rehearsal, like you thought it was one thing and then, Oh wait, no, it’s, it’s something else.

Yeah. It’s more than just this fun romp. And sometimes it’s not just like, it’s not something that happens in one moment.

It’s something that happens gradually. And then all of a sudden you look at it, what it’s become and, and it’s hard to see it when you’re in it, you know, but it’s not until after the fact and go, wow, look what we put together. And sort of, yeah, to have the plus, um, trust in the playwright and the director and your fellow actors.

Cause like, yeah, I think one thing that we’re pretty big on is connection between actors. Cause no matter what we’re up there with each other. So we’ve got each other’s backs and we’re doing this, like telling a story together.

So I think it’s, yeah, something really, I don’t know. It, you don’t know. See, even this one that we’re doing for French now, what I might have thought when I first read it and I was interested in a different character and people were like, no, you’re, you’re, you’re Pam.

And then now in rehearsals, it’s way more gut-wrenching and touching my heart than I expected. And I’m like, oh, well maybe this is why I shied away from him because it is something to discover. It’s easy to do that.

I think when you’re reading a script, when you already have an idea of who you might be playing in the, in the thing, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, you can put your, you can read it with some blinders on a little bit. And you’re saying you’re not actually seeing the full thing and what the full purpose of the character is to the whole story and such. And, and it can, so yeah, I mean, I know when I read, I was like, you’re Pam.

You were like, I don’t know. And I was like, no, you’re Pam. The feels that I don’t even want to go there, but, but yeah.

And to trust the director, to, to have that vision and to let you play and to trust you and just, I think our favorite experience is with directors that they just let you go. And then they’re like, something fell off the rails there. Let’s figure out this moment.

And it’s often when I’m like, yeah, I know. I know. That’s when you fall back into your like actor, like ticks, you know, that you can get away with.

Yeah. So yeah, it’s pretty. At what stage in the production you guys are, because Fringe is like just a month away.

So have you guys been rehearsing for a while? You’ve been rehearsing for a while. How, how close are you to being, to being ready? Do you think? Well, I, this plays interesting in the fact that there’s two characters, two characters, two characters. So in rehearsing it is two people meet, two people meet, two people meet, and then they all come together at the end.

So it’s been a little bit easier than other plays where eight people are on stage at the same time, trying to piece that together. It’s been a challenge. Yeah.

We’ve had some people that had to pull out for school and all kinds of different things. So to get your team together and also because there’s a gun use in the show, a warning, and Fringe is like, you have to have someone with the gun wranglers that are licensed. And I was like, really? We didn’t do that for other indie shows.

We had a lock box and all the proper things, but not someone with the full license. So to get somebody with that and it’s compiling it all. But yeah, as far as the acting comes, it’s, I don’t want to say the simpler part, maybe this is the, what we are, what we flow into more easily.

And then, yeah, the first rehearsal is a bit more, you know, stop and start, stop and start, but he’s good at writing. It just, it’s comes out of you far more easily than you might expect. Yeah.

Yeah. The George F. Walker kind of knows a thing or two. It does indeed.

And this one, it could be set back in like the early nineties or it could be today. So there’s yeah, present feel to it, which is cool because often some of his plays, I don’t want to say they’re dated, but there is certain references to things that set you in a certain time. So it gives you a bit of freedom as well to play with.

Yeah. Yeah. That’s definitely one of the things we, we gravitate towards as a company is we like, we prefer to do modern, modern plays.

Yeah. So far. Yeah, absolutely.

And, and just that he’s Canadian. It’s a bit for fringe. It’s a, it’s a nice little thing that we can do because American playwrights are amazing.

But when we find a Canadian one that we can put up one of theirs, then it’s a double bonus as well. Yeah. Well, I mean, when people are looking for, for plays, they often don’t go to the Canadian playwrights very often.

Which is, which is sad because there are lots of great Canadian plays and a lot of times people will go to, you know, those plays that they know that are usually American. Yeah. I mean, I mean, we generally don’t put too much emphasis on where the plays from, um, it’s go for story.

Like that’s, that’s the first and foremost thing. And, and, uh, and, uh, and go from there and that’s kinda, and then we don’t really worry about it too much, but this is the second time we’ve gone into the George F. Walker’s world. Yeah.

Hearts pump for his world and his people. Yeah. Um, so, you know, like I was saying, we’re, as we’re recording this, we’ve got a month out from fringe, um, fringe just had their, their, their, their launch.

They switched up their website and put everything online. I was looking through today cause I have to start making those choices about which shows I’m going to see and things like that. And, and, um, are you guys, you’re ready with your, your, your flyers, your, your posters and all that stuff.

Do you have a, do you have a fringe promotion plan? Yeah. So we have a friend who’s a photographer and we did a really cool shoot. So I think within the week things should be arriving from said printers and then we can start, uh, posting the neighborhood and that.

And then, uh, Tom’s also, um, past career in graphic design. So that’s definitely a bonus to have someone that so good and so quick that he can do something an hour that he’s got all the software. So, yeah, we’re going for, yeah, it’s obviously super suburban motel.

So they’re all in motel rooms and, uh, yeah, some of the pictures that we’ve taken were sort of more, um, editorial type stuff, but they’ve got a really cool vibe and sort of a feel of the characters and who these individuals are. And yeah, I’m pretty exciting, excited to get it all online and unveiled and stuff. Right now they’re just doing some color correcting or something, which is not my realm.

So I was like, sure, send it to me as soon as you’re finished. So yeah, hopefully in the next week, everything’s going to be out so we can put the producing on the back burner. Cause it’s always there, but you get the, you get the bulk of it done and then we can focus.

Yes. Focus. You gotta get that gate out of the way so you can be an actor for a while.

Right. Cause I never want the producing to take so much time that takes away from the acting is why we’re doing it in the first place. I’ve, I’ve gotten into that position where you just like, Oh, I’m too caught up in producing and I can’t concentrate on this thing.

It just ends up being terrible. So I have to like, yeah, be like, can you ask for help? Yes. And asking for help is important.

Um, in terms of like promoting the show, we did, or you do have a plan. Is there any kind of, uh, like in terms of when fringe is on, are you, are you, you’ve got your, your patter for your fringe lineups and stuff, or are you, uh, going to wing it? Are you, well, I know, well, I mean, I know last time some things we did was we did some cross promos with other shows where we had their flyers and and vice versa. So, uh, that’s a good thing I think to do.

And then, um, I mean, uh, you know, amongst all, despite all the online stuff, it’s just like, there’s just good old fashioned word of mouth is to contend to be the best, the best way once, once the fringe is going, but I don’t for past shows and people who have seen these shows, we can kind of tap into that as well. So yeah, it’s just, and then getting in, in old fashioned, putting up posters and postcards. And so I think our tagline is sort of, uh, you’ve made your bed, no lie in it.

But I think when you’re approaching people, but there’s something in the French and going to shows, you’ve really got to sort of judge your audience when you’re going up to them. How do you pitch the angle? Because like, yeah, when we’re doing skunk weed, if you’re going up to people, some of the older generation that are coming out of a Shakespeare show, like, no, they’re not going to go see a show called skunk weed, even though the show really didn’t have anything to do with skunky weed drugs. But so you’ve got to pick your target audience if you really want to draw people in and then people bring other people and then it slowly starts, hopefully circulating.

But when, yeah, we’ve got a best ensemble and we’ve also got that when we’ve done a 48 hour film project. And I think that’s what we, we never try to put anybody as a star, but if we can get a best ensemble type thing. Well, I mean, that’s, that’s just the thing.

Like, you know, you get, if you get those things, you got to use it. Right. So, so two years ago when we were in French, we had we were in Now Magazine’s list of best ensembles and top productions and we were patrons pick.

Yeah. Patrons pick. So, so, so, um, I had back to back.

We had back to back shows. So we did a show and then we had 45 minute break and we did the, then we did our, our, our closing show. So our patrons pick was came in right before it.

And, and, uh, oh man, we were on fire for that last show though, because we were so warmed up for it. Yeah. Cause there was no break.

There was no time to come down from the first show. So it just, it was flying and it was packed. It was great, great closing, but so we got to use that stuff.

So we will use our, our, our past shows to, to promote this show as well. It’s one of those things that Canadians are really bad about talking about themselves or maybe it’s me, but I think that I think I feel the same way. It’s good.

Other people said so. Yeah. Yeah.

It’s like a very Canadian thing where you’re like, yeah, we sold out. We’ve been selling out for five, five ends and now, or whatever it is, you know, you just, you, you should mention it, but you feel so awkward. Yeah.

I will say that we put our guts in it. We put a heart, we put tears and passion. And that’s, I think why you come see triple bypass that we do lay it out there because it’s, it’s what we love.

And this is the opportunity that we get to do it. And, uh, yeah, tell great stories and really meet some great actors that bring things out of you that you don’t necessarily expect. And I think that’s the magical moments that you’re just there on stage with someone and it’s just, you’re so present and you’re so in the moment and things just happen very safely, of course, but if it’s a violent thing or depending on what it is, busted my nose right on stage.

It was magical. But yeah, so it’s, uh, to yet have the, that driving force, I think is always behind our sort of goal in our productions. Yeah.

And, and, and, and, you know, it’s, it’s the, the great review. If you get a great review that does half your work for you, for your promoting, it can really really helps big time. Cause that’s like, you know, you get that four or five ends from now magazine and you just like print up the stickers, put them on your postcards, put them on the poster in the, in the, well, what was the alleyway or wherever they’re going to be, you know, I did the Hamilton frames last year and they didn’t have a really good place for posters, like outside each of the venues.

And I was like, why, like, this is how you sell, how are people going to know it’s there? Not just there, but like, you got to have all of the posters there. You got to have like a spot for all of the shows to put their stuff up. And they didn’t really have that.

So I’m sure that I’m sure that Toronto friends will have, we’ll have that. Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah.

Yeah. They always had something even before our transaction, they had that big fence. Yeah.

But it was, but if you snooze, nobody died when they were doing that. Yeah. This year I hear they’re doing a parade from the, the old spot down the road.

Oh, that’d be fun. So you never know who, and that’s, what’s cool about seeing the posters is the different actors and directors, different people that you didn’t know. Because if you got the fringe draws only certain person’s name gets pulled, but you don’t know who’s associated with that show or who they’ve cast.

So it’s really cool. And then what a reunion, right? Like once a year you hear people’s year and what they’ve been up to and what’s up coming and be like, all right, man, I’ll call you. And it’s, it’s good.

I always see people at the fringe that I’ve seen in a while. You know, it’s like, you know, someone you did a show with five, six years ago or something like that. And you hadn’t seen them since.

And all of a sudden they’re there and you have a quick beer with them. It’s like the place where you can go, where you’re going to see people that you know. Yeah.

It’s like, like theatre cheers. You were, were you both at the lottery or was it Melanie? Were you? Uh, I was there with Amanda. Yeah.

So we did not get drawn, but we got drawn first on the wait list. First on the waiting list is a good spot. So we thought that with any little bit of luck, something might go in our favor.

So we, yeah, we just crossed our fingers and yeah, it’s exciting. Have you, do you guys regularly do the lottery or do you just do when you have a project? No, we’ve done it every year. We’ve done it without a project.

We never had a project. We just, we just knew we’d find one. It forces you to find something.

And we always do, excuse me, we always do published works. So we, we, we haven’t gone into writing original stuff as of yet. Maybe we will, maybe we won’t, I don’t know.

Well, one thing we, I would say we’re all pretty stubborn people. So writing together would be a challenge, a joy and yeah, but it’s maybe on the horizons. We’ll see.

We’ll see. We’ll see. We’ve all got some unique, but as actor, as, as a, as an actor driven collective that we tend to just want to find just scripts that we can really sink our teeth into.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

For the lotteries each year, do you go or if we can, if we’re off work, at least one or two of us try to, I don’t know how I feel about going anymore because it makes you sad or only because you know, you’re like in, and I think I feel I would feel better if I was at home, not in the room, not getting into fringe, you know, just like the numbers, like every time they call, they like, and then somebody is reaching in and you’re like, Oh, this is the one. Is it going to be? No, that’s not the one. This rollercoaster the whole way through.

And it’s just, I don’t even know if I can take it. But it’s happy excitement. It is, it is.

But now I’m thinking maybe, maybe the golden ticket is not to go for me. I don’t know. Get someone to like tweet the results.

Yeah. Well, they, they tend to do the last, the last one, which is always helpful. So you can, so it’s good that you don’t have to be there to accept it.

Yes. It’s true. It’s not like an award.

Yeah. Go up and get your picture taken. Yeah.

Or like a raffle. It’s like, no, no. Okay.

We’re just going to pick the next one. Are you, they would pack the place if you had to be there to accept. Oh, absolutely.

Nobody would not be there. Yeah. I could have to go somewhere else.

It wouldn’t be happy outside. It wouldn’t be enough space. So a couple of questions, just as we’re finishing off is triple bypass online, social media website.

It absolutely is www.triplebypassproductions.com. And obviously we’re on Facebook as well. And Twitter triple bypass TO. I can’t remember.

Yeah. Are we on Instagram too? And on Instagram under the same handle, but it’s all linked to the website. So you can go there and, and then yeah, probably put a ticket link thing up when, when they go on sale, just to make it easier.

Yeah. And how about, how about you guys individually? Are you on the websites? Twitter? Instagram? Yeah, I’m on Twitter. I think I just went on Twitter just for the purpose of, of our company.

I don’t, I don’t really actively tweet anything until we’re doing a show really. But, but, uh, my thing is always trying to get the playwright to tweet out the show. Oh yeah.

Yeah. We got Eric Bogosian tweeted out our show and, and Steven Adler-Girgis tweeted out our, uh, our last, our Den of Thieves show. So that was always exciting.

Maybe next, maybe the next step will be to get them to come up and see the show. But, um, yeah, and I’m on Facebook. That’s, that’s about it.

I have, I, I, yeah, I mean, I’ve got demo material on Vimeo and YouTube and stuff like that, but that’s… And the link is on Triple Bypass’s website. Oh, is it? And yeah, I have melaniepine.com is my personal website. Um, Twitter, Instagram? Both.

Yeah. Yes. At Pine Melanie, I think one is, and at Mel SP 13 is Instagram, if I’m remembering correctly.

Got it all locked up there somewhere. Well, thanks a lot, you guys. Thank you.

Can we, maybe, do you want to just run down, uh, cause we haven’t actually mentioned exactly who’s in the show. Oh shit. Yeah, absolutely.

Let’s just, let’s just kind of throw some shout outs to our, our cast and our director and our other producers and stuff like that. It’s important to have it, to have it written down. I had somebody like call me after.

Yeah, you can edit. You can edit this part out, right? You can edit this part out. All right.

So our director is Christopher Hayes. Uh, producer is myself, Melanie Pine, uh, Chris Whitby. And then we have Amanda Armagon and, uh, Tom Zimmerl is collectively is triple bypass.

The four of us. Uh, Max is going to be played by Tom. Uh, Jane is Joanne Sarazin.

Hopefully I’m saying that right. Uh, Donnie is Antonino Perutti. Uh, I am playing Pam stage manager is Stephanie Williams.

And our gun handler media rep is Karina Cogene. And our fight director is going to be Nate Bitten. Great.

Yeah. We work with him a lot. Yeah.

And, uh, and set design set design is Sean McDowell and set builders, Mike Vetrovich. There we are. I hope I’m pronouncing everything right.

Just, I mean, just to jump back into like conversations about stuff there’s for friends, there’s always that question about how much set do you choose to have? That’s been a challenge. That’s been our challenge because, uh, our set designer, Sean, he, he, he designed a beautiful, beautiful set and it would be a no brainer if it wasn’t fringe. Yeah.

Um, cool. Yeah. Just like to fit in that.

I think it’s two by five feet backstage. Like you have to make, we’re thinking maybe the bed hollow. So we can just, but there’s, but at the same time you need things, you don’t want to compromise the show either.

So it’s, uh, it’s a fine line. And, and, uh, I think we’re back to the drawing board though. Yeah.

Back and forth and back and forth. And we’re keeping a few elements and seeing how we can. Yeah.

Cause the other, you know, the other thing is like, how quickly can you put it up and take it down, which is always like 15 minutes. So you got in between shows, right? 15 minutes. I mean, sometime, I mean, sometimes if you’re like, we have a 90 minute slot, but maybe our show will run 84 minutes.

So we got an extra six minutes to add into that 15. So, but then, you know, cause you know, if you’re not, if you, cause you sometimes there’s crossover, like I’ve been like tearing stuff down and the other people are starting to come in and you’re like, we’re not done. Usually they, they hold all the, they’re usually good about keeping the, the next show out of the theatre until we’re done until the previous is done.

At least the past was really good with that. That’s good. When we did the show last time.

Um, yeah, you just go like, okay, this person’s doing this thing. You’re doing this thing. And so it comes like a little army that moves in quickly.

And then cause you want a few minutes to like settle and you got to put on your costume and you know, get yourself psyched right before you go out there. So you don’t want to be drilling something two minutes before. I’ve done, I’ve done like, um, like rehearsing the, the, like the setup as like, here’s how we put together this set and we have this much time.

Can we do it in this much time? Like into the space is just like, there’s never any stress because it’s part of the show and you just get it in set up and then you’re ready to go because you’ve rehearsed it. Like it’s part of the show. You’re just, nobody’s stressed cause it’s just another part.

Yeah. I think you have to do that unless you have it. You’re set as a chair.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

You definitely have to do that. We did that. Yeah.

We did that before. And I think we ended up, our setup was done in five minutes. I think last time we got it nice and tight.

Nice. Yeah. But yeah, even the tech rehearsal sort of tech time with the focusing your lights and all that is your only time to, if you have enough time to rehearse, cause that would be your dress almost before you go on.

So we, even if it’s just a couple of scenes, just to hear what you sound like in the space and angles, because sometimes the way you’ve been rehearsing, it isn’t exactly the stage space. So just to make adjustments and blocking, blocking adjustments and to find your light and where’s the edge of it. And yeah, there’s a lot of moving parts, uh, for a fringe show.

It only gets a three hour tech slash dress. They are patient. Those technicians in the theatre so patient.

Whenever I’m doing a show, I, there’s two questions that I ask my theatre tech. Number first question, how do you take your coffee? Second question, what is your drink of choice? Cause if you’re the first show in there, you get them there, you bring coming with their coffee. If it is the last show of the night, you bring them there, the drink of choice, you know, you got to take care of them.

Well, thanks a lot. Thank you so very much.