Toronto Fringe Extra #2

This week on Stageworthy, host Phil Rickaby brings you another special Toronto Fringe Extra episode, featuring interviews with 4 Toronto Fringe Artists, in advance of the Toronto Fringe Festival, running July 2-13 at various locations around Toronto.

In this episode:
Emma Golden the writer and producer of the true Halifax story, Potato Potato
SHOW INFO AND TICKETS: https://fringetoronto.com/fringe/show/potato-potato

Laura Anne Harris the writer and performer of the raw, tender, and quietly radical, Have Fun Kids.
SHOW INFO AND TICKETS: https://fringetoronto.com/fringe/show/have-fun-kids

Matti Mclean, creator and performer of A Canadian Explains Eurovision to other Canadians
SHOW INFO AND TICKETS: https://fringetoronto.com/fringe/show/canadian-explains-eurovision-other-canadians 

Sashoya Simpson, writer of LULU takes us into a world of Afro-Caribbean folklore, legacy and ancestry.
SHOW INFO AND TICKETS: https://fringetoronto.com/fringe/show/lulu 

Watch for another Toronto Fringe Extra on Thursday, Next week!

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Transcript

[Phil Rickaby]
Hello and welcome to another episode of Stageworthy. I’m Phil Rickaby, the host and producer of this podcast. Welcome to another Toronto Fringe Extra.

This is the second of four Fringe Extras in which I’ll be talking to four fringe artists about their shows. These extra episodes will come out on Thursdays as opposed to the regular episodes which come out on Tuesday. If you missed it, on Tuesday, there was no regular episode because that evening there was a live streamed episode of Stageworthy, which was a fringe preview where I sat down with the hosts of A View From The Box, Creative Full Time, Being Dramatic, and Cup of Hamlock.

We talked about fringe and what we’re looking forward to. That episode is also now in the feed. It’s, you can find it on YouTube as well as in your podcast feed.

So if you missed it, go back and take a listen to that. Check out what we think you won’t want to miss at the Toronto Fringe. Before I get into it, as always, if you’re watching on YouTube, make sure that you like this episode.

And if you’ve been enjoying what you’ve seen on YouTube, make sure you hit the subscribe button and hit the bell icon so that every time a new episode is dropped, you’ll get notified in YouTube that that episode is out. If you’re listening to the audio version, make sure that you are subscribed or following the podcast. That way, every time I release an episode, you will get a copy of it delivered directly to your device and you’ll never miss an episode.

Remember my Patreon as well. I can’t do this show without the patrons who’ve chosen to back this show. Patrons help me to make this show and also get perks like early access to episodes, conversations about what might be coming up, as well as when there are issues to talk about.

Those are the people that I will go to first and they’ll get to help influence the direction of this podcast. So if you haven’t already and you wanna support this show, go to patreon.com slash stageworthy. It only costs $7 a month, Canadian.

And by backing me there, you’ll help me to make this show. So let’s get into who’s coming up on this fringe extra episode. First up, Emma Golden talks about her show, Potato Potato, which is a musical about a man who ate five pounds of potato salad in a Halifax cemetery.

It’s a show about how and why stories stick with us and the absurdity of public survival. Next after that, we’ll have Laura Ann Harris who brings us Have Fun Kids. After her friend and fellow theater artist, Jordan McKenna died by suicide, Laura discovered about 700 pages of writing from Jordan and in Have Fun Kids, Laura blends Jordan’s words with her own stories of grief.

Then we have Maddie McClain who joins us to talk about A Canadian Explains Eurovision to Other Canadians. Equal parts TED talk and storytelling chaos, Maddie helps us learn why Eurovision matters in a world desperate to eliminate queer joy. And the final interview of this fringe expert, Sashoya Simpson joins us to talk about her show, Lulu, which follows the titular character as she travels to a world of Caribbean mythology and fantasy on a quest to save her ailing grandmother.

Those are coming up in this hour. Tune in next week for another fringe extra as well as for another regular episode on Tuesday. Thank you for listening and we’ll see you in the next episode.

Emma Golden, thank you so much for joining me. I’m so happy to have you here. What can you tell me about your show, Potato Potato?

[Emma Golden]
Well, thank you for having me. I’m so happy to be here. Yeah, Potato Potato is a brand new 90 minute musical coming to the Toronto Fringe Festival this summer at Theatre Passe-Muraille, which is very exciting.

Potato Potato was started as part of my writing stream at Sheridan College and then through a year of workshop and development has been able to come to the stage. It’s a musical comedy. It’s a satire with a very deep political heartbeat driven by pop and funk music.

So it involves a story tied to Halifax, Nova Scotia, which is where I’m from. And I’m very excited for everybody to see it.

[Phil Rickaby]
I wanna talk a bit about that story.

[Emma Golden]
Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
The man who ate five pounds of potato salad at Holy Cross Cemetery. Yeah. That might be a very Halifax specific story.

So I’m just curious, can you tell me a little bit about that story and what it is about that that captured your attention?

[Emma Golden]
Yeah, what’s so interesting about it is, so I just graduated from Sheridan College for music theatre performance and you can specialize in a multitude of streams and the one I chose was writing. And for our first assignment, they said, choose a new story and just like pitch a musical that would have to do with that new story. And I went home for December and I’m from Halifax and I was in the car.

I heard my friends talking like very casually about this guy who ate five pounds of potato salad by the grave and everybody was like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, what? That’s like, it was just crazy that everybody was talking about it so casually and like knew about it.

So it really piqued my interest. So I looked into it a bit and it was very dramatic. It happened at a nighttime in a graveyard.

It was thundershowering, hundreds of people came together and I just thought it was so odd. And so I developed it into a musical and I saw a kind of a deeper story about what captures political attention in the media and why we gear towards certain stories rather than other stories just as human beings and why it appeals us.

[Phil Rickaby]
So this guy, just so that I understand, he ate, didn’t just eat five pounds of potato salad, he did it with a crowd?

[Emma Golden]
Yeah, yeah, he just put up posters and a week later just had five pounds of potato salad. The police came, there was like 200 people standing in the rain and he attempted to eat the five pounds. He did not finish it, but it wasn’t the fact that he finished it, it was more.

[Phil Rickaby]
It was the fact that he did it. Yeah. So there was a guy in New York last year, I think, who did something similar where he ate like a million cheese puffs or something like that in Union Square, yeah.

So this thing, everybody was talking about it. So what is it that, like, how did this story say musical to you?

[Emma Golden]
Well, it’s just something in my gut said I had to do it for the new story. And then I was just thinking about it and I do a lot of climate activism. I have a lot of like interest in making political theater and I went home and I just did some more research.

I started looking into the McCain brothers in New Brunswick. I started looking into just a bunch of the Irish potato famine, like all of these different stories. And I kind of mixed them all together to make the musical.

So it’s based and the main character is the guy who attempts to eat the potato salad, but it’s kind of a mix of a bunch of different stories to make this new one. But I think the absurdity of it really caught my eye, yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
100%, 100%. Let’s talk a little bit about you. You are, as you mentioned, from Halifax.

You’re currently in Oakville, Ontario, but you were at Sheridan College studying musical theater. Tell me a little bit about your theater journey. What brought you, how did you first get interested in theater and how did that journey take you from Halifax to Sheridan?

[Emma Golden]
Yeah, so I’ve been doing theater ever since I was a kid, like six. There was like a theater company underneath my daycare. So I just kind of like would go downstairs and see the shows.

And then, so I was always around it. And then I started doing a lot of work at Neptune Theatre with their young company. And then during high school, I got super into organizing climate strikes.

So I was kind of balancing sustainability and like theater arts performance. And I heard about Sheridan because that’s in the theater industry. It’s one of the schools that’s recommended to go to.

So I applied and got in. And then after COVID, I got to fly out to finish the, it’s an honors bachelor, so four years out here. And now I’m just hoping to stay in Toronto for a bit and see what it’s like out.

The theater scene is quite larger here. So I’m excited to kind of dip my toes into that. But I love to write.

I think that’s what I learned. Like I love to perform, but I really like creating the material that others perform.

[Phil Rickaby]
Was writing something that you always did or was it something you discovered at Sheridan?

[Emma Golden]
Yeah, I always like created things. I had like a small little YouTube channel with my friend where we made like Hamilton videos and we ended up like getting the attention of Hamilton. We got to see, it was super cool.

So we’ve always been like creating little worlds. I’ve liked world building. And then I kind of picked up writing at school.

I’ve never tried to like write a song or anything. And I was really, really, it was really hard to do at first, but I just kept, I just loved doing it. The idea of just making something that hadn’t existed before.

So it was kind of a no brainer when I chose like the writing stream to go into. Yeah, I always knew I wanted to leave the school with an original piece.

[Phil Rickaby]
So you, did you know you were gonna do the writing stream when you went to Sheridan or did that happen while you were there?

[Emma Golden]
I’d heard about it. Like I’d heard that there were options and right away, like since I started going, writing was what I wanted to do.

[Phil Rickaby]
So tell me about the creative process in creating a musical. I assume that you’re writing book and music. So now of course we all hear about those writing teams, Rodgers and Hammerstein and all those, they’re like Gilbert and Sullivan, one writes the music, one writes the words.

And then you have others who write the whole thing. What is, what was the process like for writing this musical yourself?

[Emma Golden]
Yeah, I’ve never written a musical before. So I honestly, I was guessing a lot of the time, but I, because I had so many mentors and peers around me, I felt really guided through the process. So I, it’s for me writing it, it started with more, like, I felt like I really needed a handle on this, on the strange world I was creating before I kind of wrote anything.

So it was a lot of like research and dramaturgy about, again, like I said, all of those different historic events and stories. And then I went home in the summer and the guy who had attempted to eat potato salad was in like a hotdog eating competition. So I went to that.

It kind of, we did a lot of in-person research. I visited the gravestone and then I just kept writing and I produced music as well, which made it a lot easier. Cause I don’t, I’m not fluent in music theory.

I did it all by ear. So I had produced it all and we got to workshop the show at Sheridan. We did like a read through and a talk back.

We went to factory theater and we got to do a showcase presentation and like gauge audience feedback, which was super cool. So I was granted a lot of privileges along with just where I was in my education. But it was a lot of, it’s a lot of weird things you don’t think of, like just reading about potato famines for like two months straight.

And like, just like understanding the world so you can play in it and know the balance that you’re playing in was the most important part.

[Phil Rickaby]
Writing is such a weird thing where you’re like taking in as much as you can about all of the things that you’re interested in and like mixing them up but becoming sort of an expert in your own particular mixture of things. Yeah. Was that something that came naturally to you or did like, did you get guidance on how to like mix it all together and researching and how to do that the best way?

[Emma Golden]
Honestly, it was a lot of on your own and just kind of writing and reviewing and a lot of just like chatting with friends who kind of were there the whole time and would just talk through it and be like, what if this happened? What if this happened? And the more research I did, honestly, the plot came to me.

So I’d be like, oh, that happened, cool. Put that in. That happened in this thing, put that in.

So it was, I like to call the show like a mix of facts to create a completely false story. That’s kind of what it was.

[Phil Rickaby]
Sometimes I think that that’s just, that’s what writing is. Like take the little bits of truth that are out there and then create a fiction out of them.

[Emma Golden]
Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
I love the fact that you also kind of got the experience of workshopping a show while at school, which I think is extremely valuable to make part of the creative process. What did you learn from the audience that you worked, that you sort of presented it to that was a surprise for you?

[Emma Golden]
Yeah, I think what was the most valuable thing I learned was, and I already knew this, but that the story itself was going to read very differently to whoever was watching it based on the perspective they brought in with them. Because though the piece is like extremely political and I wrote it from my standpoint, it’s not directly political. So people from different groups and different subcategories picked up on different things.

Like I heard a lot of people go, it’s so funny, it’s so silly, I love it. And then other people, the first thing would say, it’s so smart. I love like people, and that’s true with anything.

You can never control how people perceive the art you make. And I think that was like extremely apparent when I saw it and it was super cool to see what people picked up on.

[Phil Rickaby]
I always think that’s one of the most important lessons that any artist can learn. Sometimes people get a little, they wanna make sure that everybody gets their point. So it becomes very pointed and the point becomes the whole thing.

But I always think that if you trust your audience, they’ll go with you. Even if they don’t get exactly what you’re saying, the idea, the thing that you mean them to get sort of makes their way into their brain.

[Emma Golden]
Yeah, I think musical theater is made to change people and cause political changes and stirs. And I think the best way, what I’ve witnessed to do that is to open people’s minds and have them relax and feel entertained and feel welcomed into the piece without being like completely hit with what point you’re trying to make. And in that, when their mind is open, they can kind of pick up and make those revelations on their own, which is super, super cool.

[Phil Rickaby]
Do you have, you know, you’re presenting this, you’re sort of premiering at the Toronto French Festival. Do you have a history with French? Have you been to French festivals before?

What’s that history for you?

[Emma Golden]
Yeah, I’m really excited because this is my first French festival I’ll ever be able to attend. Mainly because the French happens at different times in the few months when I’ve been old enough to like want to go to that. I’m always back in Ontario for school when Halifax French happens.

So I always like miss both. So I’m really excited to just experience everything and all that it’s got. We’re in a super, super cool section of the French.

It’s Derek Chua’s new section at Theatre Passe-Marin. It’s only musicals, which is, it’s just an honour to get to like explore that with the multitude of other shows in our category. So I feel very, very lucky to be in that section.

And yeah, doing the Toronto French out of all of them is super, super awesome.

[Phil Rickaby]
I think it’s great to have this venue, to have a showcase for musical theatre within the French, which can be something that is, you know, occasionally there’s a musical that happens in the French, but there’s no, there hasn’t been a showcase for it. And I think this is a great opportunity for people like yourself and other creators to show their musical theatre chops.

[Emma Golden]
Yeah, because the venue itself is just for musicals. Then we have like kind of instruments, we have mics, which it’s just so much harder and more expensive to put on a musical. So this is way more accessible to everybody else in the category to like be allotted those benefits from the section, so.

[Phil Rickaby]
Because you need all of those things, it’s sort of like ups the whole production expense that you wouldn’t have if it wasn’t a musical. Just as we’re sort of starting to get to the end of our time here, tell me a little bit about, you know, what are you most looking forward to at the French this year? It doesn’t have to be a show.

It can be like something about your show. Like what’s the most exciting thing?

[Emma Golden]
Oh, I think what I’m excited for is the community that comes with the French Festival and just being able to have a way to meet and network and bond with all of these local artists. And, you know, just be, it’s such a good opportunity to step your foot into the city, like the theatre of the city as a new upcoming artist. So I’m really, really excited for that.

I’m also really excited that the show is completely peer and alumni led from Sheridan. So to be able to do that with, you know, a lot of your peers from the smaller pool at Sheridan is super exciting. I, yeah, I think it’s going to be awesome.

I’m just excited to meet everybody and see all of the other shows. The program came out today and I was like looking at all of them. They just look so cool.

[Phil Rickaby]
The program is my favourite part, or it’s one of my favourites. It’s my favourite pre-Fringe ritual is going through the program and trying to like try to make a list of what I want to see and what’s going to be, like what are the priorities and all this. It’s just like having that program is just like my favourite thing.

And also the community is so huge, like to have a community. And what a great sort of coming out for you as an artist in Toronto to be presenting your work at the Toronto Fringe when all eyes, all theatre eyes are on the Fringe. So I think that’s amazing too.

[Emma Golden]
Yeah, I mean, it’s luck to get drawn in the lottery and then it’s hard work after that. So I think we all just feel very lucky and we want to make the most of the opportunity we got.

[Phil Rickaby]
Absolutely. Well, Emma, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate you giving me some of your time today.

And I look forward to seeing Potato Potato at the Toronto Fringe. Well, Laura Anne Harris, thank you so much for joining me. I want to get right into talking about your show.

Tell me about Have Fun, Kids.

[Laura Anne Harris]
Yeah, it is a piece that I’ve been working on for quite a few years, and it’s a collaboration with my director, Jesse Fraser, and another collaborator named Christopher Lewis. It is about my friend who died from suicide in January of 2020, and he left behind a lot of work that we didn’t really know about. And we are examining his last project that he was supposed to do with Chris and Jesse and integrated that into the piece, as well as other stories of memory, loss and love and my friendship.

[Phil Rickaby]
It is always difficult to talk about death. It’s even harder to talk about suicide. It’s a it’s a very complicated thing emotionally and just just dealing with because, you know, you get somebody does have cancer.

You can say, fuck cancer. And you can like be mad at the cancer. Somebody gets, you know, somebody dies in some other way.

You can you can be mad at the person that killed them or something like that. When somebody takes their own life, you are both grieving and angry at the person. It is a very complicated thing to you.

What’s the most important thing about about being able to talk about this in your work?

[Laura Anne Harris]
Yeah, I think it is one of the most challenging pieces I’ve ever had to work on because it’s a challenging subject matter. And it’s challenging to talk about suicide from a place of empathy, compassion, but also honesty. Right.

You’re going to there’s going to be complex emotions that come up with it. There’s going to be anger. There’s going to be sadness.

There’s obviously grief. And examining the ways that we look at suicide in our society and also how we destigmatize suicide from a place of empathy and love. And that doesn’t mean that it’s clear cut.

And we know all the answers. In fact, what I think I’m exploring are the the hard questions that we often avoid and the conversations we often avoid. But the honesty within all of that.

[Phil Rickaby]
It is the stigma of suicide leads people to to to really not talk about it. And that kind of makes it even harder to deal with, because I think there’s an implied shame in the people who’ve survived, the people who who have who have lost someone that maybe they didn’t see it or whatever. It’s the thing that we don’t talk about.

And in fact, obituaries have their own ways of of describing it rather than, you know, outright saying it because we have to we have to hide it for you. Why is it important to to just say that talk about this out loud?

[Laura Anne Harris]
Yeah, I think with all of my work, I’m always processing my emotions and the way I do that is through my artistic practice. And so I think it’s important for me. It’s part of my healing journey to be able to communicate these hard truths and for me to also share all the love that I had for this person.

They aren’t just their death. They are a full person who had who touched so many people. And as much as this piece is about these harder conversations about suicide, it’s also, as you say, who was left behind and how do you move on from that kind of loss?

So for me, it’s also about the community that was formed, actually, after Jordan died. That there was a community of people who didn’t know each other, who suddenly were connected. And that’s a really impactful thing on my life.

And I want to share that.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Was there ever any reluctance to talk about this on stage for you?

[Laura Anne Harris]
Oh, I’m still feeling it, Phil. Like, I’m like, I’m still feeling the reluctance. I mean, it’s challenging.

This is this is a really challenging piece. I think. From what I’ve shared with people so far, a lot of people feel seen because these stories hit so many people in so many different ways, I didn’t even actually know.

So people come up to me and say that was really accurate for me. Thank you for sharing that, because they felt seen for the first time. So that makes me feel that this is something special and and that there’s a lot more people who can be a part of this community.

And then I realized.

[Phil Rickaby]
Is this going to be the first time this show is presented?

[Laura Anne Harris]
It is. Yeah, I’ve done a reading of it in a couple of places, but this is the first iteration. And it’s actually part of Next Stage Theatre Festival, part of the Toronto Fringe.

So there’s four Next Stage Festival shows. And I’m one of those Next Stage Festival shows.

[Phil Rickaby]
So when you were preparing to to to present a show for the first time, especially something so particularly raw like this, how do you prepare your your mind, your yourself for like, how does it feel for you to to to present something for the first time?

[Laura Anne Harris]
It’s really scary and it’s really exhilarating, too, I think. Part of the reason why this feels right to me, though, is there’s a lot of references to the Toronto Fringe within the show. And my connection to Jordan is through the Toronto Fringe in a weird way that I do talk about.

So there’s a lot of connection with Toronto. Obviously, his friends and his family are in this area. So it just felt like the exact right place to premiere this show.

And I just feel humbled and honored that I get to share some of his words on stage and then also share it with the Toronto community who all, you know, felt the ripple effects of his loss.

[Phil Rickaby]
Now, you are an artist who currently primarily lives in Portland, Oregon, but you you’ve been a fringe regular over the years in terms of like living in the U.S. and coming to Canada to perform. How does that how does that that feel for you? Is is coming here like coming home or is does it feel more like a different place to you?

[Laura Anne Harris]
Oh, no, it’s coming home for sure. Toronto and Vancouver and Victoria are still my cultural art homes. I’m starting to plant the seeds in Portland.

I’m really starting to build my community there as well. And they’re a beautiful community there. I jokingly say that they’re like the Berlin of America, but that’s just my opinion.

And but I always feel like I’m coming home when I perform in these cities because they gave me so much in my artistic career. They they gave me so much education and support of my craft. So, yeah, I always feel like I’m coming home when I come home to Canada, whether it be Toronto, Victoria, Vancouver, wherever, really.

[Phil Rickaby]
Now, the last time you were in Toronto, it was pre-pandemic. You were performing Destiny USA, which was kind of about how you moved down to the States, certain that Hillary Clinton was going to be the next president. And instead it was Donald Trump.

And now as you come back to Toronto to perform again, Donald Trump is once again the president. Is there I don’t even know where I’m going with that. It’s like an it’s like coming home in that in this situation.

Uh, does that is that is there an irony to that? Like both times, like you’re you’re sort of like in this situation.

[Laura Anne Harris]
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, my friend Matt, right after Trump got elected again, he was like, wow, your show, Destiny USA is still more relevant than ever. And I was like, yep, good thing I can still do that show.

So I’ll probably still do it. I might try to do it in the U.S. because but I’m kind of testing the waters in some way because I just I’m worried. I really know what the temperature is right now, depending on where I performed in the U.S. But yeah, the irony isn’t lost on me that I’m coming back up here doing yet another show and Trump is still in office and he’s doing so many terrible things for the arts down in the U.S. None like besides everything else, obviously. But, you know, it just feels like, you know. Yeah, it’s it’s rough right now. I’m not going to lie.

[Phil Rickaby]
No, absolutely. Have you never performed Destiny USA in the U.S.? I did it.

[Laura Anne Harris]
I yes, I performed it in Syracuse, which was so great because it’s set in like, you know, it’s partially set in Syracuse. And then I’m trying to think of where else I’ve done it. I don’t think I’ve done it anywhere else in the U.S. at this time. So that’s why, you know, I would like to do it down there again.

[Phil Rickaby]
The last time you were here, you were not a mother. And now you are. How does that change your relationship with fringe and traveling for fringe?

[Laura Anne Harris]
Great question. Wow. It’s made things challenging.

I think in an ideal world, I’d love to travel with my baby and bring her on the road with me. But in practicality, that’s actually really hard to do. So my hope is that, you know, I as I continue to grow my artistic practice in Portland, that she can see my artistic life down there.

But then she knows that mommy’s going to go away for a couple of weeks to do a fringe festival or to do another curated festival. And that’s OK, because, you know, that’s what’s feeding mommy’s inner life. And I also just want to expose her to the theater arts as well.

So at some point, I would really love to bring her out to Toronto Fringe that she could go to Kids Fringe and we could just, you know, do Kids Fringe together. I just think that would be so fun. Yeah.

So I want her to know the ecology of fringe. But I also know that she’ll have time to know that. And yeah, and I really, I really love all the performers that bring their kids with them.

But I know just for us, my husband and I, it just doesn’t always work out the way that you think it’s going to. And it’s that’s OK. You just kind of have to meet each other where we’re at.

And that’s where we’re at right now.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, it is a major undertaking to to do a fringe festival with child in tow. It’s not an easy thing to do.

[Laura Anne Harris]
Yeah, no, it’s not. And I’m just going to give a shout out to my husband. He is the best parent ever.

And he’s doing a great job while I’m gallivanting and rehearsing in Toronto and all this sort of stuff. So he’s he’s great.

[Phil Rickaby]
This show, the have fun kids. You you you mentioned you found like over 700 pages of Jordan’s writing and sort of like worked on it to create this. Was it difficult going through his that that writing?

[Laura Anne Harris]
Yeah, I mean, it’s sort of interesting because the anthology, the collection is, you know, it’s made up of scripts, monologues, live art pieces all put together as one collection. So, you know, a lot of his early writing doesn’t speak to his artistic journey later in his life. Right.

So looking through and finding things that would work as excerpts in in the piece was tricky. And then also outside of that anthology was the last piece that he was working on with Jesse and Chris, which is actually what we did incorporate into the show mainly. So, you know, there was even more writing out there.

You know, he had a novel. He had other live artworks that weren’t involved in the 700 page manuscript. So it’s just astonishing the amount of work that he left behind.

And, you know, this is just a fraction of what his mind was. But, you know, I think we give the audience a taste of who he was as an artist and who he was as a person.

[Phil Rickaby]
When you are talking to potential audience members about this show, how do you frame this this production?

[Laura Anne Harris]
Yeah, that’s a great question. I one of the things that we’re exploring within the piece is that my friend Jordan, whenever he would do a live art performance, he wouldn’t repeat it again. He would just do one performance and then move on to the next project.

So part of our journey of exploring this nonlinear journey of grief is we actually incorporate randomized stories within the show. And we do that by having about 10 or so objects and we hold them out. We get the audience to pick an object and we pick up to four per performance.

And those objects are assigned a story. And so we randomize four different stories within the show. And the reason for that is to make every show kind of an original live artwork in the spirit of what he did.

So I would approach an audience member just saying, you know, do you want to be a part of the show and basically get them to pick an object?

[Phil Rickaby]
Now, rehearsing a show is hard enough, but to rehearse a show with so many like potentials, how do you go about doing that and holding it all in your mind?

[Laura Anne Harris]
Lots of volume. No, I’m just kidding. I think for me, it’s just having a strong connection with every single story.

So no matter what, I can still connect with it by just simply looking at the object and hearing the title. So having that strong response and also be really in conversation with the audience. So knowing that an audience member chose this object kind of invigorates me to access that story.

And, you know, and it may be more conversational and it may not be totally word perfect, but it will be what that object instilled.

[Phil Rickaby]
So, yeah, sounds really exciting. And I can’t wait to see it. So thank you so much for giving me some of your time today.

And I can’t wait to see you at the Fringe.

[Laura Anne Harris]
Thank you so much. And thanks for talking to me tonight.

[Phil Rickaby]
Matti Mclean, thank you so much for joining me. Could you please, just as we get started, tell me about your show, A Canadian Explains Eurovision to Other Canadians.

[Matti Mclean]
Yes, it is. It is a different show than A Canadian Explains Eurovision to Americans in the sense that now it’s in Canada. So I felt it only appropriate to reflect the alternate title.

In this show, you’ll never guess what it’s about. Oh, please tell me. Please tell me.

It is all about a Canadian explaining Eurovision to other Canadians, but also why it’s such an important part of so many people’s lives, why it’s such an icon in the queer community, especially, and why I think it’s a big, fun, dumb contest that most people ignore that actually has a lot of relevance in today’s day and age. So, all right.

[Phil Rickaby]
Tell me, let’s start with with how did this show come about?

[Matti Mclean]
This show came about last year when I was touring my other show. I went to Orlando Fringe and around the campfire, one of the reviewers down there, I went and I said, I have two ideas for a show. One is a big, heavy ballad about how I’m probably never going to be a father.

And the other one is called A Canadian Explains Eurovision to Americans. And he was just like, that one, do that one. And I’m just like, OK.

And then the show just kind of grew from there. Eurovision is absolutely one of my obsessions. I love the contest.

I’ve got into the contest very heavily over the past couple of years, and it’s become a big part of my life. I love sharing it, and it only seems to make sense that I carry my enthusiasm forward into this as well.

[Phil Rickaby]
What was your first draw into Eurovision?

[Matti Mclean]
The question there is, is what was my first conscious thought into Eurovision or what was my first accidental? Because I actually initially got into Eurovision in 2010 or so. Eurovision has actually made its way into my life many times before I even realized what it was.

It’s something that happens to a lot of people. And then when you actually hear the songs, you’re just like, oh, that’s from this song contest from a crowd world. So, yeah, over the past five years, I would say, is when I started to get really invested in Eurovision, find out the ins and outs of it.

Why is this contest important? Why is it fun? Why is it silly?

And what do we gain from it? So the the the short answer is five years. But in reality, Eurovision has been permanently present in my life for years and years before that, and probably in yours as well.

And you just had no idea.

[Phil Rickaby]
OK, can you tell me a little bit more about that? I mean, I know about ABBA. ABBA was a Eurovision winner and then went on to the the 70s fame that they became known for.

But what in what other ways is has Eurovision come into my life?

[Matti Mclean]
Well, Eurovision’s been here for a long time, so a lot of songs that were like very important in the younger day are actually from Eurovision. The biggest ones, Volare or Le Bleu de Pinto de Bleu. That show, that song plays a role in my show.

But other songs, Puppet on a String by Sadie Shaw. Congratulations, Heiress to. There’s many songs.

Gina G’s just a little bit. Olivia Newton-John was in the contest. The lesbian band Tattoo was in the contest.

Like there’s a lot of bands that you wouldn’t think about being a part of the contest and actually have been. And they’ve been in your life the whole time. And you had no idea.

[Phil Rickaby]
It is also interesting in the other ways that aside from musically that that Eurovision has sort of permeated cultures outside of of of ones that normally like might participate. For example, there was a film, a movie. Will Ferrell created a film that, you know, geared towards Americans who probably had no idea, for the most part, about what Eurovision was.

And then also in a recent episode of Doctor Who, a sort of Eurovision thing. So Eurovision looms large in in many cultures. So now we sort of got into the germination of how this this came into being a show.

How did you how did you write this show? How did you actually come to create it?

[Matti Mclean]
Well, this is essentially some many, many years of I’m going to call research. But really, the answer is obsession. This there is just nothing about this show that hasn’t, you know, all the information has been out there for years and years.

And it’s just something I naturally fell into with my curiosity. I’ve written I’ve essentially created a podcast about this. I’ve been a part of a podcast about Eurovision called Think About Eurovision for many years now.

It’s actually coming back, which is very exciting. Like this is something that I followed intently for many, many years from like national final stages, like all the mini contests where countries choose their songs for Eurovision. I’ve been following those intensely for several years now.

Like I am deep in the Eurovision zeitgeist. I’m just like, this is here. But what makes this show interesting is that I don’t just pepper in.

Like it’s not just an explainer show. I mean, you could have an explainer show where I just sat up there and talked about Eurovision all the time. But what I think makes this show really special is I’m just like, why is this contest important to me?

Why is this something that I relate to? Why is this something that has grown and germinated in me in such a way that I’m now having such a passion for it and something that I’m really wanting to share with people? So there’s universal experiences that have come about because of the contest.

And I really like to have those moments where I can actually share. This is what happened in my life that made me like this contest. And this is how I relate to it on a personal level.

And if this is something that relates to you, like maybe there’s something there too. So yeah, it’s a great balance between silly, big, loud musical fun and also just open, honest human transparency.

[Phil Rickaby]
Now, you mentioned that this is the Canadian premiere and that previously the show’s title was A Canadian Explains Eurovision to Americans. For you, what is the difference between explaining Eurovision to Americans than to Canadians? I use smaller words.

[Matti Mclean]
No, the biggest thing with America is a lot of America doesn’t know what they don’t know. And so they have the vague concept of Eurovision, as you said, with the Will Ferrell movie. That was kind of one of the things that actually got me into Eurovision, funny enough, in the first place.

But Canadians seem to have a little bit more of a sense of what it is or at least having an idea of what it was. I mean, America a couple of years ago did try to do its own Eurovision, which was, you know, I’m not going to say ill-advised, but maybe not well-advised. But yeah, Canada seems to have a little bit more of a concept of what it is and a little bit more of a concept of at least what it should stand for.

[Phil Rickaby]
You mentioned that the show sort of came out of a time when you were at the Orlando Fringe, which of course tells me that you are no stranger to Fringe festivals. So I’m curious about your relationship to Fringe in general and the Toronto Fringe specifically.

[Matti Mclean]
Fringe is something that I’ve aspired to be a part of for years and years and years. Years ago, I did body painting, which I did as a part of the Fringe. I still do body painting, but now it’s more on a professional level.

With the Toronto Fringe specifically, I tried to get into the Toronto Fringe from 2008 to 2019. And then I finally got my first part, like I finally got pulled in the lottery in 2020.

[Phil Rickaby]
So I got to a point where I know where this is going. I know where this is going.

[Matti Mclean]
Yes. So I got to perform finally in 2022 with Toronto Fringe, and that actually ignited me to go to Orlando Fringe the following year, so in 2023. And then that inspired me last year to do a mini Fringe tour and this year to have an even bigger Fringe tour, primarily in Canada.

So this is by far my biggest Fringe tour. I’m taking the show wherever they want me, of course, but primarily Toronto, Hamilton, Edmonton as well. So it’s a great opportunity, and I’m thrilled to be able to share it with so many people.

[Phil Rickaby]
And your mini Fringe tour, where did that go in advance of this one? Uh, last year or… Yeah, you were saying you did sort of a mini tour before this one, so was that just to Orlando or was there more to it?

[Matti Mclean]
Yeah, this show has only been done in Orlando so far, but last year I was part of Cincy Fringe, Philadelphia Fringe, a couple other small ones, On the Edge Fringe as well, so…

[Phil Rickaby]
All right, all right. And, you know, as we sort of like, I mean, obviously, I mean, the heartbreak of 2020 is one that reverberates out for many people for a long time. You got to do your other show in 2022, and now you’re back with this one.

I’m sure that it will feel very different this time because this Fringe is less COVID-centric than the previous ones. As far as bringing this show to Toronto, what are you most looking forward to as far as the audience here experiencing this show?

[Matti Mclean]
I am excited to be on my home stages again. I’m excited to see… I’m actually mostly excited for a lot of my friends and family to be able to see me without having to fork out money for a ticket to Orlando.

That’s cool. I’m just, I’m very excited to be able to share the show with people for the first time. It is big, it is silly, it is fun.

It’s also me being musical for the first time on stage, which is something that I’ve always been very insecure about and I talk about in the show as to like, why music is something that I love, but never something… It was always something I was told I couldn’t do. And so now to be able to do it is very freeing and exciting.

And just to be able to share it with so many people in such a big, dumb package, I’m just, I’m thrilled. I can’t wait for people to get their hands on this one.

[Phil Rickaby]
Um, the music aspect is, to you, is it necessary to have like a musical aspect to talk about Eurovision? Like for you to be musical?

[Matti Mclean]
I feel like Eurovision is ESC, the Eurovision Song Contest. If I was to get up there and not do songs as wholeheartedly and committed as I could, I would be doing the entire contest a disservice. So I think that it’s important to get out there, share my own vulnerabilities and share my own clown with everybody.

Make it big, make it loud, make it silly and just have a whole lot of fun with it. So that would be, I think, if you’re doing Eurovision show, not only is music mandatory, but music is also, you know, it brings everything together. It makes everything bigger and fun and lighter.

And so I am super excited to be able to share that. Nice.

[Phil Rickaby]
Now you did mention the show that you had in Orlando before this, when this show sort of got suggested to you. What was that show? And what’s the show that people who are coming to see you in Toronto might remember you from?

[Matti Mclean]
The biggest show I did in Toronto and on the road was a show that was initially called Solo Painting. So when I did it in Toronto in 2022, it was Solo Painting. It was a one-man body painting show where I would talk about my experience as a body painter, why I started and what I did to kind of keep progressing forward as an artist.

That’s the show I’ve actually been taking on the road for the past couple of years. It’s the one that played in Orlando, Cincy, North Bay. That’s the one that I’ve been touring around.

It is a much more vulnerable show and also a much harder show emotionally and physically to do. This show is just stupid fun. I get to get out there.

I get to be a clown and just really showcase not just different sides of myself, but also better sides of yourself. I think we need a bit more levity today. Oh, for sure.

[Phil Rickaby]
There’s certainly a place for like burying your insecurities and your vulnerabilities and making a show a little bit difficult to perform in that way. But we need fun. We need laughter in this world.

We need both theater that’s really important and theater that’s kind of stupid. We need both. As far as the difference between the two, for myself, my last solo show, I recently decided I can’t do it anymore.

I can’t go back to that place because of where it goes. As far as moving forward with the body painting show and this show, how does it feel to you to not be plumbing the depths of your psyche in a show this year? I never said I wasn’t.

[Matti Mclean]
This show has a lot of stuff in it. It goes places that’s a lot deeper than a lot of people think going in, but only because I feel like you can’t have something sweet without a little sour in there. You need the bitter to make the sweet taste better.

You need to be able to be open and raw and emotional and available for people in order for them to connect. A big part of this show, yes, do I explain Eurovision? Yes.

Do I have a lot of fun? Is it a big silly time? Yes, but does it have real moments and does it connect to a more human core?

Absolutely. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be a show that would have the same resonance. You need to really have both and you need to make sure that both of those are there.

Bodies is just like trauma with a side of fun. This one is all about fun with that little slice of real in there just to make sure that you want it to be poignant. You want to be able to share your depth and your soul with people, and the only way you can do that is by being open and honest.

[Phil Rickaby]
Honestly, having a serious side to a show, a little bitterness or a little something like that is what separates it. Without that, it’s not theater. It could just be stand-up.

It could be a sketch. It could be something really light. It’s having a place to go that’s what transforms it into theater.

[Matti Mclean]
Absolutely. And there’s a big part of this show that’s very much driven by that. You want to make sure that you have that emotional depth.

This contest also isn’t a squeaky clean contest. It’s something that claims to not be political and then you look at it and you’re just like, this doesn’t seem correct. And there’s a lot of that getting called out as well.

But it’s very important that we have those points and that interest and that conversation, because it is its own entity. It does have its own flaws. And I would be remiss to not address a lot of that as well.

So it covers a lot in an hour. And during that time, yes, it’s big. Yes, it’s silly.

Yes, it’s fun. And dancing, dancing, ha, ha, ha. But there’s also just, there’s problem bits and you can’t not address a lot of them.

And what venue are you at at the Toronto Fringe? I am in the Native Earth Aki Studio. It is a big theater.

So please, for the love of God, come. It’ll be great. No, I’m super excited.

It’s over at Daniel Spectrum. It’s a great venue. I’ve fortunately been there several times and it’s just, it’s thrilled to be able to be on that stage and I’m very excited to see where we go.

Awesome, that’s great.

[Phil Rickaby]
Well, Maddie, thank you so much for joining me. I can’t wait to see the show, A Canadian Explains Eurovision to Other Canadians. Thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you. Sashoya Simpson, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate you giving me some time today.

To get started, please tell me about your show at the Toronto Fringe, Lulu.

[Sashoya Simpson]
Yes, so Lulu is a young audience piece. So it really centers on Afro-Caribbean folklore. So it’s a celebration of that.

So it follows a young girl named Lulu into this mystical folk realm, essentially of Caribbean, I call it the folk realm because why not? Of Caribbean mythology, fantasy, carnival. It’s really into a world where all that exists in this world are creatures from stories we grew up with like Anansi, Lajablasi, Jambis and all those scary stories our grandparents and parents told us when we were young.

So it’s into a world that this is all that exists in that world. And so our journey into that world is key that she has to find to save her grandmother who’s ill. And so she has to go into this world to retrieve it, to make it back in time before daybreak, essentially.

So on that journey, she basically learns a lot about herself, her cultural heritage and her family as well. Her family heritage, what her grandmother represents with that world and also her relationship with her father that’s very strange, strained a bit, that ends up randomly on this journey. But yeah, that’s essentially the cusp of the story.

[Phil Rickaby]
And what, I’m just curious, is there a particular draw for you to theater for young audiences?

[Sashoya Simpson]
Yeah, it’s very interesting. I feel it’s been, I think this was back in 2019 when I really started really creating for young audience because prior to that, I was really telling, trying to find the stories I wanted to tell and trying to find myself centered where my center was within my art. And so of course I had a burnt out, so I had to take a break.

I took a step back. And in that process is when I really started looking at who I was creating for. What did I want it to impart?

Why I was creating? And a lot of it came back to thinking about young audiences, children of the Caribbean descent, born in the diaspora, who many times don’t have access to certain cultural knowledge or pieces because many times they’re not learning that in school here. And sometimes at home, they might not get a chance to learn that because we’re busy just trying to live and trying to survive.

So many times the memory of, oh, we should pass on certain things to our kids so they grew up with it and understand more about their culture. Sometimes that gets forgotten unintentionally. So for me, I really wanted to look at ways of how I can impart many of these things in a creative way.

And so it really became, for me, it really started with the young audiences because they are literally the future to pass this on. If they’re informed of it, then they can continue that knowledge because as we look, as our elders pass, what happens? So it’s really looking at how can we make sure that the younger generation is also informed in that process.

So that’s where it came about.

[Phil Rickaby]
Theater is such a wonderful way to share those stories because it is immediate and children react so viscerally to seeing live theater and it is so real for them and so alive. So I think it is the perfect way to share these stories. When you’re creating this show, now, are you thinking about the purpose of this show when you’re creating it?

Are you thinking more about the stories? What is your focus as the show is being created?

[Sashoya Simpson]
It took me a while to write this story because the purpose of it was there first. But then because I had a purpose, how do I fit the narrative to deliver what it is I was trying to impart? So that’s where the difficulty came in because I felt I was fiddling with how I was like first, it was this Afrofuturist thing set in many years from now and it’s this aspect of it with robots at play and there were so many variations of nuggets of ideas that started with how I was trying to really force the story to structure a certain way.

And I felt I was forcing the story too much and so I just let go of it. I just let it go until but then the idea kept bugging me, bugging me to write. And so I’m like okay, let’s pick up at the pen and it was in 2019.

I’m like okay, let’s put myself in a situation where I have to meet deadlines where I have to get things done and there’s this pressure to get my grades in so I put myself back into school to write this specific story. And then in that, I was really starting to really build structure and really find that story. Of course after redraft, after redraft, I have multiple versions of the same story.

But yeah, so it really took a while for me to really find that full narrative from beginning to end what the story was, who it was about, who are the characters. But it always came back to being a little girl being the main character. That like, always that.

Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
What for you was, what surprised you the most in writing it?

[Sashoya Simpson]
I don’t even know at this point. There’s so many variants. I really got to find out how eventually it became easier to let go of certain characters or cutting out certain parts or you spend so much time writing a full script but then you get feedback and you’re like okay, back to the drawing board.

And so it’s really, but all of those moments gave me more insight of how the story could be, of how grand it can be, of how succinct it can be because even though I have two different versions of this stage play right now and each version has different characters in a sense but I can see how I can fuse both of them to be this one grand thing. So it really gives me room to just let go and play and that’s the surprising part. I’m like we’re workshopping, we’re just having fun and let’s see how it goes.

So and so as the writer, I’m like I just pass it off into the room and just let the production team, the directors, the actors do what they can to just make it happen. And so I’ve really grown in the sense of just letting go and not be too trapped in a vision and so because then it gives room for the play to be transformed and evolve as I see different renditions of it so which is exciting. So that’s very surprising for me.

That’s a massive growth.

[Phil Rickaby]
It’s so hard to let go sometimes especially as the writer but theatre is a collaborative medium and so at some point you have to entrust your baby to another group of people. Can you tell me a little bit about the collective of people who came together to create this show?

[Sashoya Simpson]
Yeah, so originally it was just me because I created this collective called The Walking Grille, right? So it was me and my friend Najla who’s really the members of the collective and so because I had this show which was a great framework for us to really use as a flagship for the collective and so that’s where we are but then there’s different renditions of folks that’s been in and out of this project which because when I first did my stage reading it’s a very different cohort of folks that I had that was doing the stage reading except maybe one person that’s still in the cast right now and then last year we did a rendition of the show at Hamilton French and so the cast that was there is not the cast I have now which is unintentional. I have two cast members from then who’s still in the show right now because of availability and time and schedule all plays a role in how the project moves forward. So now we are having this whole new cohort of folks who are just coming onto the project so I’m excited to see what new visions we’re going to have this time and how it changes for those who’ve been on the project how they jump into this new envisioning after you’re so used to what it’s been.

So that’s one exciting and then yeah that’s really it and then I’ve been working with Dibi Young and Eat Africa as my director and it became that way because I got this idea when I was studying under her at the Water Theatre so it became natural for a full circle moment to have her be the one holding the space to really help bring in this show to life so having this continuous mentorship and workmanship together just felt very natural so that’s how this relationship just kept working so yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
It’s always interesting when you have the opportunity to present a show in front of one audience say for example at Hamilton Fringe and then to bring it to Toronto to bring it to a new audience in a new city what are you most looking forward to about having this audience discover this show?

[Sashoya Simpson]
I’m excited because I live in Toronto so naturally I would think I want the show to be produced in Toronto but if the Laudry’s play a different role and so the Laudry’s are a different story and so I’m excited to really bring it home to Toronto because there’s so many Caribbean communities and pockets of people in Toronto itself not just Caribbean but Black, Asian and African although we have all over this country all in different areas but in Toronto it’s such a massive diverse pocket and I’m really excited to be able to bring in youth programs and seniors and just lots of different dynamics of audience make the audience feel very multi-generational very multicultural very intentional because that’s the show even though it’s set in a world of Afro-Caribbean heritage it’s one that’s still relatable just looking at the themes of the story it’s just set within this world because of who the characters are but I’m really excited to be able to just bring it to our Caribbean community here and so we get some funnest

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah obviously you’ve had some experience with the Hamilton Fringe is this your first time with the Toronto Fringe?

Have you worked with the Toronto Fringe before?

[Sashoya Simpson]
I’ve done Toronto Fringe in different capacity I feel my very first time at Toronto Fringe was when it was still in the Honest Heads Alley and then I did this alley show with Threshold Theatre back at the time it was like in these little sheds where we’re all doing solo monologues Oh yes the sheds! It was like 2012 or something I can’t remember but it was like back then that wasn’t my first experience at Toronto Fringe and then I volunteered for a number a couple of years at Toronto Fringe so Honest Heads Alley I’ll bring these bubble guns I was trying this bubble thing and just to bring audience and get folks attracted over there so doing those volunteering and then performing in a show in the Fringe as well I can’t remember when that happened it happened and then now producing my own show and also I did that attend program as well like two years ago so I’ve just been in different capacities involved with the Fringe as performer, volunteer, learning arts and all these bits yeah

[Phil Rickaby]
Having experienced the Fringe in all of these different capacities do you have a favourite part or a favourite thing about the Toronto Fringe?

[Sashoya Simpson]
I just love the community of it I just love how we can all just come together at the Hub and chat and learn about shows and just switch nuggets and then just hop from show to show and really get to see so many vibrant creators and be able to see so many amazing actors on stage and be able to just experience so many different type of theatres in a short span of time it’s like a fun scavenger hunt you know it’s like a bingo card basically we’re just like okay let’s go what shows are we seeing which venue, what times and just boom it’s just really fun to just see all the different shows folks are creating I see the different brains and ideas and what’s being spit out it’s just so great I just love that yeah

[Phil Rickaby]
it’s always so fascinating because you really don’t know what you’re going to get when you go to a show especially if you go early in the Fringe if you go the last weekend you’ve seen all the reviews you might have an idea but to be an explorer and to go like just try something new it’s always an exciting and fascinating experience because you don’t know what you’re going to find and it’s so great

[Sashoya Simpson]
truly because last year I ended up seeing I didn’t get to see a lot of shows because I was so busy like preparing for Hamilton and I was working nine to five as well so I didn’t really get to see as much shows I can so was it last year or the year before?

I don’t even know anymore but I remember I ended up seeing this pigeon show and I was like this is so good they’re pigeon songs you just never know what thought process goes into creating such golden nuggets it’s just so good and that’s one thing I really love with the Fringe

[Phil Rickaby]
yeah it really is the best part just like seeing what comes out of people’s minds as you were starting as we record this it’s just now June so it’s like a month to Fringe your show’s in rehearsal things are getting ready what’s the most exciting thing for you as Fringe is approaching?

[Sashoya Simpson]
oh my gosh we haven’t even started rehearsal yet our rehearsal is two weeks before because time and exchange and so when looking at all of that I’m so excited to reach the first day of rehearsal and pass on everything to my stage manager I think that’s the most exciting part for me where I’m like I don’t need to be in the room really after this first day I want to be surprised with the audience when we get to this stage I have to be there for tech but I’m just excited for that part because my hat right now is doing a lot of marketing and just sharing the word and listening on different platforms and doing this and doing that reaching out to community to help spread the word inviting folk my hat is very different I’m glad the script is done edit so my hands are off that but I’m really excited to just get into rehearsal not just to pass it to my stage manager but really to start first to start playing and really just get the show ready and so that’s one thing I’m excited for and based on what gets created I’m just really excited for the audience to come and get to see what we have because I don’t know yet all I know is work on a page I just know the word on the page I don’t know what else is coming because then there’s the music we created there’s the choreography to be created and that’s all with my designers and my production team so I’m excited to see what’s to come

[Phil Rickaby]
yeah absolutely absolutely it sounds so exciting so Shoya thank you so much for joining me I really appreciate you giving me some of your time today and I look forward to seeing you at the Fringe

[Sashoya Simpson]
absolutely I come out to the show we’re gonna have a blackout night on June July on July 5th our 730 show is a blackout night and that’s a show for black audiences but then we have seven shows total we also have a pay what you can show in the run as well so you can use that as a chance to be accessible financially etc so just come on out enjoy come ready to do some moves dance the carnival whatever it is and we’re gonna have a vibe

[Phil Rickaby]
awesome awesome thank you so much I really appreciate you giving me some of your time today