Artists eye new spaces to showcase musicals
In the 1989 film Field of Dreams, Kevin Costner’s character hears a voice that tells him that if he builds a baseball field in his cornfield players and fans will flock to his creation.
Kris Demeanor and David Rhymer are hoping the same is true if they find new spaces to showcase musicals they are working on.
Demeanor and Rhymer call their new company A Feast of Friends and Rhymer explains they are “searching for warm, welcoming and unusual non-theatre spaces to house several shows we’re working on this season.”
“We found exactly what we were looking for in the NVRLND Arts Foundation in Inglewood for our first show, Russell Straight Up. It’s a show and a character Kris has been developing for a couple of years now. He previewed Russell in the One Yellow Rabbit ensemble show Calgary I Love You But You’re Killing Me.”
Demeanor says Russell, whom he calls a sports bar philosopher, grew out of his experience as Calgary’s poet laureate from 2012 to 2014.
“Much of the poetry I received and read had a heightened language to it. It seemed so inaccessible. I wanted to hear poetry that reflected the kind of things I heard from people on buses, on the street and in bars. I wanted it to sound more colloquial, more natural and that’s how Russell was born.
“Russell is a storyteller. He’s the kind of guy who holds court at his favourite sports bar after a hard day’s work. His audience is his buddies and they want to hear his stories because they are so colourful.”
Rhymer adds that Russell “represents the untethered male ego and he has a profound love for a heavy metal band. There’s a real comic aspect to Russell as Kris is playing him and a real satirical nature. He’s edgy for sure.”
Rhymer says that when he and Demeanor created A Feast of Friends, it was to explore musical hybrids that combine aspects of concert, theatre, spoken word and poetry and to present them in unusual settings.
Demeanor explains “people bring different expectations when they come to certain spaces. You don’t have the same expectation for a show that is presented at Theatre Calgary or Alberta Theatre Projects as you do for one presented in a small black box space. We wanted even more unusual spaces to change and expand people’s expectations.”
Rhymer says NVRLND Arts Foundation is used as an art gallery but they were very open to the suggestion of using it for a concertstyle show.
“They were excited their space was going to be used in a way it’s never been used before.”
Demeanor says that doing this kind of salon show “allows us and other artists to take an idea and get it up in front of an audience in a much shorter time. It’s daunting to begin working on an idea for a show thinking it will be five or six years before you can share it with an audience.”