So there's a thingamadude we in “the show we call biz” say about Canadian Theatre. Why is a Canadian Play like a Dixie Cup? Because you throw it away once you've used it.
My Magnum P.E.I. Opus (to date) has just been completed. I very much doubt there will be another live performance of “A Non-Canonical Musical Adventure with Pookamhura: Mistress of B-Roll” but my plucky little musical beat the odds and has enjoyed two public performances. First we rocked the Hamilton Fringe Festival in '25 and now we have completed our run in the Toronto Fringe Festival in '26.
That alone I count as a success and it is a success I share with the entire Pookamhura team. Freshman actor Francis Wallace who brought more heart to his role than I even realized I wrote into it. Choreographer/actor Mason Micevski who not only saved our asses in the Hamilton run of the show by taking on on opening day the mantle of actor in the role of Mage, but also brought those dual talents back for the Toronto run. And of course there's the person who had the unenviable task of bringing an established character into a new medium and not just making that character the Pook but also excelling in making it her own, Emily Boylea.
I was able to enjoy this experience with the same cast for two runs of the show and that makes me so very happy (you have no idea how much it warmed my heart to hear you were enthusiastically onboard with reprising your roles for the Toronto run). And thank you Landon Carletti for joining our tech team in our Toronto run. Thank you to the entire crew at Theatre Passe Muraille and all the hard working staff and volunteers of the Toronto Fringe Festival.
I'm also honoured that not only was my friend Brian Morton on board for remounting the show but our producer Donald Cudmore was also on board to bring the show back. I am so grateful for everything the both of you did to make this show a reality. TWICE!
This show wouldn't have existed without the entire team of Pooks working together. TWICE!
But now I get to the part where I have to account for my actions for the choices I made with mounting this play. TWICE!
What was “A Non-Canonical Musical Adventure with Pookamhura: Mistress of B-Roll” about?
Perhaps the marketing lead some people believe it was about video games and World of Warcraft in particular. This is the part where I have to confess, it was not about World of Warcraft at all. I could have chosen any MMO with a roleplaying community as the setting for this story. I framed the story as the experience of a party of WoW players because you write what you know and I've been playing a rogue gnome with white pigtails since Vanilla (let's face it, the Pook is just Chibi Sue in a video game).
This is the part where I have to confess the play is about the threatened rights of fae folk as brought into focus trough the lens of trans rights. The tl;dr of “A Non-Canonical Musical Adventure with Pookamhura: Mistress of B-Roll” is that it is a musical about trans rights. I wrote it as a queer gamer combining my experiences as a queer and as a gamer with guidance and shared experiences of trans artists.
“Then why the fuck didn't you market it that way?” you may be wondering.
Long story short, it wasn't a play intended for a queer audience. The intention of every line of the script was that it be aimed at an audience of heterosexual cis-gender people. There would be no risk, no vulnerability in overtly marketing it as queer theatre and art must always be vulnerable. I know the story would be supported by fae folk. For this show to have its intended effect its message had to come as a gut punch. This goofy little musical about a silly little gnome living her best gnome life needed to have its moment where the audience went “oh fuck, it was never about a video game it was about how the real world makes so many marginalized people feel they're only safe in virtual places.”
When Brian and I first met to discuss making this musical we both were instantly in sync on what it would be about. This was conceived just after the re-election of the god awful mess that is happening south of our border. It's a god awful mess that is threatening cruelty upon all the fae folk and going after our trans family first and with grim gusto and venom.
There is only one first time for everything. “A Non-Canonical Musical Adventure with Pookamhura: Mistress of B-Roll” got lucky enough to have two first times. One for the Hamilton Fringe and one for the Toronto Fringe and I wanted the Toronto Fringe to have the same first time experience that the Hamilton Fringe audiences had.
I did not shy away from letting Brian and Donald know I wanted the Toronto audiences to have the same “ouch” moment that the Hamilton audiences experienced. They could have told me “no, we need to sell tickets we're going whole hog on the queer angle” they did not. If blame is to be placed on failure of marketing it is my head on which the blame should fall.
I wanted the audience to come expecting songs about the silly little adventures of a gnome living her best gnome life and leave going “shit, things need to get better. Now!”
There will probably never be another production of this show at least not with me with my hand on the tiller. What lives on of this show is what the people who saw it bring to their lives after the experience. What I hope this play brought them is the energy and encouragement to be a paladin. To stand against the onslaught. To take on the sacred mantle of a protector and protect the down trodden, the oppressed, the miserable and the vulnerable.
Because if a paladin sides with the tyrants against the oppressed then they're not a paladin at all. They're just a brute.
Thank you to the entire team of Pooks for being part of getting this work out there, TWICE!
Anyway, my gummy has kicked in so I'll have an extra large ghost pepper chicken burrito and a large chocolate shake.
