Hairy Tease Productions presents 'The Mind with the Dirty Man'
Published Thursday November 5th, 2009
The cast and crew of the community-based theatre, Hairy Tease Productions, are returning to Théâtre l'Escaouette, 170 Botsford Street, November 10 to 14, with yet another hilarious comedy. For their 12th production since 2004, director Michael Granville has chosen "The Mind with the Dirty Man" by Jules Tasca.
The play introduces the audience to Wayne Stone (Lawren Campbell), an up-tight, ultra-conservative man, who serves on his small town's movie review board. He's married to Alma (Aloma Jardine) and is the father of Clayton (Kevin Wood) who went to university to study accounting but instead discovered the adult film industry. He's now married one of its stars, Miss Divina (Jane Messervier), and is about to premiere his first production in his hometown. Of course, the other members of the review board, played by Carol McIsaac, Alyssa Delle Palma and Wayne Fairchild, are not impressed, to say the least.
"It's adult comedy," says Granville, "and light weight satire. Of course there's lots of laughter but it also provides insight into human behaviour. There's a lot more reality here than first meets the eye."
Granville says he reads a lot of plays and makes the choice for each performance, "based on whether they make me laugh. If I laugh on page, then I know with my great pool of talent, we can make it even funnier on stage."
When Granville retired after 31 years of teaching English and Theatre Arts at Harrison Trimble High School, he didn't exactly retire. He says, "I always thought that when I finished directing kids, I would want to direct adults, so I looked around at former students and teaching colleagues who were enthusiastic about community theatre and formed Hairy Tease Productions. The name of our company is a result of me playing with the name of the school. The kids say they go to 'Harry T', which I developed into a catchy name for the company: Hairy Tease Productions."
The company was launched with "Send Me No Flowers" in 2004 on the miniscule stage at the Moncton Lion's Community Centre. This was followed by two more comedies at that site, before they were invited, in March 2006, to produce "The Foreigner", at Théâtre l'Escaouette, which Granville describes as "a wonderful venue." Their state of the art black box theatre space allowed the construction of a 'real set', complete with a functional trap door and unlimited backstage space, something Hairy Tease had not enjoyed.
The plan was to produce two plays a year, but that has now expanded to three. In addition to the fall and spring offerings, they will feature "Mirth & Melancholy," a mélange of seven short plays, both comic and dramatic, in January 2010, as they did in 2009. Helping provide an authentic appearance is Glenna Lightfoot, who Granville says "shines in the role of costume design."
Because Hairy Tease is a community theatre, and because they traditionally have sold-out houses, they make sure profit goes back to the community.
The company has donated money to HTHS for their auditorium upgrade, to the Matthew Kinnie Fund, to Greater Moncton Youth Residences, and in the past two years has awarded four bursaries of $2,000 each, to area high school students going to university to study theatre arts.
The good news for the theatre and those who will benefit from it this year, is that the Friday and Saturday night performances have already sold out.
Fortunately, for those who like to laugh, there are still seats available on Wednesday, November 11 and Thursday, November 12 as well as at the preview on Tuesday, November 10.
Tickets are priced at $15 and are available at MacArthur's Flower Shop, Mountain Road; Reid's Newsstand, Riverview; the Winexpert's new location at 1852 Mountain Road and the Théâtre l'Escaouette box office. Preview night tickets (Tuesday) are $10 and are available at the box office only. See also: www.hairytease.com
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