Multi-award winning SNAFU Dance Theatre has been creating work since 2006, on the Canadian Fringe circuit and beyond. Ingrid Hansen and Rod Peter Jr return to the 2018 Victoria Fringe Festival with a brand new director’s cut of their smash hit Kitt and Jane. Ingrid Hansen answered questions about Kitt and Jane.
Kitt and Jane. Poster art by Hank Pine.
How long have you been producing work on the Fringe circuit? As an artist/company?
SNAFU’s first fringe was with BLiNK at Point Ellice Heritage House in the Victoria Fringe in 2007.
Last time at the Victoria Fringe? Shows you’ve presented at the Victoria Fringe?
SNAFU had a sold-out run of Interstellar Elder: Badass Grandma in Space at last year’s Victoria Fringe. We’ve also presented Little Orange Man, Kitt & Jane, Ginger Ninjas, Pretty Little Instincts, and BLiNK at Victoria Fringes past, earning Best Physical Show, Best Solo Performance, and Monday Magazine’s Critic’s Choice Best Fringe Show. Kitt & Jane co-creator and co-star Rod Peter Jr is a three time Pick of the Fringe winner for The History of Everything (Best Dance Performance,) The War of 1812 (Best Comedy,) and Tara Firm (Best Comedy).
Have you been (or will you be) taking the show to other Fringes?
This year Kitt & Jane has been to rEvolver Festival in Vancouver and to the largest venue at the Edmonton Fringe.
Is your show a new work, or has it been performed elsewhere?
Belfry Theatre invited SNAFU to create Kitt & Jane in 2014 as part of the Incubator Project, and we premiered it at the Belfry Spark Festival. Today we have an all-new director’s cut of the show.
Significant awards or accolades? (not just on the Fringe circuit)
AWARDS & REVIEWS FOR SNAFU’S SHOW ‘KITT & JANE’:
WINNER – Victoria’s Critic’s Choice Best New Play
WINNER – Vancouver Playwright’s Centre New Play Prize
????? – Onstage Ottawa
????1/2 – Edmonton Journal
Kitt & Jane was named by CBC Writes as one of the top ten fringe shows in all of Canada in 2014.
AWARDS & REVIEWS FOR SNAFU’S SHOW ‘LITTLE ORANGE MAN’:
????? – Vue Weekly Magazine
????? — Onstage Ottawa
????1/2– The Edmonton Journal
WINNER – Edmonton Fringe HOLD OVER Award – Edmonton 2016
WINNER – Centaur Best Production: English Theatre Award – Montreal 2013
WINNER – Most Outstanding Overall Production – Ottawa 2012
WINNER – Pick-of-the-Fringe Hold Over – Vancouver 2011
WINNER – Volunteer’s Choice Award – Vancouver 2011
WINNER – Vancouver Playhouse Award – 2011
WINNER – Pick-of-the-Fringe – Victoria 2011
AWARDS & REVIEWS FOR SNAFU’S SHOW ‘INTERSTELLAR ELDER’:
????? – Star Phoenix
WINNER – Favourite Solo Show, Victoria Fringe 2017
WINNER – Best Performance, Victoria Fringe 2017
Favourite Show Design – Runner Up, Victoria Fringe 2017
Favourite Movement/Physical Theatre – Runner Up, Victoria Fringe 2017
Favourite Original New Work – Runner Up, Victoria Fringe 2017
PICK OF THE FRINGE – Overall winner – Runner Up, Victoria Fringe 2017
Can you speak to the creation process of this work?
When writing the show, SNAFU artists interviewed real live Victoria BC teenagers who voiced their concerns about the future of the planet in SNAFU’s free podcast series ‘A Teenagers Guide to Surviving the Apocalypse’.* One grade eleven student from the Victoria High remarked, “I think all of the high-technology civilisations are going to be slowly replacing all of their body parts,” while another student theorized that “plants would take over the world, and then plants and humans would live in harmony.” When asked about their realistic worst-case scenario, one teen ventured that the consumer cycle could over-produce so much that everything “eventually just becomes garbage, and so eventually we have no clean water, and no plants, so nobody has oxygen to breathe or water to drink and everybody just dies.”
This round of creation, Kathleen Greenfield Rod Peter Jr and Ingrid Hansen teamed up with Victoria visual artist Jeni Luther and Vancouver’s Chloe Ziner and Jessica Gabriel from Mind of A Snail shadow puppetry to create an entirely new, full color shadow puppetry design for the show on old-school overhead projectors.
Who will your show appeal to?
If you love: David Bowie, Adventuretime, Stranger Things, Big Mouth, Gravity Falls, The Walking Dead, Last Man on Earth — you’ll love this show. If you’ve never heard of any of those things — you’ll be taken on an adventure.
What would you say to entice a potential audience member to come?
It’s a five-star show about two teenagers who hijack their school assembly to train their classmates to survive the coming apocalypse!
What do you hope to inspire in your audience?
Adrenaline. And one tingly butt-cheek.
Kitt & Jane is Co-created by Kathleen Greenfield, Ingrid Hansen & Rod Peter Jr.
Snafu Dance Theatre
Venue 5: Langham Court Theatre (805 Langham Court)
Tickets: $11 Through the Victoria Fringe Box Office and Ticket Rocket
DATES
Tue Aug 28 – 8:30pm
Wed Aug 29 – 8:45pm
Thu Aug 30 – 5pm
Sat Sep 1 – 10pm
Sun Sep 2 – 2:30pm
“Hilarious, invigorating piece of theatre”
Echoes the Real Life Concerns of Today’s Youth
The play Kitt & Jane: an Interactive Survival Guide to the Near-Post-Apocalyptic Future begins with the two grade-eights presenting to their school assembly. Very soon, the students go off-script, barring the doors and hijacking the presentation to deliver an important message: they will be dead in an hour, the collapse of society has already begun, and they’re here to train their classmates to survive. Kitt & Jane will be live on stage August 26th to September 2nd as part of the Victoria Fringe Festival.
Seen through the eyes of two imaginative teens characters – the ADHD powerhouse Kitt and an awkward boy with the unfortunate nickname ‘Jane’ – apocalypse survival is articulated with David-Bowie-style jams on the glockenspiel and ukulele, giant-scale shadow puppetry, and fast-paced physical humour. The show is both a hilarious romp and a poignant exploration of the world today’s youth are inheriting and what they’re prepared to do about it.
When writing the show, SNAFU artists interviewed real live Victoria BC teenagers in SNAFU’s free podcast series ‘A Teenagers Guide to Surviving the Apocalypse’.* One grade eleven student pondered that humans living in high-technology civilisations “are going to be slowly replacing all of their body parts,” while another student theorized that “eventually we have no clean water, and no plants, so nobody has oxygen to breathe or water to drink and everybody just dies,” or the possibility that, “plants would take over the world, and then plants and humans would live in harmony.”
Winner of the Playwright Theatre Centre’s ‘New Play Prize’ and Victoria’s Critic’s Choice for ‘Best New Play,’ Kitt & Jane was named by CBC Writes as one of the top ten fringe shows in all of Canada in 2014.
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