Everyone has heard of it. Almost everyone you meet has been there. This is The Big Fat Surprise.
Sarah Ormandy (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum) and Jake Tkaczyk in collaboration with themselves and each other have created The Big Fat Surprise curated by Kristine Nutting. In a nonsensical and plot-less way, the two use a variety of forms and experimentations both to entertain the audience and to comment, explore, and crush what we accept as the norm in Canadian theatre today. This is a piece of Canadian theatre.
Performers/creators Jake Tkaczyk of Holden AB and Sarah Ormandy of St Albert are both entering their final year of the University of Alberta BFA Acting program. Both are also performing this Fringe in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, with Opera Nuova. They developed this work in collaboration with director Kristine Nutting, designer Kai Villneff, who is entering the final year of the U of A BFA Design program, and movement coach Nancy Sandercock. Michael Johnson, a graduate of Red Deer College Theatre & Entertainment Production, is stage managing, and Louise Mallory (Othello, Chess, From Cradle to Stage, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), local theatre volunteer and blogger, is producer, for the company innocent operations.