These must see plays closed out Hamilton Fringe Festival
Cast of Gringas at Hamilton Fringe Festival Credit: Hamilton Fringe Festival
Hamilton Fringe Festival 2024 came to a close last night, but before the final curtain went down there were still amazing plays to be had.
First place winner of Hamilton Fringe New Play Contest was Gringas, a production of First Born Theatre Company, a Toronto-based, queer, Latina-led company dedicated to creating the next generation of Canadian theatre – and it deserved that win!!!
The amazing, energetic cast includes Alejandra Angobaldo, isi bhakhomen, Mercedes Isaza Clunie, Katarina Fiallos, Gloria Freire, Julianna Olave and Rachel Quintanilla.
A bilingual coming-of-age story set in a Muskoka, ON camp where young women are sent by their mothers to learn authentic Spanish, the comedy centres around seven Latina-teenagers from across the predominantly Latin America, as well as Spanish, diaspora.
Out of their comfort zone and wary of the other, Gringas explores the diversity and class distinctions that exist within the Latina diaspora.
This is a play that will resonate with first and second-generation immigrants as well as folks whose ancestral peoples have been colonized.
The terms Latina and Hispanic are colonizer constructs and it was not lost on the audience that the July 28th performance took place on the day Peru gained its independence from Spanish colonizers in approximately 1826 after a 27-year war of independence for self-determination.
A funny, touching, -- and for Gringo’s/white folks -- truly eye-opening play that lays bare life in Canada for Latina women.
Written by award-winning playwright Mercedes Isaza Clunie, a queer, Chilean-Canadian playwright, poet and actor from Toronto, Gringas delves into themes of girlhood, culture, sexuality and language while often disrupting traditional conventions.
Gringas deserved 1st place for Hamilton Fringe's new play award after winning 3rd place in Toronto’s Fringe’s new play award and runner-up for the Wildfire playwriting award.
Age Suitability: Parental Guidance (ages 13+)
Warnings: Sexual Content, Coarse Language, Nudity, Other
Genre: Theatre—Drama
Run Time: 60 mins
It’s no wonder after this sold-out performance that the entire audience enthusiastically leapt to their feet for an extended standing-ovation when Gringa’s came to its dramatic conclusion.
Death of a Starman at Hamilton Fringe Festival Credit: Hamilton Fringe Festival
Death of a Starman opens with Mercury in retrograde. That’s when the planet Mercury appears to be travelling backwards. This illusion, caused by the position the earth, happens four times in 2024: December 13, 2023 to January 1, 2024; April 1 to April 24; August 4 to August 27; and November 25 to December15.
That sets the scene for washed-up television astrologist Sal Solomon, played by real life astrologer Zaid Bustami, to chart what could be his final retrograde and last 48 hours.
Bustami is Solomon as well as a dozen other self-absorbed characters including his videographer Moonbeam, mobster/loan shark Moe and his henchman, ex-wife Sage and of course his very own parents.
Unifying a strong belief in astrology with the ruminations of astronomer Carl Sagan and drawing in toxic male grifter culture – think Jordan Person – Death of a Starman is a fast-paced, one-person play with a surprise happily ever after ending.
Beyond the comedy and gymnastic acting of Bustami, Death of a Starman makes political statements on modern media, masculinity and astronomy vs. astrology all while Solomon desperately works to make astrology great again.
And, in a strange turn of events, an Aries saves the day for a floundering Pisces offering hope and a way out of the retrograde-induced chaos.
This is a Fringe show worth experiencing.
Death of a Starman: Mature language, Implied violence, Audience Participation, Smoking.
Next stops for Death of a Starman includes: Kingston Fringe with shows August 1 to 7; Guelph Fringe August 9 to 11; and London, ON Fringe August 13 to 17.
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/deathofastarman/
Playwright/Creator
Peter Malloch, Zaid Bustami & Kay Komizara
Director
Kay Komizara
Cast
Zaid Bustami
Age Suitability: Parental Guidance (ages 13+)
Warnings: Coarse Language, Other
Genre: Theatre—Comedy, Theatre—Drama, Storytelling/Solo Show
Run Time: 60 mins
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