In September 2006, BASH’d! exploded onto the Edmonton scene with a successful engagement at The Roost nightclub. With a buzz that reached all the way to Calgary, those who couldn’t make the trek up north to catch the show will now finally have their chance. BASH’d! runs as part of One Yellow Rabbit’s High Performance Rodeo from January 22nd – 26th.
BASH’d! is the story told by two gay male hip-hop artists who chronicle the tale of a pair of lovers. One out of the couple is gay bashed, prompting his boyfriend to take revenge - he decides to reverse the “discrimination” and go out and bash innocent heterosexuals. The story is fueled by the streak of gay bashing that happened during Premier Ralph Klein’s refusal to legalize gay marriage in Alberta. BASHd! explores assumptions about distinct categories of race, gender and sexual orientation, while exposing the discrimination and oppression on both sides of the coin as we try all try to co-exist in a free and equal society.
Catching back up with “Feminem” Nathan Cuckow, co-creator of the show, and Chris Craddock (T-Bag) we asked, “what took you so long to get to Calgary?”
”Both Chris and myself are pretty busy guys with lots of other professional responsibilities. Chris is Artistic Director of one of Canada’s premiere improv groups, Rapid Fire Theatre, and I am Co-Artistic Director of an Independent Theatre company in Edmonton, Kill Your Television Theatre, so that certainly takes up a lot of our time. Outside of that, we’re both working on other writing commissions and different gigs here and there.”
The show has also kept them busy as they went out on tour in 2007 to Fringe Festivals in Toronto, Winnipeg and New York City.
“It was expensive and exhausting, but we were thrilled at the response and were very excited to be getting our show out there,” Cuckow recalled. “There were lots of mishaps along the way, we shipped our set/costumes/promotional materials to NYC through U.P.S and they lost everything! But as the old saying goes, the show must go on, and we did whatever needed to be done to make it happen. Fortunately we had a great team of friends around us to help us out with things.”
It was a huge accomplishment for Cuckow, who studied at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York and returned to the city a decade later with success.
“When I left New York City for Canada back in 1998, I remember thinking to myself ‘One day I’ll be back with a show of my own’ and that’s exactly what I did. It was 10 years in the making for me, so it was incredibly rewarding. A highlight of being there for me was when a woman approached me in Greenwich Village and told me that she had just seen the show with her daughter, and they wanted to thank us and congratulate us on the success our show. That was certainly something that I daydreamed about during my time studying in New York, and was a very exciting dream to have realized. I’m still kind of dumbfounded that it all happened.”
That woman was an example of the type of reception the show received in ‘The Big Apple’. “Our show was very well received in NYC. It was unbelievably exciting. Reviews were favorable across the board and the audience response was through the roof. RuPaul saw our final show and wanted to meet us afterwards. Of course Chris and I were thrilled. We were approached by an agent at ICM who wanted to represent us and who worked very hard at getting a lot of producers out to see the show. Somehow it all cosmically came together and now we have an Off-Broadway contract in the works for our show, which is tentatively scheduled to open in New York at the same time as the Pride festival June 2008.”
The result of the tour: critic acclaim across the board and multiple awards. Named by Theatremania.com as one of the top shows in New York City in 2007, BASH’d! has also been awarded Outstanding musical at the NY Fringe, Now Magazine’s and Patron’s Pick at the Toronto Fringe, and receiving four nominations and winning the Elizabeth Sterling Haynes award in Edmonton among others.
“BASH’d! has a lot of elements that an audience can respond to. It’s a high-energy ’rap‘ opera, it’s a comedy, it’s a drama, it’s political, it’s a gay love story, etc. So we would have a variety of responses from our audiences. One minute they’re laughing, the next second tears are streaming down their faces.”
This year marks the return for both Cuckow and Craddock to One Yellow Rabbit. Cuckow’s amazing one-man show STANDupHOMO was a hit in 2005, while Craddock appeared in 2005’s Faithless and his solo show Moving Along in the 2006 OYR season. Cuckow expressed excitement for both to be returning to The Big Secret Theatre.
“We are thrilled to be back. Performing STANDupHOMO at the 2005 rodeo was a career highlight for that show and me. I was fortunate to work with OYR Co-Artistic Director, Michael Green, on some of the re-development of STANDupHOMO and was elated when he asked me to be involved in the festival. OYR audiences are sophisticated and hungry for a challenging theatrical experience. They really got me and my show bigtime and we really had a blast. Plus, I’m from Calgary originally and most of my family lives there, so it was a great opportunity to get some of them and my friends out, who normally wouldn’t make the trip up to Edmonton, to see my work,” he concluded.
BASH’D!
January 22nd – 26th, 2007
OYR High Performance Rodeo
www.oyr.org
www.homohiphop.blogspot.com
