A production of TXC Heavy Industries
Preview and download high-resolution publicity photos (4) at Flickr.com.
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Photos by Beowulf Sheehan.
Press
release (2 pages, pdf, 380 KB), includes bios and synopsis.
NEW: Poster
(11'x17", jpeg format, 3.9 MB) Designed by Brad Payne. Tom X. Chao Press Quotes 2005 html or pdf | Recent Press 2004 html or pdf | Press Quotes html or pdf
Press Quotes for Black Sheep Theatre's production of Can't Get Started (pdf) | See below also.
Tamara Hamilton's headshot
Please contact tom@tomxchao.com for further information.
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Photo: Beowulf Sheehan
Tom X. Chao will present his one-act comedy, Can't Get Started, at the Edmonton Fringe Festival, August 17-27, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Starring opposite Tom will be Tamara Hamilton, who appeared last year in the Cowgirl Opera's The Three Sisters: A Prairie Opera of the Macabre, which was a huge fringe hit all the way across Canada! See this page for information about Tom's previous productions of CGS.
In Can't Get Started, Tom X. Chao inimitably riffs on male-female interactions, enlisting reluctant actress Sarah to portray space pirates, ethnomusicologists, and geometric shapes. Can she prove he's only a manifesto-spouting King Crimson fan? Unendurable loneliness has never been funnier!
VENUE: Big Rock Stage #2, 10437 83rd Avenue (the old telephone museum)
SHOW TIMES
Friday, August 18, 12:00 pm noon*
Saturday, August 19, 7:00 pm
Monday, August 21, 4:15 pm
Tuesday, August 22, 9:00 pm
Wednesday, August 23, 11:45 pm
Friday, August 25, 2:15 pm
Sunday, August 27, 4:15 pm
TICKETS: $10 (Can) or $5 (Can) for Crim-heads wearing King Crimson T-shirts!
*Yes, that's 12 noon. Please join us for the show and we'll have breakfast afterwards, likely consisting of Timbits and coffee.
The Black Sheep Theatre company of Ottawa, Ontario is performing Can't Get Started, on a Canadian Fringe Festival Tour this summer. Directed by Dave Dawson, featuring Colin Munch and Alex Paxton-Beesley. They have already completed the Ottawa Fringe Festival, where they won the Best in Venue award for their venue, The Mercury Lounge! They also travelled to Toronto Fringe where they finagled a slot that opened up after a last-minute cancellation. They completed the Winnipeg Fringe, and will next travel to the Saskatoon Fringe Festival (August 3-13). Visit their website for more details. (Please note that their production is completely independent of Tom.)
Reviews of their production:
NEW "Sharp comedy. . . . Sparkling dialogue, provocative debate and rich comic setups--unlike nerdy Tom, this play can't lose." **** (Four out of five stars)
--Winnipeg Sun
NEW "It must be said that New York writer Tom X. Chao is a magnificently sick man . . ." (Four planet rating)
--Planet S (Saskatoon)
"Playwright Tom X. Chao's little gem is a definite sleeper hit."
--Toronto Sun
"A personal story of heartbreak from playwright Tom X. Chao. . . . His brainy banter . . . is entertaining . . . including a hilarious puppet show between geometric shapes which has 'no allegorical content'."
--Eye Weekly (Toronto)
"Brilliant script."
"Kudos to the author, and actors!!! This is the Fringe at its best."
--Audience posts on the Eye website
"New York playwright Tom X. Chao certainly deserves a lot of respect just for finding a new take on the “smart, misunderstood, antisocial guy wonders why girls don’t like him” premise. . . . It’s self-referential in a surprisingly funny way. . . . It’s very clever, thought-provoking, at points very funny. . . . If you’re like me, and you like your Fringe shows extra-fringey, you’ll probably thoroughly enjoy Can’t Get Started . . . "
--CBC Manitoba (Winnipeg, previewed in Ottawa)
The website contains audiences comments as well.
"Can’t Get Started . . . never takes itself too seriously and winds up as an insightful peek into a generation plagued by inertia . . . [Z]anier moments such as a weird puppet show-within-a-show and some really funny ethnomusicology jokes help enliven the show’s existential . . . angst."
--Winnipeg Free Press