March 19th at 9:30PM, join us at the Bloor Cinema for our Repo! vs. Repo show… because lets face it: we’re better than Jude Law. Why? Because we’ve got boobs. So there.

It’s monday morning and the show is friday night. The one year anniversary show of the Shadow Cats. One year since we first started shadow casting Repo! The Genetic Opera [and since that day we've done one show per month at the Bloor Cinema]. So it’s monday morning and this is when we get the news; Darren Lynn Bousman is coming. Darren. Lynn. BOUSMAN! Director of Repo! Director of this film which we have all spent so many hours watching, studying, recreating and performing. He’s coming to watch our show! Feelings of excitement, nervousness, and anticipation, which were already bubbling, are now at a full boil. And this is when we realize “oh my god, we have one week to pack the house!”

Rotti Largo in Gold, the original SC strip tease

Chaos ensues. Obviously. We are the fucking Shadow Cats, when is insanity not on the bill? tee hee. Anyways the pin-packs [which contained amazingly designed images by are very own, very talented Kim] which we were planning on selling are suddenly too few and a team is assembled to pump out more. In addition to the kick-ass pinage, we also have Shadow Cats logo stickers for sale and our kitten-assembly-line is stuffing bags with stickers and pins. Flyers are printed as well as programs. The press is alerted. The meter is set to full promotions mode. The anticipation grows further.

Genterns and a Mentern taking it off Aqua-style

Marni teasing us with her fan dance

By the time friday rolls round our cat ears are sitting crooked on our heads, we’re tired and nervous and to top it all off we get kicked out of the theatre before we have time to finish dress rehearsal. We only had time to rehearse the burlesque pre-show. Oh did I not yet mention the pre-show? Well if you have ever wanted to see genterns strip to Dr. Jones by Aqua, witness Pavi twirling her tassles to I Feel Pretty sung by Sarah Brightman, ogle Luigi ripping her pants off to Rammstein, or to see the gayest Rotti Largo ever sucking her on own balls in time to Sugar Lumps by Flight of the Concords, then I suppose you probably should have come to our show… The cast did an outstanding job of entertaining the crowd with hilarious, kinky and fucking sexy Repo-themed strip teases.

Luigi Largo after a very bloody (sexy) routine

Besides having Darren in the house we were also lucky enough to have Spooky Dan, Adam Smith, Alex Kavanagh and Jim Murray in attendance. These repo-celebs [and generally awesome human beings] made the night even more special simply by being there. Alex also brought a bunch of the original costumes to display in the lobby, something that everyone enjoyed and appreciated! She was also kind enough to host our costume contest. I think I speak for everyone when I say that we were blown away with the amazingness that was our costume contest contestants. Congrats to the winners and thanks to everyone who put in the effort to come in costume!

SC Pavi (Kim) and Alex Kavanagh during the costume contest

Doing our show for such an amazing audience really helped pump us up and in the end it was absolutely, without a doubt, one of our best and funniest shows ever! The amount of hilariousness, both planned and improved was unprecedented. We had a man-jina courtesy of Old Greg, a horse-henchgirl being butt-raped by Rotti, Conan O’Brien as Joan Jett, a Lady Gaga makeover, sexy Nathan in a long black slip dress, Sookie Stackhouse getting organs removed from her bum, drunk, nudie-Mag [duh] and the hottest live WSTOS gentern orgy that has ever been witnessed. Trust me, it really was. Oh and also nipples…. yes lots of exposed breasts.

A very unusual “limo” ride

Amber and Graverobber in Zyrdate Anatomy

Conan O’Brien and Nathan in 17

Another wonderful thing we planned for the anniversary show was to bring back a bunch of our alumni cast/cats to perform. We have had different cast members almost every show this year and it was really great to get some of our favourite characters back on stage! Thanks to Lorelei, Sary, Guicci, Caitlin, Acacia, Veronica, and Jon for being a part of our celebration.

Zydrate addicts attack Shilo, including a very drunk Mag

We Started this Opera Shit

And as for our guest of honour… I’m pretty sure that we gave Darren a night that he will not soon forget. How can I be sure you ask? Well every time Darren looks at the glowing blue penis hanging on his wall, he is sure to think of his time in Toronto with the Shadow Cats.

We’re still recouping from our awesome Anniversary Show weekend, so a longer, more detailed post will be written when we aren’t brain-dead and sore. In the mean time, here are a couple of teasers on just how kick-ass our night was! Enjoy!

DLB received a rather interesting, yet appropriate present from our cast. His very own TIMMY!

Here is one of the burlesque numbers performed by Abi as Rotti Largo!

We just got some awesome news! DARREN LYNN BOUSMAN, director of Repo! will be flying to Toronto to see our Anniversary Burlesque show this Friday! What could make this news more awesome? He’s bringing SPOOKY DAN with him!

So let’s review:

Darren Lynn Bousman is coming.
There’s gonna be boobs.
Alex Kavanagh (Repo’s costume designer) is going to be there.
There’s gonna be boobs.
Adam Smith (did a lot of leatherwork on Repo!) is going to be there.
There’s gonna be boobs.
and Spooky Dan (horror fiend and generally awesome guy) is coming.
AND there’s gonna be boobs!

This is going to be one hell of a night ladies and gents, one hell of a night!

Our replica gentern dresses may be sold out, but we got some new fun treats available for purchase at our shows! Introducing the Shadow Cats pin and sticker pack! Buy them at our next show for $5!

Individual pins and stickers are $1 each, if you want to buy them separately. We will also be selling ZYDRATE GLOWSTICKS for $2 and GENTERN MASKS for $5. All the proceeds will go to supporting the Shadow Cats (ie. our prop fund so we can continue to give you a better show each time!). Thanks guys!

Belated Happy Ho Ho, everyone! We hope that your Holidays was as eventful as ours. Our Christmas show on the 11th was a lot of fun! It was like someone had vomited red, green and candy canes all over the Bloor.

The bigger event for us this month was traveling to Ottawa to see our first ever Repo! show by another shadow cast. Seven of the Shadow Cats hopped on a rental van (and new Shadow Cat Charlie, who had so happened to be in Ottawa that evening met us there) and made a 24-hour trip to Ottawa to see the Necromerchants Payment at Club Saw (yes… this is the actual name of their venue. Appropriate, no?).

We were incredibly excited to see the Necromerchants Payment. Since we’re all isolated up here in Canada, we were all admittedly jealous of all the state-side shadow casts who can hop from state to state to see each other’s shows. When we met the Ottawa shadow cast, the second Canadian cast to ever form, we were really stoked. We HAD to see their show!

The Ottawa show was so awesome! They had a small and intimate venue to work with, but they packed the house and got everyone to participate, which made it such a fun, interactive show. Their stage was also little, but they used it to their advantage… even when the whole cast was up there, it didn’t feel crowded. They blocked the show really well. Most importantly, you could really tell that every single cast member was having a blast up there. I believe that for a performance like shadow casting, the most important thing is to show that you’re genuinely having fun… don’t take yourself too seriously, improv when it calls for it and get the audience involved as much as possible. These Ottawa guys really made us proud!

Without further ado, here are photos from the Necromerchant Payment’s show!

The cast did a pre-show performance of BRAVI. It was so cute and it made us nostalgic of when we used to dance BRAVI during the credits of every single Repo! screening to promote our show. That was a long time ago!

Pavi and his Genterns! The Necromerchants were lit by one spotlight… it made for cool photos.

The cutest (perhaps youngest?) Shilo ever and the awesome British Rotti during the Limo ride.

Their Blind Mag was freaking amazing! She totally had fun with her character… and she was also really hot!

Robin, who is Repo Man and director of the Necromerchants Payment really made us proud. He’s a great director and an awesome actor.

Ottawa Graverobber and Toronto Graverobber, sharing a mutual chant of GRRRRRRRAAAAAVVVEEEESSSSS!!!!!

Us crazy, crazy Shadow Cats may be coming to a Repo! show near you! (Well… at least until we can all afford it… or we manage to eventually get our passports…)

We have survived our first official big cast switch-up! Our November show happened last Thursday and it was our first ever show with the new line-up. The whole process of the switch was a challenge since we had minimal rehearsal time due to October/November hip-happenings (Alex and I got married! SQUEE!), but we pulled through quite well and had a lot of fun. The show was definitely a lot different from all the previous shows since each cast member brought their own twist to their new roles. It’s refreshing!

In other news: Our December Holiday themed show has been confirmed and it’s now going to be earlier in the month than the norm to accommodate the craziness of the holidays. We are also at an earlier time slot this time around, so out of town fans don’t have to stress about finding a way home! Our next show is FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11 @ 7:00PM!

Be sure to stay tuned for After Party info after our upcoming show! And bring your Santa hats!