Our Halloween Show was such a blast! As Halloween enthusiasts, we really wanted to make our October show special and we wanted it to really capture the awesome that was Halloween. We hung up our usual Repo! costumes and went crazy with the Halloween theme. These were the results of our efforts (thanks for the photos, Paul!)

Blind Mag as The Good Witch Glinda

Marni as… well… ghost Marni.

Amber Sweet as the Bride of Frankenstein

Everyone loves the FREDDY!

Luigi as his favourite rapper, Eminem.

Wicked Witch Rotti Largo and her Flying Henchmonkeys

This… is… REPO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nathan played famous film psychopath Norman Bates.

And of course our crazy Shilo is… well…

Crazy.

What a great show to end off our current cast lineup. Up next for Thursday, November 26th at 9:30PM: Brand new cast lineup! Brand new show!

Wow, September came and went pretty fast, huh? Our September show went really well. We had a fun crowd (many of which actually stood up and danced for Op’ra Sh*t! YOU GUYS ROCK!). We also had a hilarious drawing contest at the beginning of the show. Will post photos soon.

And alas… the time has come… we are now prepping for our FINAL SHOW with our current cast lineup. When we first started the cast, we all decided that to keep the show fresh, we would switch roles every few months. November will be our first ever epic role switch, which means that our next show in October will be an absolute must-see. The show will change after this, people!!!!

We thought we’d end the last show of the first line-up with a bang by giving you our second ever themed show. To mark the greatest time of the year, Halloween, we thought it would be fun to have a Halloween themed show. What does this entail? COSTUMES! SPOOKS! CANDY!!!!!!

We all got together last night to finalize some ideas. The dance studio we rehearse in was appropriately having a costume sale of old dance recital outfits, so it really got the crazy concepts going. Seriously… we know that our next show is on a Wednesday night, but you really can’t miss this!

Our next show is: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2009 @ 9:30PM
Costumes (not necessarily Repo! related) are highly encouraged!

The photos below are taken while playing around with some of the costumes. You may or may not see some of these on stage in October…

I can’t believe it’s already been a couple of weeks since Fan Expo ended. The memories of that weekend are still fresh in my mind and every time I think of all the silliness I still giggle to myself. When the Repo cast and the Rocky cast were first double-billed at the Bloor Cinema back in February there was a big clash between us. Rocky thought Repo was stepping on it’s toes, Repo thought Rocky was pretentious and stuck-up. After this year’s Fan Expo I can say for certain that the rift has been mended, and the Repo and Rocky casts could not be more in cahoots with each other. But with all that aside, let me get back to the fun times that we call…. FAN EXPO!!!!

Day One: I was not working at the Repo/Rocky Shadow Casting table on the opening friday of the convention, as myself and Kim (Amber Sweet in the Shadow Cats) were hired by another company to guard their booth and coerce people in to filling out ballots. Our own Shadow Cast booth was within sight from our spot and we could see them having the time of their lives handing out flyers, talking up our shows, fielding questions about the face-in-the-jar on our table and getting people to stick their hands in our goo (zydrate goo). They even managed to sell a few Gentern dresses which I and my gentern sweatshop team had been working for weeks to create. [Just as a side note, if you are interested in buying Shadow Cats merchandise please email us!]

Alex, the Graverobber of the Shadow Cats pushing Zydrate on innocent civilians

Leeland: the sexiest Columbia I’ve ever seen

Day Two: Saturday, which is traditionally the big day for the convention, I slipped into my Mag corset, feathers and train, plucked out my eyes and joined the party at the Shadow Casting booth. Amie, our brilliant salesgirl/gentern also joined the table on Saturday and did an outstanding job of getting people interested in what our group had to offer. There was a joyous and light atmosphere at our booth and a large crowd was often gathered around it at any given time. Possibly that had something to do with the half naked ladies and gentlemen who adorned our table.

Repo/Nathan of the Ottawa Repo Cast and Leeland from the Toronto Rocky Cast switching headpieces

Ottawa-Pavi gentern-gender-bending with Amie

One of the other really fun parts about Saturday for me was that I had a chance to hang out with members of the Ottawa and Boston Repo Shadow Casts. I’ve met a number of out-of-town-Repo-fans in my time and I never get tired of meeting more. It’s strange how there is an instant bond created with these people. Conversation flows like it would with an old friend you’ve known for years. Repo people are friendly, silly and dirty (of course); basically they are my people, my family. I hope to be able to travel someday and see the other casts across North America.

Pam and Ryan aka Boston-Mag and Boston-Pavi (these two were a riot!)

I let a devoted fan of the Shadow Cats wear my Mag cloak so we could have a triple Mag photo op

Day Three: The final day of Fan Expo had a slightly sad feel, as we all knew this was it, our final day together. So, in Repo/Rocky fashion, we made the absolute most of it. Besides chilling with Repo cast members from out of town, we also got to meet Repo fans from various places. Frankly, we were blown away by the incredible Repo cosplay going on at the convention this year. We even went so far as to chase people in Repo costumes down and force them to visit our booth and take photos with us.

Amie and I with some fabulous Repo Cosplayers

This Graverobber and Mag did an amazing job hunting down original and almost-original textiles for their costumes

Ottawa-Repo Man and the coolest Repo Woman ever

Amie caught a real live Shadow Cat

Shilo was found working at another booth

Fan Expo is the third convention that the Shadow Cats have attended, the first being Anime North and the second was Polaris. During our time at these events we have been able to talk to so many Repo fans and introduced many of them to our show. Conventions have been a great way to promote our show and our theatre but even more than that they have been a great way for the cast members to connect with real live fans. Some are devoted to the film, others just like our show, some have never heard of Repo or the Shadow Cats, but all are interesting and funny, amazing people who we are so glad to have met. One thing that our cast prides itself on is our accessibility. We want our audience to feel like they can connect with us and we want them to be a part of our show, because they are. We couldn’t do what we do without all the people who support us. I hope that we see some of the people we spoke with at Fan Expo at our upcoming shows and future events. Look out for the Toronto Shadow Casts at DTAC and/or MTAC this and next year and don’t forget to come out on Thursday, September 24th at 9:30PM for the next Shadow Cats performance at the Bloor Cinema!

Our booth: graphics provided by Kim & Leeland, banners provided by Leeland, awesomeness provided by everyone!

We had our first rehearsal last Friday since the crazy week that was Fringe and Polaris. The vibe was especially positive this time around now that we’re all well-rested, more focused and ready to go… oh… and yes… we now have a complete show on our belts. We are faced with some changes this time around. A couple of people have left the cast for personal reasons, but we also gained some new faces, as well as brought back an old friend (welcome back, Jenicka!). We’re also super stoked to have Emily rage out as our new Luigi Largo.

We’re also trying out a new scheduled time slot at the Bloor Cinema next month. Instead of the ungodly hour of midnight on Fridays, our next show will be on a Thursday evening at 9:30PM. Hey, it’s not quite the weekend, but at least we have an earlier show (Yay! No one has to worry about the last subway!) AND you won’t have to miss the Fan Expo shenanigans for us! Win! Win!

So yea, we are anticipating lots of changes soon. Some new props, new gags, new faces. Let the excitement begin!

Mark your calendars, guys… our next show at the Bloor Cinema is:
THURSDAY, AUGUST 27TH, 2009 @ 9:30PM

Just two days after Fringe and we were on the stage again: this time in a different, “swankier” venue somewhere north of Toronto. The Polaris convention attracts many sci-fi and fantasy geeks alike and we were invited to be part of the weekend festivities. We kicked off the convention with a show right after the opening ceremonies. It was probably our most challenging show yet. What? We have a FULL STAGE? We don’t have to worry about the staircase of death*?  This is unheard of! We were used to the sketchy glamour of our beloved home theatre at the Bloor Cinema** that when we were presented with luxury, we just didn’t know what to do with it at first. The only downsides of this venue were that we had no access to proper lights and a lighting crew trained to do our show, and we had a dinky projector propped up right at centre stage with an even dinkier screen right behind us. We made do though, and we had a pretty decent show considering we weren’t in our natural element.

Since it was the first thing to see on the first day of Polaris, not everyone had arrived at the convention yet so our audience was fairly small. They were an interesting bunch though. We saw some regulars, dressed up in their awesome Repo! gear, doing all the callbacks and trying to warm up the rest of the audience to the idea of shadowcasting. Most of the audience seemed new to the concept… there were very little reaction to the first half of the film, but towards the end, people were cheering, calling back and having a blast! The highlight of the experience was the disclaimer that was posted on the door of the ballroom we performed in: “This show contains violence, nudity, sexuality and adult content. Polaris will not entertain any complaints made about the content of this show”. Brilliant.  We got to take the poster home!

The next day was a busy day of Repo! related panels. The first was an hour-long discussion about the fandom of Repo!. Alex, Mandi, Jenn and I talked about our fan community: how we got into it, why we got into it, etc. We talked about the evolution of shadowcasting (which has now reached over two dozen casts!) and how the internet had helped us evolve. The Repo! fans who attended the panel had a lot of interesting input about why they think it had reached the success it had. After our panel, the Repo! discussion continued with the “Making of Repo!” featuring Alex Kavanagh, Adam Smith, Jake Reardon and Dean Armstrong. They reminisced about the production days, its trials and tribulations and their reaction to the cult following that its gained in the past year.

The last two panels were about costuming. Alex had her own panel where she not only talked about Repo!, but also the other films she worked on (ie. some recent Romero zombie films, Gingersnaps 2&3 and Harold and Kumar go to Whitecastle, just to name a few). She had a bunch of her costumes with her, including Rotti Largo’s larger-than-life custom coat jacket, as well as Amber Sweet’s “Mark it Up” robe of ridiculousness (which I got to try on after the panel).

The final panel was probably the most interesting. Alex Kavanagh and Adam Smith sat alongside our own Hanna and Kirsten to discuss the costuming of Repo!… how it came to be and what become of it after production. Alex and Adam talked about the origins of the Repo! costumes and showed us their inspiration boards and some concept sketches. From there, the cast members talked about the cos-play side of Repo! and how we interpreted the costumes to fit our style and our budgets. Our cast is a mixed bunch when it came to cos-play. While some of us went the accurate route (ie. Hanna and Laura’s Blind Mag and Shilo outfits are almost mirror-images), others chose to take the character beyond what’s on screen (ie. Kirsten’s pinkish-purple Rotti suit complete with a ruffly pillow. She actually fears Paul Sorvino will come after her one day for doing this). It was a really awesome discussion, especially since it involved creators and fans and their input to the evolution of Repo!. 

So that was Polaris weekend. We traveled on many transit buses to get there, but it was an interesting experience. Hopefully we get to do more conventions in the near future!

* Stage right stairs are crooked. One step is on a downward angle. The platform at the top of the stairs also creaks a bit when you step on it.

** Fun fact: The Bloor stage was built about 18 years ago and was only meant to be up for a weekend shindig. It was never torn down.  Hey, I guess if Rocky has survived doing the Time Warp on that stage for almost two decades, it must be a solid stage…

What an exhausting couple of weeks this has been! Whew! I should be packing for Polaris tonight, but I’m taking five minutes to quickly  recap our Fringe show that happened two nights ago. 

It only took seven shows to do it, but July 8th marked a great moment in Shadow Cats history: we FINALLY performed the whole damn movie (minus the comic scenes which we decided to leave blank. We have two amazing Rocky cast members who read everything out loud in terrible french accents anyway… how can you top that?)! We were saving this moment for Fringe because, well, what better timing would there be than now? I think we might be one of the very few casts who took this route too. Why did we take such a long time to complete a short-ish length feature? It’s probably got to do with our OCD tendencies. If you’ve seen our show, you probably know by now that about 95% of our adaptation of the film is… err… different from what’s actually on screen. Everything had to have a punchline. If we didn’t think of one, we left it alone until we did. Plus, our cast consists of students and young professionals who had a life outside of Repo! (how very little it may be…) and we couldn’t fit in what we thought was the most adequate rehearsal time to do the whole show up to this point. We also didn’t have enough people to cater to having the full show we had envisioned (we technically still don’t. It would be nice to have a DJ Granny…. just sayin’… ;P). But, well, all the hard work has now paid off and our baby’s now complete! YAY!

The 2009 Fringe crowd was absolutely awesome! We had a really good turnout and everyone was very enthusiastic. They sung along, shouted the most hilarious callbacks and waved around blue glowsticks. There was nothing better than seeing a whole sea of audience members clapping to the beat of Zydrate Anatomy and waving their arms and lighters in the air for Genetic Emancipation. Thanks for being so energetic guys, you made the show so much more fun!

We were also very stoked to have SpookyDan in the audience last night. He flew into Toronto literally only a couple of hours before the show. His first comment was about how drastically different the Toronto Repo! experience was from anything he’d ever seen before. Was it the excess use of rape jokes? The most eclectic audience ever*? I don’t know… I hope that it was a compliment though. Haha!

 So yea, all in all it was a really good night. I’m really proud of what our cast has accomplished so far and in such a short period of time too. Not only were we able to nail a full show and the chance to do it monthly, but I’m also stoked about the fact that we get to be part of a great- how ever hilarious and ridiculous it may be- movement that is shadow casting other films. Rocky may have started it all decades ago (thank you, Rocky!), but we’ve all proven that there are a lot of other films out there that can easily be translated onto the stage in its cheesy glory. It’s not just Repo! either. Toronto’s hooked on shadow casting thanks to the Bloor Cinema’s lineup of different shadow cast productions: Blue Velvet, Jurassic Park and Buffy (all shows are a must-see! Go see them while you still can!). Man, if only the different shadow casts could go beyond Fringe 2009 and we’d have a different shadow cast performing each weekend at the Bloor…. just sayin’…. ;P

Polaris convention tonight! Getting really nervous about this one. We haven’t seen the space yet! I hope everything works out though. See you at the Opera!

* the audience included a little old lady in second row who went to the show because she claimed to be an organ donour and was intrigued by the premise. She lasted until Thankless Job before realizing that this probably wasn’t her kind of show and walked out of the theatre. Oh, old lady.. you made our night. 

Just a couple of days until the Fringe show and we just received some awesome news! SpookyDan will be flying to Toronto for both our shows this week! Be sure to say hi to him when you come to our show. He will be filming for a Repo! fan documentary and he’s looking for some love! 

If you haven’t gotten your Fringe tickets yet, be sure to purchase them on the Fringe website under “The Silver Stage 07/08/09″. Tickets will also be available at the door the day of the show. Be sure to get your tickets, we’re pushing for a sold-out show!

We are also urging everyone to check out the rest of the shadow casts during Fringe week! Our very own henchgirl, Emily is playing lead roles in both Blue Velvet and Jurassic Park, and I (Kim) am also a tango-dancing velociraptor in Jurassic Park. The Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Once More with Feeling cast also features one of our honorary testifiers, Nathan as Spike (I swear, he is the most awesome Spike ever!). And of course, the legendary Rocky Horror Toronto cast, Excited Mental State will be ending the Fringe week with a bang!  Come support us all at Fringe this week!

Ladies and Menterns!

“The Silver Stage featuring the Repo! Shadow Cats’ shadow cast performance of Repo! The Genetic Opera” tickets are now available on the Fringe website here. 

$10. The Bloor Cinema (506 Bloor St. West, Toronto). July 8, 2009 (please make sure that you get the right time!). Tickets will be under “THE SILVER STAGE 07/08/09″.

If you don’t want to get tickets in advance, they will also be available at the door on the day of the show.

We had our Pride Drag Themed show last night and it was pretty damn awesome! This was our first time doing a themed show, and also the first time for some people to try their hand at cross-dressing… not too shabby for our cherry popping experience! And let me tell you… we took the theme to its dirtiest!

Thank you to everyone who came out to see the show last night! Special shout outs to Repo! Costume Designer Alex Kavanagh, who was in attendance as well. We love you, Alex!

Unfortunately there were no videos of the show… but you bet there are a SHITLOAD of photos from photographer extraordinaire Paul Dolanjski! Not wanting to miss out on the opportunity to photograph us at our best (or worse? Meh?), Paul arrived at the theatre a little early to shoot a quick photoshoot of our drag costumes before the big show.