Tag Archives: Winnie The Pooh

[Victoria Fringe Festival ’16] Re-Imagining Winnie the Pooh & The Tales of 100 Acre Wood

29 Aug

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LOCATION:
Downtown Activity Centre
755 Pandora,
Victoria, BC V8W 1N9

SHOWTIMES:
Wed Aug 31, 9:45pm
Sat Sep 3, 6:45pm
Sun Sep 4, 4:45pm

The 2016 Victoria Fringe Festival production of Winnie the Pooh & Tales of 100 Acre Wood is simply wonderful. Children can enjoy seeing the bedtime pyjama party of Pooh Bear, Rabbit, Eeyore, Piglet, Tigger and Christopher Robin recounting the tales from A. A. Milne‘s 1926 publication. Literary enthusiasts (mostly me) can read into the context being provided to make this production a look into troubled times for the era poignant. Award-winning Victoria local, playwright David Elendune and director Ian Case made a show that’s a delight to seen by all. This team known as Outpost 31 was also involved in last year’s Victoria Fringe Festival show, Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale.

I was particularly enthralled by the world that frames the story. The vintage radio made me ga-ga over the fact that this show will be a period piece. The set design is beautifully period. The framing narrative sets the tone: the London Blitz is happening, and Britain is facing difficult times. The citizens of this country are finding creative ways to cope, and the children we meet — whom there’s only one we know by name, Chris Robin (Ellen Law), faces the most difficult challenge while sheltered at a hospital.

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[Victoria, BC] Kelly Hudson to Star as Piglet in “Hundred Acre” Vic Fringe Play

24 Jul

KellyHudsonBy James Robert Shaw (The Wind up Geek)

If you’ve followed Kelly Hudson’s Twitter in a previous lifetime you’ll surmise that this actress is nothing like the timid Piglet she’ll be portraying in Outpost 31 Victoria‘s Fringe play Winnie the Pooh and Tales of 100 Acre Wood. But her bubbly personality matches the talent she will bring to the stage during this play that is based off the works of A. A. Milne.

After uprooting from Saskatchewan over 20 years ago, Hudson has become a comfortable fixture of the West Coast arts scene. A co-founder of RKO Productions, the company that performed The Rocky Horror Show in 2014 (where she played Riff Raff), Hudson has loaned her talent to many local productions on the island she now calls home. Some of her past roles have included Wes Borg and Paul Mather’s The War of 1812 (One Dead Troll and a Cranny), the Conjur Woman of Howard Richardson and Richard Berney’s Dark of the Moon (at the University of Victoria’s Phoenix Theatre), Ronnette in Little Shop of Horrors (Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre), Madre/Chorus in Elaine Avila’s Lieutenant Nun (Theatre SKAM, Puente Theatre, and SNAFU Dance Theatre), and Constance Blackwood in the Broadway-bound, Dora award-winning musical Ride the Cyclone (Atomic Vaudeville).

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[Victoria, BC] Melissa Taylor Announced for “Winnie the Pooh” Fringe Play

17 Jul

MelissaTaylorBy James Robert Shaw (The Wind up Geek)

The Hundred Acre Wood has become a little more populated recently. In an earlier article, we announced the reuniting of Langham Court Theatre‘s Pride and Prejudice actors Ellen Law and Ian Simms for Winnie the Pooh and Tales of 100 Acre Wood. Today, production company Outpost 31 announced a new cast member Melissa Taylor. She is an actor, writer and director. She created Bereavement (produced by the University of Victoria’s Student Alternative Theatre Company in 2011) and The Oldest Trick in the Book (as part of Theatre SKAM‘s SKAMpede in 2015).

Her one-act play Macramé will be performed next month (August 4 and 5) at Intrepid Theatre. Taylor has garnered critical praise for her portrayal of Mia in the Victoria Theatre Guild’s edgy production of Polly Stenham’s That Face. Times Colonist newspaper’s resident critic Adrian Chamberlain wrote, “[Taylor] captured the truth of her character, Mia, in a tremendously convincing manner. It was a skilled performance.”

She will be juggling the roles of bouncing Tigger and the respected Owl.

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[Victoria, BC] Pride & Prejudice Actors Reunited for Fringe’s Winnie The Pooh

11 Jul
Illustration by E. H. Shephard

Illustration by E. H. Shephard

By James Robert Shaw (The Wind up Geek)

Actors Ellen Law and Ian Simms, who performed together in Langham Court Theatre’s hit production of Jane Asuten’s Pride and Prejudice, are reuniting on stage for Winnie the Pooh and Tales of 100 Acre Wood. University of Victoria alumni Law and Simms played Kitty Bennet and Charles Bingley in Janet Munsil’s adaptation of Austen’s novel and will be taking on roles of Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh for this production. Theatre critic Janis la Couvee wrote of Pride and Prejudice:

“My guest for the evening is more familiar with rock and roll than the genteel considerations of Austen. The genius of this production of Pride and Prejudice is that it captured his attention completely. Bravo to cast and crew for a job well done—you have breathed new life into an undisputed treasure of the English language canon.”

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