Snack Music
by SNAFU and the Snack Music Collective
Show description
“A FABULOUS PUPPETRY-STORYTELLING-IMPROV-DANCE-MUSIC MASH UP.”
Snack Music weaves together true stories in a way that is hyper-theatrical and immediate--and involves playing with your food. The show is part house-party, part improv, and part highly-choreographed storytelling.
At the show, a brave audience member chooses to step on stage and tell a true story from their life. The audience then gets to sit back and watch the Snack Music artists recreate that story for them, puppeteering snack-related objects: kitchen implements, fresh fruits, and vegetables. The protagonist might be an onion, running through a hailstorm of marshmallows, taking refuge in a hot tub made out of a bread bowl.
The Snack Music team has puppeteered people’s stories of first dates, awkward sex, dying of cancer, getting lost on the first day of kindergarten, and babies pooping all over their parents! Their mission: to build a temporary community out of the audience – in sixty minutes or less.
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About SNAFU & The Snack Music Collective
The Snack Music Collective was formed by Ginette Mohr, Elliott Loran, Ingrid Hansen and Andrew G. Young in 2015 with an inaugural performance of Snack Music at the Next Stage Festival. The team looks forward to taking their shows on tour this summer to the Edge of the Woods Festival in Muskoka and the Puppets UP! Festival in Almonte, Ontario.
SNAFU is an award-winning company most recently known for producing Little Orange Man and Kitt & Jane: A Survival Guide to the Near-Post-Apocalyptic Future. The company’s work creates dynamic spaces for people of all ages to experience art together under new terms. SNAFU’s creative collaborations connect multi-disciplinary artists in theatre, storytelling, puppetry, dance, live music, and visual art. Spectators are invited to have an active role in the action as it unfolds.
PRESS
“Snack Music is an absolute riot and you wish it just didn’t have to end.”
★★★★★
“At Snack Music, the party starts as soon as you walk in the theatre.”
★★★★★
“This show is like the best of all the various different things you could see: puppetry, storytelling, crowd involvement, music, heartfelt. Snack Music - everyone’s talking about it and everyone’s going to keep talking about it.”
“Bring your best story,
smile your biggest smile,
and be ready to open your heart to a room full of strangers.”
“Snack Music is a fabulous puppetry-storytelling-improv-dance-music mash up. They bring personal stories to life in a way that is both simple and simply brilliant. Ingrid, Elliott and Andrew act out three life stories of their own and then invite the audience to share theirs. Their imaginative canvas seems to stretch ever larger as they make the world a better place one connection at a time. P.S. Free Snacks!”
“SNAFU’s work is always informed by a deep and profound reverence for taking risks and choosing to be vulnerable...about trying to get people to open up to each other and dabble in that space where marvelous things happen: tell us a story — a silly, secret story — and we promise to love you back.”
Photo by Laura Dittmann
Credits
Co-created by Ingrid Hansen, Elliott Loran*, Ginette Mohr* & Andrew G. Young*
Directed by Ginette Mohr*
Stage managed by Ada Aguilar
* Artists appear with the permission of Canadian Actors’ Equity Association.
Thank yous
Thank you to CORPUS for their generous in-kind donation!
Thank you to the the Puppetmongers, the Theatre Creator's Reserve and the Ontario Arts Council for their support for the initial development of this piece.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Ginette Mohr
SNACK MUSIC Director & Co-creator
About GinetteGinette is an award winning director, performer, playwright and arts educator. Her career in the performing arts has galvanized her love of live experiences and direct contact with people. She seeks to fire up imaginations and cultivate new work through playful explorations of performance and design. For over 15 years she has created theatre with companies that include: The Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Neptune Theatre, Young People’s Theatre, SNAFU, The Quickening Theatre, Theatre New Brunswick, Drayton Entertainment, Theatre Aquarius, Keystone Theatre and The Second City. She has taught theatre, dance and improvisation at schools that include: York University, The Second City, Theatre Direct, Young People's Theatre and The Living Arts Centre. She holds a B.F.A. in Theatre from Simon Fraser University and an M.F.A. in Theatre from York University.
Elliott Loran
SNACK MUSIC Co-Creator & Performer
About ElliottElliott Loran is an actor, singer, pianist and composer currently residing in Toronto, Ontario. Selected acting credits include Atomic Vaudeville's Dora Award-winning musical Ride the Cyclone (original Canadian cast, winner of the Toronto Theatre Critics Award and the BroadwayWorld Award for Best Supporting Actor), Alice Through the Looking Glass and Christina the Girl King (Stratford Festival), As You Like It and Long Day's Journey Into Night (Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre) and Jerry Lee Lewis in Million Dollar Quartet (The Globe Theatre and the MTC). Selected composer credits include Space Hippo (Mochinosha Puppet Company), Me With You (LooseLeaf Theatre), Snack Music, Table Top Tales, and Lost and Found (SNAFU Dance Theatre and the Snack Music Collective).
Andrew G. Young
SNACK MUSIC Co-Creator & Performer
About AndrewAndrew was born and raised in Bruce County. Since graduating from the Humber Theatre Performance program, Andrew has found a passion for bringing theatre to rural areas, creating shows for the Wild for the Arts Festival in Port Elgin from 2012-14. Andrew works as an actor, director, and puppeteer. He directed Paleoncology, which won multiple awards on its tour as well being named one of CBC’s ‘Must See Fringe shows of 2014.’ He is currently directing Does Not Play Well With Others (Moon Dinosaur Theatre), which will be part of the Victoria Fringe and Vancouver Fringe later this summer. Andrew is thrilled to be back in Huntsville after being part of Nuit Blanche North in 2014. Selected performance credits include: Old Man and the River (Theatre Direct), Unjustly (Festival Players of Prince Edward County/Small Pond Arts), Snack Music (SNAFU), To The Last Cry (Theatre Lab), We Walk Among You (Artichoke Heart).
Ingrid Hansen
SNACK MUSIC Co-Creator & Performer
About IngridRaised by gregarious Danish immigrants, Ingrid loves talking to strangers. A Co-Artistic Director of SNAFU Dance Theatre, she tours across the country with SNAFU performing Snack Music, Little Orange Man, and Kitt & Jane: A Survival Guide to the Near-Post-Apocalyptic Future. Outside of SNAFU, she has created and performed with Corpus Theatre, The Quickening, Theatre Direct, Theatre SKAM, Shakespeare in the Ruff, Architect Theatre, and Atomic Vaudeville. For the past seven years, Ingrid has built an ongoing collaboration with the inmates at William Head on Stage Prison Theatre, including co-directing The Prison Puppet Project with Peter Balkwill in 2013. On TV, she is a lead puppeteer and voice actor for Tiga Talk on APTN. Sometimes she roams the country teaching workshops for adults, children, and prison inmates.
Ada Aguilar
SNACK MUSIC Stage Manager
About AdaAn up-and-coming Toronto-based stage manager, Ada Aguilar is excited to be a part of Snack Music. Having previously worked with Ginette Mohr and Ingrid Hansen in Burying Toni (Alumnae Theatre), Ada can’t wait to have another go at a great show! Most recent credits include Anne of Green Gables (The Lower Ossington Theatre), Meet Cute (Best of Fringe 2015) and two seasons as resident Stage Manager at Solar Stage Children’s Theatre. When she is not in a booth or backstage, Ada can be found either riding her motorcycle or freelancing as a stage hand in the GTA.