WINNIPEG FRINGE THEATRE FESTIVAL, JULY 2009
Gorilla by Ken Rudderham
and
Antipode by Megan Andres
Produced by the Black Hole Theatre; Department of English, Film and Theatre (DEFT) at the
University of Manitoba
Gorilla
In 1928, Winnipeg was terrorized by a serial killer dubbed the “Gorilla Man” because he
murdered his twenty victims with his bare hands. Earl Nelson had escaped from an American
mental institution before he fled to Winnipeg, where he killed two young women. He then
became the subject of Manitoba’s biggest manhunt to that date. Ironically, he professed deep
religious conviction. He was hanged in Winnipeg in January, 1929. In Gorilla, Ken Rudderham’s
fictionalized account of the manhunt, the police find more than they bargained for as they
encounter the universal human capacity for rage and violence. Rudderham appears elsewhere
at the Fringe as MC of the Outdoor Stage. He’s a student in the Theatre Program at the
University of Manitoba, a senior member of the Black Hole Theatre Company, and has recently
played John Proctor in The Crucible (MillerFest 2009) and the Judge in Romance (MametFest
2008).
Antipode
Young women murder each other, emotionally at least, in the second half of the Black Hole’s
double-bill, Antipode, by another young Winnipeg playwright, Megan Andres. In a tale of
sibling rivalry run amok, the control freak takes on the party girl in a struggle that is
simultaneously hilarious and chilling. Andres directs both plays, assisted by Prof. Chris
Johnson. She is one of the U of M’s blogger poster girls, and, like Rudderham, one of the
Department of English, Film, and Theatre’s best and brightest students. She also performed in
The Crucible, and played a party girl extraordinaire in the Black Hole’s production of John
Guare’s Landscape of the Body. She will be directing the 25th anniversary production of Carol
Shields’ Departures and Arrivals for the Black Hole in November, commemorating the 1984
premiere of the play in the Black Hole when Shields taught English and Creative Writing at the U
of M.
The casts (Christine Reinfort and Andrea Karr in Antipode; Tim Bandfield, Ray Strachan,
Natashia Durand, Liz Madden and Adam McCort in Gorilla) are all senior students in or recent
graduates of the Theatre Program at the U of M. Over the past few seasons, they’ve appeared
in Black Hole productions of The Playboy of the Western World, Lie of the Mind, The Crucible,
Escape from Happiness, Romance, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (StoppardFest
2007).
Gorilla/Antipode is presented at Venue #1, MTC Backstage at the Mainstage:
Wed, July 15
8:30 p.m.
Fri. July 17
Sun. July 19,
Mon. July 20
Tues. July 21
Thu. July 23
Sat. July 25
3:45 p.m.
6:00 p.m.
8:15 p.m.
12:45 p.m.
5:30 p.m.
11:00 p.m.
Gorilla and Antipode are parts of a larger New Play Development Initiative at the U of M. In the
2008/09 school year, DEFT at the U of M commissioned Winnipeg playwright and alumnus,
Mike Bell, to write a new play for the Black Hole, and the Centre for Creative Writing and Oral
Culture engaged him as Playwright-in-Residence in its inaugural year. At the same time, DEFT
hired Bell to teach a playwriting course while simultaneously Prof. Bill Kerr taught a course in
new play dramaturgy, and Johnson taught a course in advanced directing. Students from all
three courses (in some cases the same students wearing different hats) worked on over a dozen
new scripts together over the year, culminating in the “Fire in the Hole Festival” in March,
which saw the presentation of twelve new plays in the Black Hole, the Cowie and Losey studios,
Scholars Diner, and the Wiseguys campus pub. A thirteenth was broadcast on UMFM
radio. Gorilla and Antipode are the fourteenth and fifteenth. Bell’s new play, HeadSpace, an
account of lives lived partly in cyberspace, will be directed by Johnson next March as part of the
Black Hole’s 2009/2010 season.
Gorilla/Antipode is produced with the assistance of a Creative Collaboration grant from the
Centre for Creative Writing and Oral Culture in the Department of English, Film, and Theatre at
the University of Manitoba and a Creative Works Grant from the University of Manitoba.