The Vancouver Premiere of the Musical Comedy PAGEANT boldly pits six contestants as they pursue the tiara & title, running from August 18th to September 8th 

The Vancouver Premiere of the Musical Comedy PAGEANT boldly pits six contestants as they pursue the tiara & title, running from August 18th to September 8th

This Beauty Contest lets you be the Judge!

Something Extra Collective digs into classical satire with PAGEANT – a Musical Comedy!  A 90-minute, one-act romp, it plays at the Blake Snyder Theatre at Go Studios 112 E. 3rd Avenue in Vancouver, B.C. from August 18th to September 8th.

Boldly pitting six contestants in pursuit of the tiara and title “Miss Glamouresse”, there will be cross-gender casting and celebrity judges culled from the audience! This pageant is like nothing you’ve seen before – a cheeky peek into beauty contests, in high-heels through the ridiculous to expose what pageants so often were: thinly-veiled advertisements requiring little wit and lots of skin to Sell! Sell! Sell!

PAGEANT is produced and directed by Christopher Shyer Johnston. Christopher is a well-known actor and Co-Produced “City of Angels” at Performance Works, Executive Produced and Co-Directed “The Wild Party” at the Anza Club,Co-Produced the Tennessee Williams Festival featuring “Night of the Iguana” at Playwright’s Theatre Centre, “Summer and Smoke” at the Firehall Arts Centre and Co-Produced/Directed a Charity Fundraising Concert for the Stanley Park Ecology Society entitled “Into the Woods.”

PAGEANT will mark the Vancouver premiere of the show, featuring a diverse cast of industry professionals and fresh faces from across North America. Cast members include: Kelly-Ruth Mercier, Graeme Thompson, Max Hall, Simon Paterson, Javier Ricardo Sotres Porres, Kenneth Tynan, Ryan Purdy, and Derry Oshust. Creative Crew includes: Amy Gartner, Ken Overbey, Christopher Shyer Johnston, Chris Lam, Ian Crowe, Kimmie Blais, Stellina Rusich, Jorge Louise Taracena, Demi Pedersen, Brendan Lowe, Tracy Cake, Natalee Fera, Victoria Bahnuk, Simone Boutin, Megan Sadler, and Jennifer Copping. PAGEANT is written by Bill Russell and Frank Kelly, music by Albert Evans, and was conceived by Robert Longbottom

PAGEANT will be performed at the Blake Snyder Theatre @Go Studios 112 E. 3rd Ave, around the corner from ‘Earnest Ice Cream Shop” on Quebec Street, and close to the Olympic Village & Main St. Skytrain Station.

Tickets: pageantvanpremiere.brownpapertickets.com

For press passes, interviews, photos please contact: Lesley Diana | Lesley@thepromotionpeople.ca| 604-726-5575

 

SOCIAL MEDIA HANDLES:

 

SHOW DATES & TIMES

Sat 18 Aug
8:00**
Sun 19 Aug Mon 20 Aug Tue 21 Aug Wed 22 Aug Thu 23 Aug Fri 24 Aug Sat 25 Aug
7:00 7:00*** NO SHOW NO SHOW 7:30 7:30 8:00
Sun 26 Aug Mon 27 Aug Tue 28 Aug Wed 29 Aug Thu 30 Aug Fri 31 Aug Sat 01 Sep
7:00 7:00*** NO SHOW NO SHOW 7:30 7:30 8:00
Sun 02 Sep Mon 03 Sep Tue 04 Sep Wed 05 Sep Thu 06 Sep Fri 07 Sep Sat 08 Sep
7:00 NO SHOW NO SHOW 8:30 8:30 8:30 8:30****

 

   ** OPENING                   ***INDUSTRY NIGHT                              ****CLOSING

 

 

REFERENCES

  • Hilary Levey Friedman (com): “Women no longer have to walk on stage in front of millions in a bikini and high heels to earn scholarship money. (Pageants have) been about artifice and contradiction: Wear a swimsuit, but don’t swim in it. Do not go barefoot in said non-swimming bathing suit, instead wear 6-inch heels. Look slender and muscular, but not too thin and not too strong. Compete for college scholarships, but work on your six-pack first. After all, you’ll be showing as much skin as a college student on spring break.”https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/06/06/miss-america-axes-swimsuit-competition-gretchen-carlson-column/673050002/
  • When Jean Genet wrote The Maidsin the 1940’s, the sight of men playing women “was… disturbing” (notes Campbell Robertson of the NYT in his review) and nowadays is “merely diverting,” but Genet surely would have approved of whatever interpretation that resulted in something “…voyeuristic and disconcerting.”  <https://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/28/theater/reviews/love-her-or-hate-her-shes-boss.html>
  • In the ancient Greek play, The Bacchae, Euripides portrays the downfall of King Pentheus as including the donning of women’s clothes before he heads to his death in the hills. Until very recently – perhaps even only the last 15 years – the sight of a man in women’s clothes (outside of a drag show) still carried with it some surprise.
  • There are dozens of examples of cross-dressing in Shakepeare’s plays. Never was there intent to ridicule; rather, the juxtaposition of a character representing themselves as something opposite to their own sexual identity was to take up a discussion beyond the plot.
  • M*A*S*H’s double-negative use of drag revealed, in the character of Sgt Klinger, that the donning of heels could not be viewed as an indication of insanity, and that a person’s character cannot – should not – be kept down or swept aside.