Spoken Word Theatre
My current offerings of shows
No One's Special at the Hot Dog Cart
“Everything I needed to know about emergency response, I learned as a teenage hot dog vendor in downtown Toronto.” Award winning playwright, author, and spoken word performer Charlie Petch (They/He) shares their personal accounts of working at hot dog stands around downtown Toronto, and in their career as an emergency services and hospital worker. Through spoken word, musical storytelling and de-escalation techniques, Charlie regales audiences with tales of survival, and kindness as a witness to life on the street. |
Mel Malarkey Gets the Bum's Rush
It’s the last night at the Vagabond Theatre and Mel can’t bear to tell the audience. She puts on a brave face, keeps the acts and laughter going, then in private she delivers odes, goodbyes and tells stories of how she came to be the owner of her “Theatre for the unrefined”. Travel back to 1931onederful and get lost in the haze of hilarity. Donkeys! Victor the Crooner! The Musical Saw! Marlene DeDick! Gerta The Flirta! The Hurdy Gurdy Dirty Birdies!
It's also the story of Victor The Crooner, a trans man who is losing the stage where he finally could be who he truly was, even if the world will call him Mel Malarkey |
Daughter of Geppetto
When Pinocchio finds Geppetto shipwrecked inside The Terrible Dogfish, the marionette realizes his creator cannot recall the days he once called him daughter and together they write the true life tall tale, “The Adventures of Pinnochio”. Charlie Petch presents this multimedia retelling with live music, silhouette, projection, music, spoken word and collaboration with choreographer Sze-Yang Ade-Lam. It plays on themes around palliative care, grief, otherness, homosexuality, non binary identities and transness. |
Medusa's Children
Nominated for an OPERA America Digital Excellence in Opera award A chamber opera with text by Charlie Petch (Mel Malarkey, Daughter of Geppetto, Why I Was Late) and music by Colin McMahon (La Maupin), Medusa’s Children explores themes of family, loss, sexual violence, and toxic masculinity through a trans and queer lens, drawing on the aftermath of the Medusa myth to tell a story at once dark, tender, and whimsical. “The words are singable and there’s some humour to lighten things up. The score helps. It’s busy and colourful and actually gives the singers something to work with. The performances are excellent. . . The makeup by Simmie Patoka is just stunning.” -John Gilkes, Operaramblings |
Performance Videos
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