Break out your 12-sided dice and get ready for another unique offering from the Hot Garbage Comedy Collective as they present ‘Players & Pints’, July 16 at Unplugged: A Board Games Café.
Matt Carter
The Hot Garbage crew are at it again. On Monday July 16, Fredericton’s improv ambassadors will turn their attention to the world of roll playing fantasy games with Players & Pints – A Liveplay Comedy Show.
The concept is simple, but the potential is limitless.
Hot Garbage co-founder Jean-Michel Cliche describes the event as a live and interactive game where the audience can play a part in the story as it unfolds live on stage.
“I’m a big fan of Dungeons and Dragons and have always viewed it as a platform for storytelling,” he said. “There are actually people who live stream their games and there are also a few podcasts that are basically ongoing games of D&D. I think that speaks to a broader interest in these stories which are essentially live improv.”
For this performance, the Hot Garbage Comedy Collective have assembled a team of actors, improvisers, writers and playwrights who will take the audience with them on a one-of-a-kind adventure of epic proportions.
“Basically, we have four really awesome storytellers who will be inhabiting these characters,” said Cliche. “The main challenge for us is how to create a story and an experience that’s worthy of a live audience and how do we keep it entertaining. But I think the strength of this idea is in the players. It’s going to be a lot more than just four people just killing orcs and goblins.”
Cliche, who will act as the story’s narrator (aka Dungeon Master), says the idea behind Players and Pints is something that’s been brewing for a while.
“I think my improv background and playing D&D are quite naturally aligned,” he said. “You have a loose structure and you have to adapt, and watch, and react to other characters adapting and taking the story in new directions. While playing D&D is not pure improv, there’s definitely still an improv quality to it.”
While the groups’ main performance troupe, The Hot Garbage Players, continue their regular monthly performances at Wilser’s Room in the Capital Complex (see Love’s Litter’s Lost coming July 21), Players & Pints is an experiment for the Comedy Collective, a branch of programming designed to focus on new ideas.
“I would consider our regular shows at Wilser’s Room to be our Main Stage shows,” said Cliche. “But because we have so many people interested in trying different things we decide to expand past just the improv shows. This is where the Comedy Collective comes into play.
“The Comedy Collective is a place for us to get new projects started that don’t necessarily have to be improv related,” he said. “They just need to fit with our mandate to create comedy in Fredericton. We’d like there to be more sketch comedy in the city or alternative comedy that explores humour outside the boundaries of stand up.”
To help further the distinction, Players & Pints will take place at the Unplugged: A Board Games Café on Queen Street, a fitting venue for this new idea.
“At its core, Players & Pints is essentially us playing a watered down version of Dungeons and Dragons,” said Cliche. “The characters will each have stats and special abilities and we’ll be rolling dice to see the outcomes of certain situations.
“This is a bit of an experiment. We’re going to start by doing it as a one-time thing. If there’s a positive response and people come out then we might try and make it an ongoing event.”
Players:
Tilly Jackson as The Bard
Aaron Ellis as The Monk
Kat Hall as The Fighter
Ryan Griffith as The Wizard
With Jean-Michel Cliche as the Dungeon Master
Hot Garbage Comedy Collective presents – Players & Pints | Monday July 16 | Unplugged: A Board Games Café | 418 Queen Street, Fredericton | View Event
