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EXIT COMMANDER KITTY
October, 2008

TigerMilk Collective Presents a Theatrical Experiment about Loss of Identity 

VANCOUVER , BC : TigerMilk Collective is pleased to present its new work, Exit Commander Kitty, Oct 9-11 and 16-18 at the Carousel Theatre Space on Granville Island . Written by TigerMilk's Stephanie Hayes and Lindsay Reoch, Exit Commander Kitty is a raw, gritty look at sexuality, vulnerability and identity.

Commander Kitty is at home making preparations for her own retirement dinner party. A veteran of a post-apocalyptic army, she is forced into retirement at the old age of 25. Now that everythi ng she was has been stripped away, who will she be?

Edgy, experimental and pushing the boundaries of the fourth wall, Exit Commander Kitty is an intimate and no-holds-barred portrait of a woman in the middle of an identity crisis, and includes cabaret, WWII war songs, pop culture, live video, and meta-theatre, all viewed through a political lens.

Written by Hayes and Reoch, Exit Commander Kitty is directed by Reoch, and stars Kirsten Slenning as Kitty. Original musical composition and performance is by James Coomber as the Musician/Slave. Lindsay Drummond plays the supporting roles of Radio Host, Soldier and Therapist.

APPARITION
an uneasy play of the under-known

April 23 to May 3, 2008
PAL Theatre Vancouver
8th floor, 581 Cardero Street
Coal Harbour, Vancouver

For our last project, TigerMilk, along with guest director Joanna Garfinkel, staged Apparition: an uneasy play of the under-known by American playwright, Anne Washburn. Here the playwright describes this unique work:

Combining Washburn's sometimes intricate, sometimes pedestrian language, Garfinkel's dynamic staging and TigerMilk's keen use of physicality and risk, the show was a parade of powerful text and intensity.

Stupid Little Girls

“No one will ever find us because we will be so well saturated in society, spread so thinly. We will find ourselves passed through the bodies of the people, on the lips of a stranger, and on drugstore shelves."

Stupid Little Girls was TigerMilk Collective's first original creation. The play premiered at community based Art Centre BLIM and was directed by TigerMilk member Olivia Delachanal. The members of TigerMilk Collective worked in the studio to develop the text for the piece. We led each other in various writing and improvisation exercises, as well as spending many hours on our own developing material. In addition to the studio work TigerMilk members completed numerous interviews with community members to fully research the content we wished to explore for the piece. As with any collective creation one can never be sure what the final result will be. TigerMilk was very proud to play to sold out houses every night, creating a venue for the issues we wish to discuss through our theatre.

Stupid Little Girls was developed as a reaction to the events of the missing women from the Downtown Eastside. TigerMilk's perspective was that our city's darkest realities can appear localized and distant, but their sources can actually be identified within our selves. Stupid Little Girls took place inside of a stripped living room where five women are trapped with their own contradictions; their dreams and nightmares reveal how they each struggle with their many layers of identity. The intertwined stories progressed through various devices of metamorphosis – mask, singing and dancing– capturing the overwhelming effects of our image frenzied culture. Stupid Little Girls was a clear example of the strong political content that TigerMilk wishes to explore. Combined with a curiosity for new theatrical forms Stupid Little Girls featured fearless writing and defiant performances.

The content we explore is often thought provoking. If you wish more information about Stupid Little Girls or any of our productions please feel free to contact us at info@tigermilkcollective.com . We are always happy to further discuss our work.

Hospital City

Hospital City is a Universal Fairytale/Nightmare; the play is a raw exploration of conscious clarity amongst a sea of trauma and horror. Our two main characters, Mel and Mia, travel to a city known as The Hospital in hope of finding “the cure.” Unfortunately, upon arriving at The Hospital, they quickly realize that “the cure” is not so readily available, and our two heroines discover that, “The worst pornography of our time exists in The Hospital.” The Hospital functions like any city in the world and soon the two women are forced to get jobs, pay rent and become functional members of the society, far from the all-inclusive resort they imagined. In this play we encounter with Mel and Mia the difficulties of finding the help and support necessary to get out of our addictions and psychological pains.

Ladies Voices: Stein In Play , a Tell not Tell Collective production

Ladies Voices: Stein In Play was an evening of six short pieces comprised and sourced from the works of Gertrude Stein. Stein is a woman of great courage and boldness who stands out as a model of free thought for the twentieth century. It is her spirit of rebellion and her search for essential _expression that makes her work relevant in contemporary society. She demonstrates the necessity of reinvention. She has opened up a discourse surrounding women in literature and the world, in which artists and intellectuals of the present time can engage in ways that continue to be meaningful in both content and form.  Tell Not Tell Collective created an environment that reflected the landscape of our evening with Stein; from first mention, to first sight, to first words spoken, to last, and beyond. In Paris, in the 1920's and 1930's, Stein's home was a hub of social and artistic activity. Stein's salon hosted many of the important artists of her time, including Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso, Hemingway, Pound, and Duncan, to name but a few. Tell Not Tell  created a similar feeling of contemporaries gathering in a social environment.

Freeport, Texas, a Sodium Glow production

Michael Springate's text plays out the events surrounding the Enron scandal of a few years ago. Mixed in with this plot are the story lines of a Russian sex worker and her daughter, an old woman living on Freeport's beach, a young careerist ready to take it all away from his boss, including his daughter, and a rich house wife waiting for a sign from God. Sodium Glow's production took place in the Tinseltown Mall, in a huge concrete space overlooking the city of Vancouver. This ensemble piece intertwined a powerful story, inventive staging and compelling performances.

Sky , a Four-Five-Oh production

A small boarded up 1920's prairie house and its doorway to the vast landscape of Saskatchewan held Connie Gault's play Sky. This Four-Five-Oh Production performed at the Pocket Stage at Methodica Acting Studio told the story through Old Blanche's reflection of her 16 yrs. old self and her arranged marriage to the orphaned Jasper. This was an important stepping-stone for everyone involved and gave us a taste of our future work together as a theatre company. Sky was directed by Olivia Delachanal, performed by Kirsten Slenning, Simon Driver and Miranda Huba and included Lindsay Drummond as production manager and Lindsay Reoch as assistant stage manager.