Bios | Reviews / Interviews / Excerpt | Photos | Press | Lost and found (updated Feb. 23, 2009)
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Left to right: Alex Chu (Darryl Chu), Grace Chin (Susan Fan), Emily Chow (Regina Cho), Raahul Singh (Richard Gupta) |
The Quickie, a Vancouver-based, contemporary romantic comedy that rips a strip out of speed dating, making whoopee, and cultural collision, premiered February 2008 with six shows at the Playwrights Theatre Centre on Granville Island, Vancouver.
Bios (in alphabetical order)
Cast
Emily Chow (Regina Cho) was born and raised in Vancouver, B.C. By day, she manages pharmaceuticals and by night, she continues to be inspired by an actor's ability to entertain. As a newbie to theatre, you can be sure that she loves drama.
Alex Chu (Darryl Chu) is Google-able. He spends his time studying farm animals, watching Astroboy (the '80s version), and playing his favorite sport of javelin catching. Even though he is not a celebrity, he wants to take this opportunity to ask everyone to boycott the environmental hazard that is the Beijing Olympics.
Born in Fiji, Raahul Singh (Richard Gupta) grew up in Alberta, influenced both by Hollywood and Indian cinema. After completing a marketing degree, he moved to Vancouver and enrolled in the Gastown Actors' Studio. Since then he’s landed lead roles in five independent films including Bolly Double and a supporting role in The Guru, as well as a host of television credits.
Grace Chin (Susan Fan) is a communications consultant and thesp. A member of the Editors' Association of Canada and of UBCP, Grace has worked with VACT, Theatre in the Raw, CBC Radio, and in the Vancouver Fringe. She co-produces the Scripting Aloud scriptreading series, co-wrote TF Productions' first stage production Twisting Fortunes in 2007, and is The Quickie's writer and co-producer.
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Philip Gurney (Scott Tracey) was born on the mean streets of Vancouver’s West Side, where he got his start as a print model for Covenant House Vancouver. He has since moved on to acting and comedy. He is elated to be playing "the white guy," and to be working alongside his talented cast members.
Victor Khong (Mark Lowe) has been acting, directing and shooting films since 1998. His cinematography of Spook won Best Feature and achievement awards at The
DV Awards, the Cinevue International Film Festival,
Chicago's Indiefest Film Festival, The
deadCENTER film festival
and The
Berkeley Video & Film Festival.
Kit Koon (Karen Wong) is getting wilder on stage: from a sexy karaoke waitress to a manipulative ex-girlfriend who got caught in bed, to having a quickie in a bathroom! Between Sex in Vancouver and The Quickie, Kit also worked on Twisting Fortunes, Etch-Your-Sketch, the
Vancouver Chinatown Festival
and Supermarket Scuffle: Jumbo Pack Edition.
Allison Riley (Amber Russo) is a graduate of the
Canadian College of Performing Arts
and has also trained at the
Royal Winnipeg Ballet
and
University of Winnipeg. Recent film and television credits include
Aliens in America,
MTV’s Kaya,
and
Shall We Dance. Stage credits; principal singer/dancer for Norwegian Cruise Lines, Funny Girl, and West Side Story.
Crew
Ross Bragg's (director) life in theatre began at an early age.
He majored in drama at the Etobicoke School of the Arts, Canada's premier school for the performing arts. At the
University of Waterloo
he studied acting and directing as well as history. Currently he is a producer and director at CBC Radio in Vancouver. He is also a published short story writer.
Charlie Cho (co-producer) co-wrote and co-produced TF Productions' first stage production Twisting Fortunes in 2007. He wrote and performed for the sketch comedy groups
Hot Sauce Posse
and Lick the Wax Tadpole. He lipsynched and danced to the song "Footloose" in high school, a performance his classmates still cite as memorable.
Darren Boquist (lighting design) is an actor and lighting designer. Select past lighting designs include
Carousel Theatre's The Odyssey,
Mad Duck Theatre's Shakespeare's R & J and Titus Andronicus,
UpInTheAir Theatre's Men of the World and
120 BPM and
The Walking Fish Festival,
Fugue Free Theatre's
Out Like Flynn,
Pi Theatre's Carnage, and TF Productions'
Twisting Fortunes. Look out for Darren's hit one-man touring Fringe show this year entitled The Official Napoleon Dynamite Dance Class.
JJ Lee (wardrobe consultant) is a fashion columnist for CBC Radio in Vancouver and the Georgia Straight. He also blogs about fashion at vancouverbydesign.blogspot.com
Ian Tang: Stage manager | Ann Krueger/Make-Up Artist4U, Eddy Peters: Makeup/hair artist | Phil Chau, Philip Gurney: Stage hands | Terry Wong/wonger.ca, Kathy Leung: Graphic design/promotional stills | Kathy Leung: Videographer | Enrico Pelaez/Pelaez Photography: Performance stills | Michele Nitta, Suzi Petersen, Josephine Ching, Aurora Chan, Mark Belcher: front of house
Reviews / Interviews
"Kudos to the writer, Grace Chin, who developed a delightfully funny script that captures the humour as well as the realities of living as a single in this city with all that it has to offer. There are many references to the kinds of stereotypical comments that are inevitable in a multi-cultural setting, and Chin cleverly weaves them into the script in a witty but never offensive way.
All in the talented cast delivered strong performances, and this is an accomplishment given that some have had very little experience in theatre – Emily Chow (Regina Cho) and Alex Chu (Darryl Chu), for example, should have a bright future on the stage. Grace Chin (Susan Fan) was excellent as the sweet, insecure divorcee, and Raahul Singh (Rich Gupta) the cool over-confident womanizer, was also superb....
The clever set design captured the Yaletown feel of a condo, an office, or a restaurant by simply moving a few pieces of contemporary furniture from one place to another. The background music of current hits such as Daniel Powter's "Bad Day" was the perfect complement.
The Playwrights Theatre Centre was an ideal venue for this small theatre production. And it was easy to see that the audience enjoyed themselves, as there were smiling faces everywhere throughout the performance." - Susan Peake, Review Vancouver
"It is a witty comedy play that had the audience talking about it during the intermission, and even making the 'awwww' sound when one of the characters was rejected.
Playwright Grace has captured the diversity of even the Vancouver's Asian population, incorporating Maylaysian Chinese, Korean, South Asian and Cantonese Chinese origins, as well as Irish-Italian, and Hong Kong origins. Accents blend into the action, and you don't notice them as none of the four lead performers speak with accents." - Todd Wong, "The Quickie" is very Vancouver play about diversity and expectations in relationships, Gung Haggis Fat Choy
"An armload of kudos on The Quickie. I thought there was a great deal in that show of which you can be very proud!" - Darien Edgeler, playwright, The Half-Stratford Players
"I don't know if there is a local theatre award for best onstage kiss, but if so, I must nominate Susan and Rich for tonight's closing performance!
The play was a lot of fun, the acting was excellent, and my friends and I all really enjoyed the evening out.
Thanks again,
Melanie Covey"
"aWESOME!" - Ronnie Lee
"I really enjoyed the show." - Gordon Seid
"The play was great." - Connie Huen
Email your review to quickieplay@gmail.com.
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Grace and Ross were interviewed by Grace Kim on Wake Up with Co-op on CFRO 102.7 FM. Iven Tse won a pair of free tickets to The Quickie. [Listen 15:26] (Feb. 1, 2008)
The Quickie was included in Margaret Gallagher's weekend wrap-up on The Early Edition on CBC Radio, 690 AM in Vancouver. It included an excerpt featuring Emily Chow and Grace Chin. Michael Lord won a pair of free tickets to The Quickie. [Listen 5:25] (Feb. 8, 2008)
Grace was interviewed by Shelagh Rogers on Sounds Like Canada on CBC Radio, and heard nationally. Not so much about The Quickie, but still an entertaining and thematically-relevant discussion about grey hair (to dye or not to dye) and being Asian and an actor. [Listen to excerpts 4:36] (Jan. 28, 2008)
Grace and Emily read a short excerpt from The Quickie at the Tenth Anniversary Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinner. (Jan. 27, 2008)
The Quickie webpage and Facebook event go live, as does TF Productions' Facebook group. (Jan. 14, 2008)
The Quickie is mentioned in this Vancouver Sun article along with the Tenth Anniversary Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinner. (Jan. 23, 2008), and Catherine Barr talked about it on her show on CFUN.
We're blogged at Gung Haggis Fat Choy, Michelle Wong - Bridal Makeup Artist & Hairstylist, Pelaez Photography Blog, and The Hot Sauce Posse, listed at Asian American Theatre Revue AsianCanadian.net, Asian Pacific Post, South Asian Post, canada.com, CBC British Columbia, The Early Edition (CBC Radio Vancouver), explorASIAN, The Georgia Straight, Immediate Theatre, rabble.ca, Review Vancouver, Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre, Vancouver Plays, and Vancouver Public Library, linked at Future Tense, and mentioned in a Club Vibes discussion forum.
We submitted an excerpt of The Quickie for publication in Ricepaper magazine.
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Photos 1-20 by Enrico Pelaez/Pelaez Photography. Photos 21, 22 by Terry Wong/wonger.ca |
Vancouver Quickie Premieres at Granville Island
Vancouver, BC — Can you really know someone in five minutes? And is speed dating a
shortcut to happiness, or a slippery slope to heartache? TF Productions, the
team that brought the city its first "accidentally Asian" romantic dramedy,
Twisting Fortunes—which played to a sold-out house at the
Playwrights Theatre Centre
on
Granville Island last year—presents The Quickie, a Vancouver-based, contemporary
romantic comedy that rips a strip out of speed dating, making whoopee, and cultural
collision. In all the wrong places.
The Quickie is directed by Ross Bragg (Producer,
CBC) with lighting design by Darren
Boquist (Walking Fish Festival) from a script by Grace Chin (Event Producer,
Scripting Aloud), one half of the TF Productions writing/producing team that includes Charlie Cho
(Associate Producer,
CBC). TF Productions is grateful to receive in-kind support from
the
CBC, Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre (VACT) and
Scripting Aloud.
"A 'quickie' can mean a lot of things. This is a fun play about dating in Vancouver, but it’s
not only about sex; it’s about how readily we judge people before we know who they are,
about love at first sight," says Bragg.
In this take-out love story, Richard "The Rich" Gupta (Raahul Singh) wants everything,
while his buddy Darryl Chu (Alex Chu) just wants the right woman. Susan Fan (Grace
Chin) is willing to settle for a man she can put up with, while her best friend Regina Cho
(Emily Chow) won’t settle at all. The four meet their matches quickly enough at the same
speed dating event, yet find the follow-through far from tidy. An amorous woman (Allison
Riley), a party girl (Kit Koon), a pretty boy (Philip Gurney) and a toothsome dentist (Victor
Khong) further complicate the "girl meets boy" dynamic.
The Quickie is the second theatrical production, after 2007's
Twisting Fortunes, to be
staged after being workshopped at
Scripting Aloud, a monthly pan-Asian Canadian
scriptreading series active since 2005.
Performances:
Thurs. Feb. 7, Fri. Feb. 8, Sat. Feb. 9, 8 p.m.
Sun. Feb. 10, 2 p.m.
Fri. Feb. 15, Sat. Feb. 16, 8 p.m.
Venue:
Playwrights Theatre Centre
(1398 Cartwright Street), Granville Island
Tickets: $15 at the door, $13 online via PayPal at www.scriptingaloud.ca/quickie
Media enquiries:
Charlie Cho, Co-Producer, TF Productions
quickieplay@gmail.com
Download press release (PDF, 114 KB)
A stack of cards was found in the theatre following the show on Friday, February 15. It looks like they fell out of a wallet. Please identify them, so we can return them. Email quickieplay@gmail.com.
