Upside Comedy

WHAT WE DO

UPSIDE COMEDY PRODUCTIONS is a comedy collective that specializes in satire, theatre clown, and cabaret. Our work employs elements of sketch, stand-up, hosting, improv, and interdisciplinary (film, live music, magic, puppetry, environmental, and participation-pageant). We also have depth in development: writing, editing, and coaching/workshops/polishing. Our output includes bits, interludes, club and cabaret sets, cirque, and full-length entertainments and scripts. Our production sponsors have included comedy troupes, social action groups, political parties, organized labour, public education, universities and colleges, community outreach (including tourism, street youth and federal prisons) and all forms of professional media (public forum, main stage theatre, radio, television, and film).

Rich Payne: OTHER ACTIVITIES Highlights

Director, Landmark Theatre
Production Director (Factory Studio Theatre, Summerworks Theatre Festival, Great Canadian Theatre Co., Workman Theatre, Quebec City Summer Stock Theatre, etc.)
Sgt./Chief Evacuation Warden, Downsview Govt. Complex
Head Porter, Trinity College, U of T
Coordinator of Acting for Film, Television and Theatre, Toronto Film School (Int'l Academy of Design and Technology, CBC Building)
Member, Free the Five Cultural Committee of Toronto
Founding Director, Downsize Theatre Co. for Social Justice (in association with Buzz Hargrove and the C.A.W. Family Education Centre)
Assistant to Brian Way, Alternate Catalogue Co.
University Instructor: Trent, Carleton, UVic (outreach program in Matsqui federal prison), U of S, U of T, York, Sheridan, etc
Partner, Mother's Ark Books
Design Manager, Presentation Arts Studio
Member, Performing Artists for Nuclear Disarmament (PAND)
Consulting Editor, Pendas Productions (Sound Poetry)
Script Editor, Pacun Peras Productions (Film)
Drama Editor, PRISM International (Literature)
Co-founding member, Saskatchewan Playwrights Centre (Saskatoon Branch)
Co-founding member, Playwrights Union of Canada
National Council, Guild of Canadian Playwrights
Original Cast, TEN LOST YEARS, including 4 Toronto runs, CBC-TV adaptation, 2 National Tours, Western European Tour (Holland Festival, Young Vic, Cambridge, Crucible, Theatr Clwyd)
M.F.A. Creative Writing with George McWhirter (UBC)
B. Ed. Dramatic Arts (U of T) OSSTF
B.F.A. Painting with Lawren P. Harris (Mt. Allison University)

The Toronto Cycle of Post-Medieval Miracle Plays

THE BEGGARS' NATIVITY -- A POST-MEDIEVAL MIRACLE PLAY IN THE TORONTO CYCLE is the first in a cycle of four seasonal pageants staged in the spirit of medieval village passion plays... Each piece, set at Solstice or Equinox, explores a relevant social issue with quasi-medieval and commedia elements, intended for a multicultural urban community... In Part One, The Beggars' Nativity (staged in 1981 by Theatre Resource Centre and Kensington Carnival), street crazies and homeless youth find an infant girl abandoned on a trashpile and must care for her... The quartet of plays deals with Homelessness (Winter), Breakdown (Spring), Love and Lust (Summer), and Old Age (Autumn).

THE RETURN OF THE HARDLY BOYS

Act One
"Curse of the Hardly Boys"

Prologue

(Seaport Police Dept. CHIEF COLLAR and DET. SLUG are passing time. BIFF HOPPER bursts into the room)

BIFF:
Chief Collar! -- Hey, Chief Collar!!

COLLAR:
Who wants to know?

BIFF:
It's Biff Hopper, Chief. I go to the high school.

SLUG:
Oh, there's trouble.

COLLAR:
Now now, Detective Slug, let's not pre-judge this Likeable Youth.

BIFF:
Thank Chief. I do have good grades, and I often take an active role in the civics club.

COLLAR:
See, Detective? That's what makes Seaport such a fine Middle-Sized Town, here on the edge of Balmy Bay...

BIFF:
... somewhere along the Atlantic coastline.

SLUG:
(pause) -- of the United States. You forgot to say The United States of America, home of Democracy and Justice. The Hope of Freedom-Lovin' peoples everywhere!

COLLAR:
Oh, I'm sure young Biff here is patriotic and upstanding.

BIFF:
You bet! Like every Young Citizen should be.

SLUG:
(pause to look BIFF over) Well, I'm watching you, Hopper. (with a hint of menace) You, and all your Chums.

COLLAR:
(changing the subject) So -- Biff -- What can we do for you today?

BIFF:
It's about the Hardly Boys, Chief!

COLLAR:
Frank and Joe Hardly, the Junior Detectives? What about them?

BIFF:
It's too soon to know what it all means, Chief -- but the Hardly Boys -- have gone missing!!

(All three break into a desperate melodramatic tableau)

(Quick Fade to Black)

CUE: Hardly Boys' Series Theme Music...

COMEDY WE ADMIRE and steal from

charlie chaplin
buster keaton
harold lloyd
abbott & costello
marx bros.
red skelton
george burns & gracie allen
The Honeymooners (jackie gleason
& art carney & audrey meadows)
Your Show of Shows
(sid caesar & imogene coca)
steve allen
foster brookes
jonathan winters
foster brookes
spike jones
I Love Lucy
peter sellers & the goon show
beyond the fringe
the frost report
the two ronnies
tom lehrer [That Was the Week That Was]
nicholls & may
bob newhart
shelley berman
The Carol Burnett Show
The Dick van Dyke Show
monty python (tv/film)
fawlty towers (john cleese)
mr. bean (rowan atkinson)
black adder (rowan atkinson)
WKRP
barney miller
cheers
m*a*s*h
soap
mel brookes
The Muppet Show
SCTV
Bob & Doug MacKenzie
(Great White North)
Back to the Future
coen bros. films
john stewart
steven colber'
arrested development
network (paddy chayevsky)
kurt vonnegut
codco/22 minutes
derek edwards
garrison keillor
christopher guest

& George Carlin
(Foole for a generation)

Upside Comedy

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Upside Comedy

PAST PERFORMANCES can be blamed on...

"We've done it!!"

WHAT WE DO

DOWNTOWN CLOWN

Rich Payne, Artistic Director

Comedy Theatre BIOGRAPHY

Rich Payne: OTHER ACTIVITIES Highlights

The Toronto Cycle of Post-Medieval Miracle Plays

THE RETURN OF THE HARDLY BOYS

COMEDY WE ADMIRE and steal from