Performer, songwriter, producer, playwright, and set, costume and projection designer, Toronto’s Kelly Clipperton wears many hats at totally different moments, because the saying goes. Kelly each writes and performs in a brand new present Let’s Assume I Know Nothing And Transfer Ahead From There, A One Man Woman Cabaret Present.
Naomi Campbell directs the present which opens on the Manufacturing unit Theatre from March 4 to 16.
We spoke to Kelly and Naomi concerning the present.
Let’s Assume I Know Nothing And Transfer Ahead From There, A One Man Woman Cabaret Present: The Interview
Energetic in each the performing and visible arts fields, Kelly has been a Toronto fixture for 4 many years. With a BFA from York College’s theatre program, he’s branched into manufacturing, songwriting, playwriting, designing, pictures, filmmaking, and extra. His work as a fancy dress designer netted a Dora nomination in 2013.
“I used to be within the theatre program,” Clipperton says. “I initially confirmed up there pondering I needed to be an actor.” For the previous few years, he’s been centered on manufacturing, costume design, and different issues which have stored him off stage.
Music can be a detour out and in of theatre. “I grew up in a musical household,” he recollects. “My dad was an unbelievable musician.” At prolonged household gatherings, Pleased Birthday can be sung in four-part concord. It despatched a message. “Music was one thing you probably did since you loved it.”
In college, he wrote, produced and acted in 3 performs: Trash, Brotherhood, and Cruelty. Writing and manufacturing carried him by a number of years. “However, I took a stab at writing one thing a lot shorter — a pop music,” he says. “It rolled from there.”
His band Kelly & The Kellygirls toured North America and the UK, and had singles from their seven recordings on the indie charts between 2004 and 2014. In complete, he devoted about twenty years to music, with ten albums to indicate for it.
“It’s nonetheless a part of my world.” He says he’s engaged on his first album in about ten years. “I didn’t see myself doing theatre anymore, both,” he provides wryly.
The brand new present goals to hit each humorous and poignant notes, with reflections on grief and getting old alongside an entertaining efficiency and a excessive octane 5-piece band for stay accompaniment. The present is introduced cabaret model, and initially introduced in workshop type final Might. The 2 workshops had been offered out successes.
Kelly is accountable for all the things from costume design to the projections that may show through the efficiency. “Naomi and I’ve designed all the things collectively,” he says. “I actually like doing issues with my fingers.” That extends to duties like video enhancing and post-production work.
Working each on and off stage creates an acute consciousness of the assorted elements of your personal character. “There’s a push and pull,” he says.
“I actually love creating.”
The Present
“Whenever you stroll into the room, it would really feel like a cabaret,” explains director Naomi Campbell. She describes it as a cabaret with classic model.
Campbell is a performing arts skilled with a specialty in new Canadian theatre. She served as Inventive Director of Luminato Pageant Toronto from 2018 to 2023.
“It’s a one man present, but it surely’s not a one man present.” The five-piece band provides to the atmosphere, and interplay is a part of the present. “They’ve little bits, props,” Naomi says. “They’re very a lot part of the present. It’s an actual mixture of music and story.”
The present begins with an old-fashioned welcome message to the viewers. It later incorporates centered monologues and music, delivered in Clipperton’s trademark excessive power model. He’ll be singing a mix of his personal songs and related covers, and even seems as his personal father in a special period in a second of theatre magic.
“It’s humorous, and it’s excessive power, but it surely additionally tells a narrative of grief and loss,” she says. Clipperton’s father handled vascular dementia, and it’s a part of his story. “It’s related, it’s not simply pure leisure. It tells a good looking story.”
All through, he goes again to his household’s music. “The music of the household is actually clear all through the entire piece. It’s additionally simply purely entertaining.”
She describes the workshops final Might at Monarch Tavern as having a shoulder to shoulder viewers.
“Type of scary, truly,” provides Kelly.
The present has since been developed with extra subtle manufacturing, and choreography by Shane McKinnon. Clipperton made not solely his personal costumes, however these for the band as properly.
“It’s a very good time of the yr for an actual shot within the arm present,” Naomi says.
What does Kelly hope folks will get from Let’s Assume I Know Nothing…?
“We’ve had a whole lot of conversations about that,” Clipperton says. “Attain out and contact somebody.” The previous Bell industrial adage was his first thought. “The best way the expertise has shifted over the past 20 years has been a wrestle for me,” he provides. It’s modified the way in which folks work together, as he factors out.
“I feel that our fixed barrage of data […] doesn’t maintain the sincerity that I feel we used to speak with.”
His message, in the long run, is sort of easy.
“Be kinder to one another, and all that.”
- Discover present particulars and tickets [HERE].
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Anya Wassenberg is a Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. She is an skilled freelance author, blogger and writing teacher.
