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Mystery adventure influenced by audience features two actors from Maple Ridge

DYCK SPACEE: A Spy-Fi Improvised Radio Play debuts at the 2018 Vancouver International Fringe Fest
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(Contributed) The cast of DYCK SPACEE: A Spy-Fi Improvised Radio Play.

A mystery adventure inspired by audience suggestions will be taking to the stage at this year’s Vancouver International Fringe Festival, with two from Maple Ridge in the cast.

DYCK SPACEE: A Spy-Fi Improvised Radio Play will take audience members back to the 1940s, combining recognizable film noir tropes and a dash of science fiction.

Every show will involve a new mystery due to the improvised nature, with shady villains, red herrings and hilarious reversals of gender stereotypes.

Lorene Stuart is a long-time Maple Ridge resident who is excited to be part of DYCK SPACEE as a radio play actor who makes ends meet by working part-time as a fishmonger.

Stuart sang with a Maple Ridge-based jazz group called Swing Bridge and was often invited to perform as a guest vocalist with the local R & B band “The Blueprints.” She sang at Music on the Wharf, the Billy Miner Pub, along with private parties and corporate gigs.

She was one of the early board members of the Maple Ridge Jazz and Blues Festival, joining a year or two after it was created by James Thorhaug and Kathryn Baird.

Stuart has also been part of the Ridge Meadows Home Show Society family for over 20 years, working in various capacities over that time, including running the children’s entertainment area in the late 1990s. She was also the announcer and floor manager responsible for all the exhibitors in the three buildings.

She also volunteered at the Haney Farmer’s Market as one of Vicki McLeod’s Dishing in the Kitchen – Kitchenettes.

Stuart had the acting bug from an early age, but only really succumbed to its enticing call in the early 2000s. She performed in various dinner theatre productions for the Emerald Pig Theatrical Society, as well as in two of the Bard on the Bandstand shows. She also performed with Stage 43 in Coquitlam.

Stuart worked for a few years in film and TV as a background performer.

She was a cast member performing improv with Port Coquitlam’s Second Storey Theatre from 2011 to 2017.

Currently, she is working with a new improv group called “On A Break.” Performing improv makes her feel completely free to play with all the characters she has in her vivid imagination.

Montana Rosalle recently moved to Vancouver from Maple Ridge due to his increasing improv and acting involvement.

Rosalle grew up in Maple Ridge and graduated from Maple Ridge secondary, where he took drama classes.

DYCK SPACEE was developed by Vancouver-based improvisers Rachelle Lachland Goulter and Debra Sears. The piece is inspired by various detective and science fiction radio shows of the past.

Goulter and Sears are producing and performing in the show with the six other cast members including Bryan Clark, Holly Dalston, Laurence Paddy Chong, Michael Sousa, Rosalle and Stuart.

In addition to creating characters on the spot the troupe will be supplying live folly as they perform including breaking a chopstick for the sound of breaking bones and scrunching cellophane for a crackling fire.

To promote the show, a series of eight trading cards, each featuring the face of one of the performers in character, plus one mystery character trading card, are being circulated leading up to and during the Fringe Festival.

The troupe also has DYCK SPACEE buttons and magnets available for sale after each show.

In addition, they will have a photo wall for audience members to get photos with the cast and are giving away a film-noir inspired prize pack to one audience member for posting and tagging their photo on social media.

As lovers of stories and books, seeking resources to get an independent theatre production off the ground led the DYCK SPACEE team to partner with Chapters Indigo with a goal of raising $2,500 by Sept. 30th.

Supporters who buy their books and other merchandise through the troupe’s online fundraising portal will help them reach their target.

• To support the troupe, go to https://indigofundraising.flipgive.com/c/141435.

DYCK SPACEE: A Spy-Fi Improvised Radio Play runs Sept. 6 at 6 p.m., Sept. 7 at 6 p.m. and 8 p.m., Sept. 8 at 6 p.m. and 8 p.m., Sept. 13 at 6 p.m., Sept. 14 at 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. and Sept. 15 at 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. at The Improv Centre, 1502 Duranleau St. in Vancouver.



Colleen Flanagan

About the Author: Colleen Flanagan

I got my start with Black Press Media in 2003 as a photojournalist.
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