Well, I’m showered, fed (I had a strange delicacy called a ‘Sal-Add’ tonite…outtasite!), and vaguely ready to write, so here we go.  And not just for any old edition of the MONDAY FOOFARAH, neither.  No, this is now, officially, the LESLIE CSEREPY APPROVED Monday Foofarah!

With the celebrity endorsements rolling in, let’s get on with the business at hand:

FIRST AND LAST CHANCE TO SEE:  Kind of the unofficial ‘lost’ episode of Third Wall’s defunct season, the Ottawa U Drama Guild’s THREE SISTERS (6th to 10th at Academic Hall), featuring guest performers like Kristina Watt and John Koensgen, easily qualifies as must-see material.  Vintage Stock Theatre puts up MEETING MR.BENNETT at Shenkman from the 8th to 10th.  On the 6th the NAC premieres OLIVER! for some singing and dancing, about starving beggars (Man, they’ll make a musical about ANYthing).  And the Gladstone brings back the radio play tradition with THE SHADOW, also starting on the 6th.  And hey, this Wednesday at the Imperial, it’s LEGOPROV with Grimprov!

NONCOMMITTAL CHANCE TO SEE:  A Midwinters Dream Tale at the GCTC, which neither starts nor ends this week, placing it in a most enviable theatrical eigenstate indeed.  Come on Saturday nite to see me doing something front-of-housish, mebbe tearing some tickets.  Like a BOSS.

A NIGHT AT THE CARLETON:  Lemme tell ya this story.  I was off a late shift at the day job this past Friday, a stoopid long day of drudgery that made me miss SAUCE BRUNE at la Nouvelle Scene and everything.  Tired, I caught a bus to the Carleton Tavern, arriving just as the evening’s performance of MARCEL PURSUED BY THE HOUNDS was wrapping up.  I snuck on over and joined a table with a workmate of mine and her husband, who had come to see the show (I’m happy to say I got a few people I work with to check this one out…the availability of booze makes it a particularly easy sell, I admit).  We chatted a spell when show co-directors Donnie LaFlamme and Lisa Zanyk joined us…my co-workers husband is doing some work on Don’s house, so they already know each other.  And Don had some copies of his newly published MECHANICSVILLE MONOLOGUES with him, for sale at a ridiculously low 20 bucks.

Being flush as I was with some early birthday cash from my Ma and Pa, I tried to buy one.  But Don just shook his head, pushing a copy at me and telling me that my money was no good here, insisting I take one, and talking me up in front of my workpal in a way that made me seriously blush.  In fact, LOTS of people that night were saying really, really nice things to me…Don, Lisa, lovely Annie Lefebvre, even good guy Leslie Cserepy made the mistake of telling me he liked the Foofarah, and now I’ve gone and abused his kindness with a silly picture up there.   The POINT is, although I indulge in a lot of self-deprication, only 90% of which is really genuine, I am slowly, slowly starting to understand and appreciate the notion that maybe, just maybe, some people out there actually like me.  And I kinda love you for it.

Wow, that was getting serious for a second…here’s the WHITE WIRES latest, with animated artwork from local legend Dirty Donny:

DIGI60:  Hey, I finally headed on out to the screening night of the DIGI60 film festival, out at the Centrepointe Studio.  It was kinda neat, a diff’rent vibe from the average theatrical event, but still lots of familiar faces.  Of course Ken -the God’ Godmere was there, who not only starred in, wrote and directed bur, the short film in which I was lucky enough to have a part as an extra, but he managed a documentary submission as well (this is all on top of his upcoming Fringe tour in 20102…phew!).  Also met up with the lady miss Jennifer Vallance, one of the other stars of bur, and also starring in another submission, EXCRUCIOR.  Then my old OSSD playmate Vanessa showed up and we watched the shows, which was a fun mixed bag, all centered around the theme of a transformative, passionate kiss.  My fave was probably one called MARY MAE, starring Ellen Manchee of COMPLEX NUMBERS (we auditioned for that on the same day!  Visitorium fun fact.), but they were all swell.  I bought the dvd collections of all the films, and not just so I could freeze frame on the few scenes in bur where I appear on screen.

Um, but…yeah, I’m totally going to do that.  Hey look, Elvis!

Also, getting back to that almost-theme I had going of cool people I know who are amazing, do you know KATIE HOOD?  Because I do, and if you don’t, we’ll just pause for a moment while you, quite justifiably, die of jealousy.

…are you done?  Because there’s one more video I’d LOVE to share with you, but it’s sort of a not-for-sharing kind of thing, at least I think, so I’ll hold off.  But it’s the Hood playing a ukelele cover of that song CREEP, and it turns out that aside from being a brilliant actor, amazing writer, and more adorable than the KITTEN KONG episode of THE GOODIES…

…it turns out she’s capable of doing what I, personally, had imagined impossible:  JUSTIFY RADIOHEAD’S EXISTENCE.  So thanks for that, Katie the Hood (and if you know her, for crying out loud, watch that video, then watch it over and over and over.  You know, like some blogger or other may have done recently *ahem*.  That’s it for the Foofarah this time around, folks, let’s take a look at next week’s episode:

See you then!  Peace, love and soul,

The Visitor (and Winston)

PS  Anyone wanna go to the opening of THREE SISTERS tomorrow?  Or THE SHADOW on Wednesday (I got an extra ticket for that one)?