soulOtheatre recital: The Tale of the Little Princess
Twice a week for five weeks we met together and shared our stories. Six fabulous women plus the most incredible of them all: Tracey Erin Smith. Quite by chance at the beginning of November I happened to see Muniza Rauf-Miller’s post on Facebook, saying that there was one spot left in Tracey Erin Smith’s one-person show class at Second City. My gut told me I had to do it. My bank balance disagreed. It’s been an up-and-down year for the Wexes financially. Although The Railway...
Read MoreThe great iambic pentameter experiment
I thought I should give you an update on how my week’s worth of tweeting in iambic pentameter went. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Tweeting in verse, I read Stephen Fry‘s book The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within and was inspired to practice my iambic pentameter. Here are the results: I’m using Twitter in a brand new way. Expressing thoughts in poetry this week. I’m reading Stephen Fry’s amazing book… …The Ode Less Travelled which is...
Read MoreTweeting in verse
A couple of years ago I asked my husband to buy me a book. I’m a big fan of Stephen Fry and had seen his book The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within. Like a good husband he bought it for me and I promptly ignored it for many months. Then in the days running up to the monthly artists’ salon I attend (run by the delicious Inge Christensen) I suddenly felt the urge to write some poetry and I remembered the book I’d wanted so badly and never read. So yesterday afternoon...
Read MoreI booked Stand-Up Showdown again!
Hooray! This coming Tuesday (23rd June) I will be competing in my second Stand-Up Showdown. I came second the last time I was asked to be in the show. It’s at 8 o’clock at the Comedy Bar which is on Bloor at Ossington. 8 comics compete. There are 3 topics – all the competitors do a 2 minute set on the first topic (self-help books). Then 4 go through to the second round to do 3 minutes on the next topic (tribute bands). Only 2 survive to the final – 4 minutes on the last...
Read MoreTesting your material really does rock!
Pelayo Matute – a real mentsh! Back in July of last year I wrote a post about how testing your material in front of others is imperative. Well last night I had a concrete example of why it works! At my friend Inge’s last artists’ salon I decided to try out some material for a gig I was doing with Dawn Whitwell the next night. I ran my set and everyone gave me their thoughts. There were many helpful notes, but the most useful came from my friend Pelayo who suggested some...
Read MoreWhen you fall off a horse…..
…you get right back on. So I’m on at the 8 o’clock show at the Comedy Hole tomorrow night at Celt’s Pub (Dundas West on the north side just west of Keele). I had an interesting moment last Saturday at Elvira Kurt‘s stand-up masterclass at Second City. I was trying to understand why I had such a hard time at my gig at the Diesel Playhouse. Elvira was saying how she always tries to “read a room” before she performs – by that I think she means...
Read MoreMy stand-up debut is online!
I’ve finally got off my bum, found some fairly decent video-editing software and put my stand-up routine on my website. It’s been slightly edited (I’ve taken out some of the worst swearing on the advice of my agent, Fran Messinger) and I also took out a bit that I felt just didn’t work – only a small bit, mind. Most of it’s there. I’m doing another live gig at 8pm on November 25th at the Comedy Hole in Toronto – thanks to Ian Atlas for that....
Read MoreWriting is annoying…
Or it can be. When it’s not going well. I get cross and impatient and want whatever I’m writing to be fantastic in a very short time. Which rarely happens. There are occasional flashes of inspiration which create a fully-formed joke in a couple of minutes of frantic scribbling. But mostly I end up doodling in my little black book or staring at my laptop screen, trying to avoid looking at Facebook. I was exactly the same as a kid when rehearsing an audition piece or a show made me...
Read MoreMarilla who?
I am a British-born actress and stand-up comic who does lots of voice work (for commercials, cartoons and corporate clients) and sometimes, when I'm very lucky, tv and film. When I was in England I did mostly theatre. Now I'm in Canada I spend the majority of the time writing and performing stand-up. When I'm not making episodes of Talking Bollocks, that is. And that's me for you.