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Uno Fest: theatre of the eclectic

What: Uno Fest When: May 21 to 31 Where: Metro Studio, Intrepid Theatre Club Tickets: $20 (or $79 for five-show pass) 250 590 6291 or www.intrepidtheatre.

What: Uno Fest

When: May 21 to 31

Where: Metro Studio, Intrepid Theatre Club

Tickets: $20 (or $79 for five-show pass) 250 590 6291 or www.intrepidtheatre.com


Red-headed sperm donors, tales of virginity lost and a tribute to Canadian theatre legend John Hirsch are among the top offerings at Uno Fest.

Kicking off Tuesday, Intrepid Theatre’s festival hosts solo performers from Victoria and other North American locales. The 11-day event, now in its 17th season, features 14 shows chosen by Intrepid Theatre. This curatorial approach differs from Intrepid’s Victoria Fringe Theatre Festival, which is a non-juried event.

We talked to three of Uno Fest’s writer/performers.

Ginger Nation (written and performed by Shawn Hitchins, Metro Studio, May 30, 31)

When Toronto’s Shawn Hitchins brought Ginger Nation to the Edinburgh Festival in August, he decided to go big or go home.

Red-headed Hitchins organized a Ginger Pride March to publicize his autobiographical show about being a gay sperm donor for a lesbian couple.

More than 300 gingers followed a megaphone-clutching Hitchins through the streets of Edinburgh. Demonstrators waved signs that said “Ginger and Proud” and “For the Love of Ginger.” Among their number was a giant red-headed leprechaun puppet.

The event, a first for the U.K., attracted media attention from as far away as Thailand and Australia. Of course, the publicity helped sell out his run at the mammoth theatre festival.

“People [at my shows] would say, ‘Hey, we hear there’s two busloads of people coming from Fife!’ ” Hitchins said.

A 34-year-old comic performer and writer, Hitchins’ Ginger Nation is the true story of how a lesbian couple asked him to donate his sperm so they might conceive. He told a British journalist: “I’d go round to my friends’ house, we’d have some tea and a chat, which we called our pillow talk. And then they’d go for a walk and leave me to it.”

After a miscarriage, a healthy baby — now 18 months old — was born. Hitchins wouldn’t say whether his biological child was red-haired, explaining that’s one of Ginger Nation’s surprises.

A hit in Edinburgh and Toronto, Ginger Nation and the events inspiring it have changed Hitchins’ life in fundamental ways.

Before Ginger Nation, the main audience for his cabaret-style shows was the gay community. Ginger Nation has a broader appeal. Theatregoers ranged from the 80-year-old woman who trudged up flights of stairs to see it (“She said it was worth almost dying to see the show”) to a mom who brought her teenage sons.

The latter left without a word, leading Hitchins to fear the worst. Several nights later the mother returned and stuffed a 20-pound note into his hand, declaring, “You don’t get paid enough to do this.” It turned out viewing Ginger Nation had triggered a positive family discussion about being gay, sexuality and parental responsibility.

“At that point, I’d done 50 shows. I just started bawling,” Hitchins said.

Becoming a father, something he’d never imagined would happen, altered his outlook as well.

“For me, the biggest thing, and it sounds so simple, was that I could have a kid,” said Hitchins.

He remains in touch with his daughter and her parents, acting more as a “mentor” than a father figure.

Meanwhile, Hitchins plans to return to Edinburgh later this year to organize a second Ginger Pride March.

“I want to see if I can do it again,” he said, “because it was such a great day.”

Weak Sauce (written and performed by Sam S. Mullins, Intrepid Theatre Club, May 21, 23, 25)

University of Victoria theatre graduate Sam S. Mullins lost his virginity at age 16. That was the summer he got a job as a hockey camp instructor. He fell in love, became involved in a love triangle — and fought a monkey.

Not long ago, Mullins, now 27, had a chat with friends about how each had lost his or her virginity. Most stories were negative.

“I’d had this wonderful and perfect moment of losing my virginity,” the Toronto-based performer said. “The funny thing was, everything surrounding and leading up to it was this hilarious teen drama.”

Mullins — who is a staff writer for CBC radio’s The Irrelevant Show — realized he had raw material for a new comedy show. Mining his past for laughs paid off. Weak Sauce won an award for best script at the 2013 Montreal Fringe and was nominated for the 2013 Just for Laughs Award for best comedy.

During that teenage summer of love, it initially appeared Mullins’ love interest preferred another camp counsellor, a fellow from Britain. But ultimately, she fell for him.

Five years later, Mullins reunited with his paramour for a dinner date.

“I thought, ‘What if I meet her and she’s not that special of a person?’ Within two seconds of sitting down and talking with her, I’m like, no, I would have fallen for that girl under any circumstance.”

Alas, the relationship didn’t endure. In fact, Mullins doesn’t know if she realizes she’s the subject of his show.

The monkey-fight part of Weak Sauce concerns an encounter Mullins had when the hockey campers visited a zoo on a field trip.

Uno Fest marks the first time he’s performed in Victoria since his university days. Said Mullins: “I’m looking forward to a week of nostalgia.”

Hirsch (co-created by Alon Nashman and Paul Thompson, performed by Alon Nashman. Metro Studio, May 21 and 22)

You know you’re onto something when Dame Maggie Smith says she adores your show.

During a run of Hirsch at the Stratford Festival, Alon Nashman heard the famous actress was planning to see his show.

In 1976, Smith starred in a legendary production of Three Sisters at Stratford. It was directed by John Hirsch, the subject of Hirsch.

Years later, she returned to the Stratford Festival to be honoured at a banquet. Sure enough, one evening Nashman spotted Smith in the audience.

“My heart did a flip,” he said. “[Afterward] we had a beautiful embrace. She had received it exactly how I offered it.”

Smith not only invited Nashman to dinner that night (“She said, ‘Come sit beside me, darling.’ ”), she provided him with an exclamation-point-filled testimonial.

Hirsch is a critically heralded examination of the singular life of John Hirsch. Orphaned after his parents were killed in the Holocaust, Hirsch was adopted by a Winnipeg couple and eventually became head of drama at CBC television and artistic director of the Stratford Festival. Renowned (and sometime notorious) for his prickly temperament and sometimes unorthodox interpretations of plays, he died of an AIDS-related illness in 1989.

“He came into this country as a refugee . . . and forced us to step outside our colonial role, culturally, to take on a national identity,” Nashman said.

He says one thing that made Hirsch unique was his practice of introducing a child’s perspective into theatre. This, says Nashman, likely reflected Hirsch’s own experience of living through “the depths of human degradation” via the Holocaust.

“He never lost the perspective of the child, that child who was wrenched from normalcy and home life.”

Nashman says co-creating and performing Hirsch has changed him. The director was an exacting taskmaster, so much so, Nashman now always feels his presence.

“No matter what I’m doing,” he said with a chuckle, “I feel him kicking my ass.”

The full Uno Fest schedule is at intrepidtheatre.com.