The Annies, Year Two

This year’s Annies are the second edition of Without Annette’s Montreal Fringe Prizes (check here for last year’s awards). The panel this year is Bryan, Vinny and Nikki. With three judges, all ties were broken by a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. There are no actual prizes other than the satisfaction that some random blog thinks you’re cool.

Best Poster:
Die Roten Punkte

The poster that jumps out from the crowd with a bold black, red and
white (hmmm, wherever did they get that from?). There was only one
poster that caught my eye at each venue: The Red Dots.

Best Title:
Jihad Me At Hello

Puns sometimes get short shrift but not here at Without Annette. We
are all about the puns. While it lacks the quiet dignity of The
Dancing Cock Brothers or the ALL CAPS of KIWI JOKER, the combination
of religious zeal and a Tom Cruise movie takes the day.

Best Website:
Michael Black, http://shell.pubnix.net/~mblack/

Indyish.com had some good reviews but good luck trying to find them
from the main page. While Mr. Black still needs to make his site more
readable instead of looking like a colossal run-on sentence, his
daily updates of both goings on and media coverage are a great
resource for any Fringer. Our site was pretty lame as a Fringe
resource. Apologies.

Best Opening:
The Works

An accordion fills the air with moody music taking you to some grim Parisian
cafe. A man paces, fraught with stress, as the audience files in. The
lights dim and the tale of two guards in need of a vacation begins to
unfold.

Best Energy:
Die Roten Punkte

“If I could play rock and roll for the rest of my life, I would, I
would eat a poo sandwich no worries.” — Otto Rot. It goes almost
without saying, Die Roten Punkte had great rock energy and emotion.

Best Sketch:
Dancing Cock Bros, The German Driver

It takes off smooth, gets rough with you, and then spirals and careens
into a ludicrous tailspin that ends with a three-point landing.

Best Costume
JOE: The Perfect Man

When Rachelle Elie was handing out flyers, Bryan had trouble believing
she was the gap-toothed, bearded Joe. He was brought up onstage
during her show and even five inches away from her face, it was hard
to see her behind Joe.

Best Moment:
Circus Incognito, Hanging up the jacket

With a series of frustrated glances and thwarted gestures to set
things up, the impossibly out of reach slowly becomes the close at hand.

Best Song:
Under Milk Wood

In Under Milk Wood, one of the actresses sings an incredibly mournful
song that was very touching. Despite some great comedic songs put
forth by the Dan-D-Lyons, The Dancing Cock Brothers and Die Roten
Punkte, the best song this year was the one that stopped the show.

Best Closing:
On Second Thought

Do you like dance? Do you like music? Do you like life? Paul Hutcheson
brings it, kicks it, and knocks it out of the park.

Best Dance Show:
The judges did not see enough dance shows to award one this year. Curses!

Best Sketch Show:
Thunderspank

Not one swear word. Not one bodily function. None of the things you’ve
seen in every damn sketch show. Great pacing, killer music, a good use
of video (other Fringers, take note!) and, the crux of it all, a hilarious
series of sketches.

Best Musical Show:
Die Roten Punkte

The songs were catchy, hum-able and sing-able. Their
complicated brother-sister relationship, though, was really the
storyline behind the show; banter with a plot!?

Best One Person Show and Best Show:
Circus Incognitus

Great comics can tell jokes with the spontaneous energy that makes it
feel like the joke is being told for the first time, just for
you. Circus Incognitus was like that. It felt like all of Jamie
Adkin’s tricks were unrehearsed and that he was just being lucky,
that he was just a sympathetic character in the right place at the
right time. That’s right–he was just a lovable idiot. That time
he almost broke his neck on the ladders but managed to save
himself? Lucky! The time he rolled around in a cardboard box
without all the stuff coming out? Lucky! The time he juggled ping
pong balls out of his mouth? Lucky! The time Bryan beaned him in the
head with a lemon? Unlucky! After he won the award for best comedic
play, Nikki asked him, “So, have you been performing a lot?” As soon
as she said it, it sounded like the craziest question. His skills
betray years of honing his craft. But her question might be the one
he gets asked the most–he’s just that good an actor. This show was
more than just clever and delightful circus tricks (though, that
would certainly have been enough to impress!), it was one man’s
character making you root for the underdog, feel young again, and
laugh till the tears come out.

MVPs:
The Volunteers

As always, we gladly kiss the ass of all the workers who volunteer
their time and energy to make the Fringe happen. Thanks to all of you
for another successful run.

The Annies

It’s time to give out The Annies, Without Annette’s awards for excellence and artistry at the Fringe. The committee is vinnyfrancois and b.j. swank. All votes were tabluated by guesstimation and ties were broken by Smackles, the tie-breaking monkey.

Best Venue: MAI
No contest. Great stage, equipment and the nicest seats. You really need to have a good reason to be here (dance or heavy multimedia) because it’d be a waste otherwise. It was as awesome as Club Lambi was awful.

Best Poster: Black Roses
Colourful, happy, and most importantly, eye-catching. It’s the one that leapt to mind when thinking of the beer tent.

Best Website: Without Annette
The Fringe website this year was pretty pathetic. Slow to update, sparse reviews and net buzz, and lacking in humour. We were the opposite. We’ll be more than glad to award this to another Fringe show next year if someone steps up.

Best Opening: Chandeleirva
With a ton of charm and ample laughter, the show startles with its vitality. The tone is set for a fun ride.

Best Energy: (tie) Les Goubeens and Never Surrender 3
Smackles, the tie-breaking monkey, has wandered off. No show had the edge over the other. Where Never Surrender sweats from start to finish, Les Goubeens blow the roof off with their call-and-answer crowd-pleasing routine.

Best Moment: Ape Shot (Fresh Meat)
I never thought I’d laugh that hard at an ape suit sketch. Had great escalation, physicality and the perfectly strange concept to go with it. Flawless execution.

Best Costume: Stand Up and Sit
In this play, two actors wear simple fitted masks down to their upper lip to transform themselves into wonderful octogenarians looking back on a life without regrets.

Best Closing: (tie) Chandeleirva and Waiting for Godo at Abu Ghraib
Chandeleirva’s ending had me laughing and leaping out of my seat. She ended the show with a brilliant call-back that was so over-the-top, only she could pull it off. Meanwhile, Waiting for Godo at Abu Ghraib’s ending was at once chilling and darkly humourous. And though one should see the ending coming from a mile away, I didn’t, and thought it very clever indeed! Choosing a monkey to break ties backfired big time.

Best Musical: The Chinese Clown Cabaret
Jane and Tair Chen sang songs with earnest emotion. The sad melodies broke our hearts and the silly lyrics made us giggle and beam. Jane’s range and power, though sometimes overshadowed by her delightful goofiness, really round out a tremendous overall performance.

Best One Person Show: Chandeleirva
Music, clowning, improv, props, laughs, character, gibberish and so, so many flowers. It all comes together in one lady’s very capable hands.

Best Dance: This fairytale isn’t working out
The large cast moves as one to bring this piece to life. Frivolity and movement find one another, move in together and live happily ever after.

Best Show: Chandeleirva
Suzette Araujo’s one-woman show had us laughing from beginning to end, with incredible impersonations of a baby, a caring but incomprehensible grandfather, a drunk mother, and the main character. Araujo plays with the audience instead of to the audience and can make you smile just by smiling herself. She was so charming, you could just die. And we did. Chandeleirva gets our I died rating of the Fringe.

MVP: The Volunteers
I hope every show decides to offer a free show to volunteers next year. They braved the early rain and the late sweltering heat and did so for the love of the Fringe. Thanks to the dozens of volunteers who make the Fringe possible!

caching

I changed some settings so that blog will not re-load the page everytime you navigate through the blog. It used to be that forgetting to put “i am human” in the comment screen would cause your comment to get lost. Now if you hit the back button, your comment will still be in the form. Hopefully, nothing else will break. Leave us a comment if you get weird results… Thanks!

RSS Fixed

It’s all good.

RSS Feed Problems

We are aware that the RSS feed is currently on the fritz (is that anti-German?). This issue will hopefully be rectified in the coming days but between the upcoming shows in Ottawa and the Christmas/New Year’s binge drinking that can paralyze the troupe for days on end, it might take a couple weeks. In fact, if things get worse we’ll have to come over to your house with a Sharpie and write our posts on your monitor.

Back to our regularly scheduled program

I believe that all the technical issues have been resolved. Sorry for the down time! (Apparently, having blank space at the end of a .php file can sometimes wreak havoc!)

Hello and welcome to the show!

Hi, everyone.

This is the first post in what is hoped to be the hottest new blog in town, The Official Without Annette Blog.

Members of the troupe will be dropping by to post their thoughts on improv, their lives and (if we get that restraining order removed) our fans.

Here we go!!