Series
(up)Staged is an 8-episode mockumentary-style comedy series about the trials and tribulations of a beleaguered independent regional theatre company located in the small and often forgotten Canadian city of Windsor, Ontario.
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The company, Post Productions, which operates an equally beleaguered black box venue called The Shadowbox Theatre, has agreed in a desperate bid to boost awareness and, Gods willing, ticket sales in the shaky post-COVID economy, to allow a film crew to document what goes on behind the scenes in the world of independent regional theatre, with all of the bizarre characters, absurd situations, determined attempts to create something out of nothing, and everything else that the public doesn’t usually get to see.
What is (up)Staged about?
The first season centers on the company’s efforts to stage Twoquus, an original and unauthorized and probably unwanted sequel to a classic play they’re too afraid to name. This hilarious series begins with the first production meeting, follows the cast and crew and producers through the audition process, exposes efforts to design and build a set based on little more than a crayon drawing using virtually no resources, reveals shocking details about the love affair between independent regional theatre companies and discarded furniture, revels in the discomfort producers experience when confronted by actors who don’t get cast, delights in the petty and unnecessary rivalries between theatre companies, frolics in the lengths to which theatre companies must go to convince critics to review their plays, makes sport of the determined efforts of costumers to get measurements from uncooperative actors who immediately destroy their costumes, and gently mocks the apexes and nadirs of rehearsal. Will these bafflingly determined artists be able to hold the entire rickety shambles together long enough to make it to opening night?
Why should you care?
Because it’s funny. (up)Staged crams in every kind of comedy one can imagine — from the zany and silly to the whimsical, from slapstick and pratfalls to irony and wit, from situation comedy to sheer absurdism. Yet at its heart, (up)Staged is a character-driven ode to people who devote their lives to something that seems to outsiders like sheer folly, though insiders know that this is really a devotion to the sheer pleasure and satisfaction of creation. Steeped in the awkwardness and cringiness that naturally occurs when objectively odd people who are constantly in over their heads make one mistake after another, (up)Staged is a grounded, human, empathetic story about people who just want to entertain through art – on a shoestring budget. There are no villains here, no grand quests, no clashes between good and evil. Just deeply-flawed people living real lives the only way they know how.
Shayla Hudson
as ANNIE DYER
About the character: Annie is cast in Twoquus sort of as a mistake. She came to the auditions as William Marlowe’s agent but while he didn’t get cast, she did. And she’s still not sure why – or whether that was a good call. Annie struggles with body dysmorphia and self-confidence. Acting is forcing her to be more aware of, and concerned about, her body than is comfortable for her. She is far more comfortable and confident when helping others become the center of attention. She is a calculating and practical person with firm boundaries, though not unfriendly.