Welcome to the digital program for No One's Special at the Hot Dog Cart by Charlie Petch
No One’s Special at the Hot Dog Cart by Charlie Petch
WORLD PREMIERE | A Theatre Passe Muraille and Erroneous Productions Co-Production
Collage and poster design by Emily Jung | Pictured: Charlie Petch
Written and Performed by
Charlie Petch
Direction by
Autumn Smith
Dramaturgy by
Donna-Michelle St. Bernard
Stage Management by
Flávia F. Martin
Sound Design by
FLAUTIE
Lighting Designer
Steph Raposo
Set Design by
Joel Richardson
Sound Design Assistant
Christopher Sutherland
Deaf Interpreter
Jaideep Goray
ASL Coach
Gaitrie Persaud, Phoenix The Fire
ASL-English Interpreters
Aneesa Mustafa & Emma Dehez
Theatre Passe Muraille Team
Artistic Director | Marjorie Chan
Artistic Producer | Indrit Kasapi
Managing Director, Revenue & Strategy | Michelle Knight
Artistic Associate | April Leung
Producer | Jenn Sartor
Associate Producer | Emma Westray
Dramaturgy & Accessibility Associate Metcalf Foundation Intern | Mandy E. MacLean
Financial Manager | Petra Chevrier
Community Engagement Coordinator | Angela Sun
Marketing and Outreach Manager | Shanae Sodhi
Marketing Intern| Latteeshia Davis
Patron Services Manager | Ceridwen Kingstone
Fundraising & Development Coordinator | Faizah Syeda
Production and Facilities Manager | Aidan Hammond
Production Coordinator | Olivia Zotti
Mainspace Technician | David Fisher
Access Guide
To access the visual story, please click the button below. An Access Guide is a package that aims to support people with communication difficulties, learning disabilities, English as a second language and Autistic People. It can be used to help anyone access and understand the play. The package may include spoilers.
Accessibility
A Relaxed Environment (RE) is created for audiences who have various access needs that a traditional theatre environment does not accommodate. Before a Relaxed Environment performance, audiences will get a visual story that gives them all the information they need to know for the performance (directions to the theatre, pre-show warnings, etc.)
During a Relaxed Environment performance an audience member can: enter and exit the theatre, move around throughout the theatre, can make noise or sounds, and those who need to keep their phone on will be able to do so as long as it is on silent or on vibrate. Our Relaxed Environment is a Scent Free Environment. Throughout the show, there will be some light over the audience.
A man’s deep voice yelling in one part of the show.
Depictions of Violence, Strong Language, Sexual Content, Reference to Police Violence.
Company members of No One’s Special at the Hot Dog Cart are immunocompromised so we ask that audience members in the front two rows wear a mask while in the theatre. You are welcome to bring your own or one will be provided for you. The rest of the audience will be encouraged to wear masks as well, with the exception of our fully mask mandatory dates on:
*Thurs Mar 14th, 7:30PM
*Wed Mar 20th, 7:30PM
For more information please take a look at our COVID-19 Protocols
Note from the Company
We are so thrilled to be able to present No One’s Special at the Hot Dog Cart by Charlie Petch, along with Erroneous Productions. In addition to being an amazing spoken word artist, Charlie is also an utterly captivating storyteller, musician and performer. He brings all of his skills to this irreverent, and timely show about coping and helping in a difficult world. In development with the BUZZ program for several years at TPM, the show offers a unique and authentic lens to challenge our assumptions, as witnesses to life around us.
At TPM, we’re interested in theatre, in people, in stories that may not find space elsewhere.
We also often describe ourselves as a fiercely urban theatre. We are situated deep in the heart of downtown, within a few steps from pricey condos, fancy coffee and sleek furniture stores that also share space with hole in the wall eateries, harm reduction centres, and residents who call Alexandra Park home. For us, being a part of the TPM community means holding all of the surrounding neighbourhood as a part of who we are, and what drives our desire to share stories and create space for important conversations.
That is what is so affirming about Charlie’s tale of their teenaged hot dog vending days.
At this intersection of spoken word and theatre, Charlie asserts our capacity to share space, and create avenues of empathy and understanding, as we aim to move towards a more collectively-responsible society.
Thank for you coming to witness, and to share space with us. Enjoy.
– Marjorie, Indrit and Michelle | Theatre Passe Muraille
Note from the Playwright
No One’s Special at the Hot Dog Cart feels like an urgent play. My aim for this show is to tell a story that will increase respect for our street communities as well as our overburdened health care system. With so much propaganda that helps to criminalize and further scapegoat people who live in poverty, I wanted a show that would advocate.
De-escalation is acute health care, and the more we know about it, the safer our intersecting communities will be.
I use street busking, spoken word, and traditional theatre elements to tell a story that spans decades and becomes an almost workshop in de-escalation technique. The show’s pace is reflective of it’s many settings. If you’ve ever spent time at Dundas & Yonge or Church & Gerrard, you’ll know there is no end to street life, and I wanted reflect that energy and even the fast pace of today’s information.
With so much scapegoating of the health care system, I want to show people how the emergency system is impacted by surges in emergency care, and how the pandemic continues to impact our hospitals. It takes all of us to protect our health care system, and our communities.
– Charlie Petch | Playwright and Performer
Note from the Director
It is a great responsibility and an immense honour to conduct someone’s story. I am left incredibly humbled by this experience.
Charlie is a visionary who, if I may be so bold to use his text, “Graffiti’s the air around us.”
This piece is not pretty – honestly – it hurts. It’s messy, feral, it excavates through expletives. It is crucial. It is a call to action.
So…my call begins with gratitude – because this process and piece are about community – It is about the act of coming together to share in something that will shift our cell structure – our collective story. Now, more than ever we must hold each other, we must be expansive with empathy, and we must rise up with love.
– Autumn Smith | Director
Cast
Charlie Petch (they/them, he/him) is a disabled/queer/transmasculine multidisciplinary artist who resides in Tkaronto/Toronto. A poet, playwright, librettist, musician, lighting designer, and host, Petch was winner of the Golden Beret lifetime achievement in spoken word with The League of Canadian Poets, and has written 10 produced plays. Petch is a touring performer, as well as a mentor and workshop facilitator. Their debut poetry collection, Why I Was Late (Brick Books), won the 2022 ReLit Award, and was named “Best of 2021” by The Walrus. Their film with Opera QTO, Medusa’s Children, premièred 2022. They have been featured on the CBC‘s Q, were the Writer In Residence for Berton House, were long-listed for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2021, and will be debuting their solo show “No one’s special at the hot dog cart” in 2024 at Theatre Passe Muraille.
Creative Team
Autumn is a director/creator and arts activist. She is the Artistic and Executive Director of TimberBeast Productions – an immersive/site-specific company based in Muskoka. Autumn also is a Professor of Theatre at U of T and Centennial College and is the External Examiner of Drama for the Sharjah Academy of Performing Arts in the UAE. Upcoming – Autumn will be directing the world premiere of Onion Skins and Peach Fuzz for 4th Line Theatre and Souls of the Shield for TimberBeast Productions.
Donna-Michelle St. Bernard aka Belladonna the Blest is an emcee, playwright and agitator. Her playwriting is focused in the 54ology: The First Stone, Diggers, Give It Up, The Smell of Horses, Just Now, Click Click, Cake, Sound of the Beast, A Man A Fish, Salome’s Clothes, Dark Love and Gas Girls. Other offerings include theatre for young audiences, opera libretti, collaborative works and weird reflections. As director, she has worked on The F Word (Cheesman/Miranda), Our Fathers, Sons, Lover and Little Brothers (Simamba), Job’s Wife (Nolan), Oops! (Feld). DM is currently an associate artist at lemonTree Creations, artistic director of New Harlem Productions and coordinator of the AD HOC Assembly.
Flávia F. Martin (she/her) is a Portuguese Stage and Assistant Stage Manager based in Tkaronto. Recent credits include On The Other Side Of The Sea (Aluna Theatre), A Carnival of Munch (George Brown College), Comedy of Errors and Million Dollar Quartet (The Grove Theatre), New (Necessary Angel), Rubble (co-production between Aluna Theatre and Theatre Passe Muraille), Two Sided Mirror (Mixed Company Theatre), Beautiful Renegades (Peggy Baker’s Dance Projects), Cacao| A Venezuelan Lament (Victoria Mata Productions), Light: A Tribute to Toni Morrison (Luminato Festival), The House of Bernarda Alba (Modern Times and Aluna Theatre), Songs for a New World (Randolph College For the Performing Arts), and Lätt Lûtf (Teatro de Creación Remota).
Joel Richardson is a Canadian Production Designer, accomplished artist, and a multi-platform storyteller. He is also a co-founder of the METIPSO PORTAL experimental media lab and an award-winning member of the Director’s Guild of Canada. Throughout his career, Joel has showcased his art globally, with exhibitions in New York City, Miami, Moscow, Paris, Kenya, and various locations across Canada. Driven by a relentless pursuit of creative challenges, Joel recently transitioned from his role as an Art Director to embrace the role of Production Designer. His approach to Production Design is imbued with his unique artistic vision, and he thrives in the collaborative and creative atmosphere that the world of filmmaking offers. Joel‘s journey into the realm of Production Design commenced with season two of Steven Soderberg‘s “The Girlfriend Experience.” In 2022, he embarked on a remarkable two-month journey to Kenya, where he applied his creative prowess as a Production Designer for his first feature screenplay, “KIPKEMBOI,” which received a greenlight from Telefilm Canada and the CBC. Noteworthy recent projects include Production Designing the BBC-partnered series “Popularity Papers” and an episode of the NBC Universal show “One of Us Is Lying.”
Steph Raposo (they/them) is a toronto-based theatre designer whose work centres around sound composition and lighting design. as a trans artist they have a deep interest in learning about and presenting queer histories, uplifting queer communities, and celebrating queer joy through their work and within their life. past credits include: Sound Designer, Sugar Plum (Workshop, Nightwood Theatre, 2023); Festival Lighting Designer and Technical Director (Caminos Festival, Aluna Theatre, 2023); Sound Designer, This Inescapable City (Audio Play, Probably Theatre Collective, 2021); Technical Director, Here Are The Fragments. (The Theatre Centre, 2019); Video Designer, Four Sisters (Paradigm Theatre, The Theatre Centre, 2019); Festival Lighting Designer and Design Lab Facilitator (The Paprika Festival, 2020 – 2021); Sound Designer, Ga Ting (Next Stage Festival, 2019); Sound Designer, IMP (epigraph collective, Tarragon Theatre, 2017), Lighting Designer, Rhubarb Festival 2024 (Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, February 2024). upcoming credits: Technical Director, Women of the Fur Trade (Native Earth Performing Arts, April 2024).
A fresh new punk sound creator and the soundtrack to the threesome of your dreams.
Growing up as a Deaf Indian/Canadian, Jaideep Goray always has a passion for acting & performance. He believes you don’t have to be hearing to enjoy the surroundings of dialogue theater – acting is already within you, it is the natural facial expression, body language and rhythm of our being.
His family often encouraged him from childhood in acting and was introduced to theater by his school principal. As an artist, he has worked with some hearing performers creating accessible performance, recently alongside Christopher Corsini of MDL CHLD and done stage performance under Deaf Spectrum and Buddies in Bad Time Theater, Indian Folk tales in ASL narrator and performed as Indian folk dance culture festival with Mona Jean of ASL Carabert, LA; and has been
involved with different theaters for 3 years including Monsieur Richard Firmin as actor for Phantom of the Opera play with the well-known Deaf director Jules Dameron from LA. He joined the artist of Gaitrie Persaud’s experimental project “Spitting the lens” with another two Deaf actors and three hearing actors, Deaf Interpreter for Lillies or the revival of a romantic drama
and ASL drag performer at Buddies In Bad Time Theater. He also worked with Buddies. He has worked as Deaf Interpreter for the artist theater events under Soul Pepper, Sketch, Benthway theater AGO- Picasso, and Deaf Consulate for Deaf Interpreter for Faith of Act
Factory Theater and interpreted for hearing main role actor of Ladies and Gentlemen and boys and girls at Roseneath Theater . He also acted as CP for Sivert Das‘s play. Recently, he narrated the ASL story of the life of Lord Ganesh as part of Hindu culture festival with the Luminato Theater Festival.
He has joined a team with Gaitrie Persaud, a founder of Phoenix The Fire – theater hub for QTIBPOC Deaf artists. Jaideep has joined advocates for the QTIBPOC Deaf community with her to bridge the gap between Deaf actors and hearing actors in the artistic world.
Aneesa graduated with her Bachelors of Interpretation (ASL-English) from George Brown University. She speaks 5 languages and in her free time you can find her on an airplane or with her nose in a book (or both!).
Support Resources
Special Thank Yous
Special thanks to Theatre Passe Muraille team for believing in the work, to the Ontario Arts and Canada Council for the Arts for their support. Huge thanks to DM St Bernard, Autumn Smith, Flavia Martin, Eden Middleton and Adam Lazarus who each helped shape the show, and hold. Thank you Steph Raposo for the stunning lighting design and the perfectly 90’s set design by Joel Richardson, with Carlos López, Gracia López, and fellow hot dog vendor, Jeff Crews. Thank you to Nika Belianina for the epic photos and videos. Thanks to Alessandra Naccarato, Emmie Tsumura, Apanaki Temitayo, Nicole Russel, Reema Shere, David Silverberg for all the support. Love to Cat Schembri for their hot dog cart sculpture. Love to my family, who never gave up on me, and especially to my mom who is taking care of my dog Delia while you watch the play.
Up Next!
Up next at Theatre Passe Muraille:
Woking Phoenix by Silk Batch Collective
April 12th – 27th, 2024
More info here!
Graphic design by Emily Jung | Pictured: Gloria Mok and Family
TPM Season Sponsor:
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