For immediate release: Tuesday, June 8, 2021

Katherine Cullen and Britta Johnson’s STUPIDHEAD! to hit airwaves, porches and backyards this summer in a new run from Outside the March

Hilarious and heartfelt musical about growing up with dyslexia returns this July for a multi-platform experience from acclaimed immersive company  

“riotously funny, musically charming, and emotionally resonant… a perfect blend of humour, heart, and soul.”
– Kingston Theatre Reviews

TORONTO – Announcing the return of audience favourite Stupidhead! – reimagined by creator/performers Katherine Cullen and Britta Johnson for our evolving moment. Gather your household ‘round the wifi router for a limited number of live “radio” broadcasts. Or you can book your very own intimate IRL serenade for you and your family and friends to enjoy on a porch or backyard. With musical gems like “Dobermans and Nutella”, “Is This Where the Puppet People Get Picked Up” and “What If I Never Find My Way”, we guarantee that you won’t be able to get this hit comedy about dyslexia, failure and friendship out of your (stupid)head. 

“Art that encourages understanding and empathy…  Don’t miss this show. NNNN”
NOW MAGAZINE  

Stupidhead! is a show about learning that no matter who you are, you’re not alone. The musical charts the real-life “growing pains” of OtM Founding Member Katherine Cullen, who audiences will remember from award-winning immersive productions like Vitals, Mr. Burns and TomorrowLoveTM. In creating Stupidhead!, she collaborated with her real-life best friend, award-winning composer Britta Johnson (Dr. Silver, Life After), one of Canada’s leading musical theatre talents, whose work most recently garnered acclaim at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre. Leading site-specific artists Aaron Willis (Director – Convergence Theatre’s Athabasca, The Unending) and Anahita Dehbonehie (Production Designer – The Flick, Breath of Kings) round out the core creative team.

“riotously funny, musically charming, and emotionally resonant… a perfect blend of humour, heart, and soul.” 
– Kingston Theatre Reviews   

After a much-loved Dora-nominated premiere at Theatre Passe Muraille in 2017, and a site-specific run at Kingston’s Kick & Push Festival in 2019, Outside the March is thrilled to be working with the creative team to re-envision the show’s message of togetherness for our collective isolated purgatory. The show is part of OtM’s Solo Together series – performer-created memoirs exploring how different minds filter and navigate our world. It builds on the company’s work offering audiences connection during the pandemic (The Ministry of Mundane Mysteries, The Stream You Step In and Something Bubbled, Something Blue)

“who knew that a sequence involving a toy rabbit and koala bear would make you tear up?”
NOW Magazine

We hope this story will help people feel a little less alone in the face of overwhelming challenges, not only the kind that the world throws at you but also the kind that rises from inside you”, explains director Aaron Willis. “I so love this musical’s celebration that it’s okay to forge different paths to get wherever you’re going” adds OtM Artistic Director Mitchell Cushman. “With that in mind, the team’s imagining of different creative ways to share this piece during the pandemic has been really inspiring.”     

“lovable, sincere… the audacious overcoming of shame and limitations.”
– The Globe and Mail 

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Stupidhead! Can Be Experienced Three Different Ways This Summer: 

  1. 1. Live Digital Radio Broadcast (July 7th – 16th)

All you need is a wifi signal, a feel-good beverage and your favourite emotional support stuffed animal to tune in to this run of six “live-to-air” audio performances

We’re modelling this version on your favourite radio variety shows from the times of yore,” explains creator Katherine Cullen. “It’ll be like we’re performing in your living rooms… but we won’t be, because we respect your health and wellbeing and also we would get fined by the Ontario Government.”  

Yeah, when was the last time you got to have strangers in your home?” adds co-creator Britta Johnson. “The best part is that you’ll kind of get to feel like you are hanging out with Katherine – she shares intimate stories, she sings, and we share lots of laughs.

With Audio Support and Engineering from Dora Award-winner Adam Sakiyama

Tickets $15. Limited capacity available for each live broadcast, so book now at https://outsidethemarch.ca

 

  1. 2. “At Your Place” Performances (Toronto, July 20th – Aug 1st)

Once the audio run wraps, Stupidhead! will play a select run of a dozen in-person performances – available for booking on decks, porches and other private outdoor spaces across the GTA. The production design has been re-imagined by Dehbonehie and the team to fit a wide variety of locations. For Torontonians who are badly missing the presence of live theatre in their life, this is a chance to bring a show right to your very own front (or back) door!  

In thinking about how to most safely and intimately share Stupidhead! in person this summer, we’ve taken inspiration from the beautiful work other companies in our community have been exploring during the pandemic, including our friends at The Musical Stage Company” explains Cushman. OtM will adopt a similar model for these performances, encouraging small groups of families, friends and neighbours to chip in to book the show together.

Stupidhead! runs 55 minutes and can be set up and struck onsite in under half an hour. Outside the March will work with each group to ensure that each performance will be conducted per provincial health and safety guidelines.

Presentation Fee – $400 to book your private performance for friends n’ fam!

(100% of which goes directly to the artists working on the show)  

To arrange, visit www.outsidethemarch.ca, and the Stupidhead! team will work with you to customize your unique performance. 

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  2. 3. Backyard Run at TIFT’s “Bees in the Bush” Festival (Barrie, Aug 16th – 29th)

Finally, in August Stupidhead! will play a two-week run in Barrie, Ontario, presented as part of Talk is Free Theatre’s “Bees in the Bush” Festival, an eclectic slate of outdoor programming. Each intimate performance will play to a socially-distanced public audience of up to 16, performed in a neighbourhood backyard. 

As OtM Core Artist and Production Designer Anahita Dehbonehie explains, “Each time we present this show, we reimagine it for a new exciting container. I’m looking forward to sharing the piece with TIFT’s adventurous audiences – who most recently experienced OtM’s Something Bubbled, Something Blue Grand Act of Theatre in the fall.” 

Outside the March is one of the most inventive theatre companies in the country.” shares Talk is Free Artistic Producer Arkady Spivak. “And Stupidhead! is one of the most honest, yet theatrical pieces of musical story-telling I recall seeing. I cannot wait for the Barrie audiences to partake in both of these elements, in a new outdoor setting.” 

For more information about the “Bees in the Bush” Festival, you can visit www.tift.ca 

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Media contact:

Suzanne Cheriton, red eye media, suzanne@redeyemedia.ca, 416-805-6744

About Outside the March

Outside the March creates unforgettable immersive encounters—redefining the experience of theatre for a new generation of audiences. Over the past decade, we’ve become one of Canada’s leading immersive theatre companies, by inviting audiences to play with us in a Parkdale kindergarten classroom, parade with Queen Elizabeth along the Danforth, venture to Roncesvalles on an EMS call, follow a piano-tuner into living rooms across the city, weather the apocalypse in an abandoned Leslieville movie theatre, infuse a Davisville funeral home with love, unlock mysteries in a beloved Annex VHS video store, and place a call to our eccentric private investigator service. Past immersive experiences include The Ministry of Mundane Mysteries, The Flick, The Tape Escape, Dr. Silver, The Ex-Boyfriend Yard Sale, Jerusalem, Lessons in Temperament, TomorrowLoveTM, Mr. Burns, Vitals, Passion Play, Terminus, Mr. Marmalade.

Artist Bios 

Katherine Cullen (Co-Creator / Performer) is an actor and playwright based in Toronto and a founding member of Outside the March. Select theatre credits include: TomorrowLoveTM (OtM, My Theatre Award- Best Supporting Actress), Vitals (OtM, Dora Nomination – Outstanding Performance- Female) Mr. Marmalade (OtM), The Nether (The Coal Mine Theatre, Dora Nomination for Outstanding Ensemble). Katherine debuted her show Stupidhead! as a part of Theatre Passe Muraille’s 2017 Season. The show earned her and co-creator Britta Johnson a Dora Award Nomination for Outstanding New Play. Most recently, she was invited to participate in the Playwright’s Retreat at the Stratford Festival.

Britta Johnson (Co-Creator / Performer) is a writer, composer and lyricist based in Toronto. She made her American debut when her original musical, Life After, opened at the Old Globe in San Diego in 2019 following an extended, multiple Dora award-winning run produced by The Musical Stage Company at Canadian Stage in Toronto. It is scheduled to play at Arena Stage in Washington DC in 2022. Her other writing credits include: With her sister Anika Johnson: Dr. Silver (Outside the March, Dora nomination), Brantwood (Theatre Sheridan, Dora Award), Jacob Two-Two (YTP, Dora nomination), Trap Door (Theatre Sheridan). With Sara Farb: Kelly v. Kelly (The Musical Stage Company at Canadian Stage; winner of the Playwright’s Guild of Canada best new musical award), Reframed (The Musical Stage Company at Art Gallery of Ontario, Dora nomination). She was the librettist for choreographer Robert Binet’s adaptation of The Kreutzer Sonata with Ballet Moscow and was recently named one of 50 Women to Watch by the Broadway Women’s Fund of America.

Aaron Willis (Director) is an actor, director, educator, and co-founding artistic director of Convergence Theatre, where he has produced and directed site-specific and immersive work since 2006 including Athabasca, The Unending, Passion Play, The Gladstone Variations and AutoShow. He has worked at theatres all over the city, including Soulpepper, Tarragon, Theatre Passe Muraille, Factory Theatre, Roseneath, Modern Times and Crow’s Theatre. Aaron was part of the inaugural Michael Langham Workshop for Classical Theatre Direction at the Stratford Festival and served as Associate Artistic Director at the Musical Stage Company from 2019-2020. He lives in Toronto with his wife (and Convergence Theatre partner) Julie Tepperman, along with their children, Cassandra and Elliot.

Anahita Dehbonehie (Production Designer) is an Iranian performance creator, designer, and installation artist.  Her practice is founded on the principle that truths are communicated most powerfully through evocative sensory experiences. She is committed to work that questions form and content while creating space for contemporary conversation: the evolving relationship between participant, creator and the exchange of ideas is what fuels her interest in the arts. Anahita’s work has been featured across Canada and internationally, including at the Prague Quadrennial, The Vilnius Capital of Culture, and the Moscow Museum of Modern Art. Her work on both stage and screen has been recognized with multiple awards and nominations.