Bold new works. Intimate staging. Something different. FUT in the HAT.

Annual General Meeting


Performance Date  : 4/19/2011, 7:00 pm 

Everyone is invited to the FUT in the HAT Annual General Meeting Tuesday April 19th at 7PM in the Library  

Where?  Medicine Hat Public Library    Address: 414 First Street SE
When?    April 19, 2011 at 7:00 pm



Mrs Brown


Performance Date  : 3/22/2011, 7:30 pm 

Performers in Last Tuesday's reading of Brendan O’Carroll's Mrs. Brown
Sandra Craven, Val Turcotte, Deb Hoefling, Darlene Dee, and Grant Bray as Mrs. Brown.
Sandra Craven, Grant Bray as Mrs. Brown , Deb Hoefling, Val Turcotte, and Darlene Dee.
Move over Dame Edna Mrs. Brown is in town!

Our next Reader's Theatre will be at From Scratch on March 22 and we have an exceptional treat in store for you.  We are going to introduce Mrs. Brown to Medicine Hat!  And she is sure to make an impression.   


Writer Brendan O’Carroll channels his mum’s sense of humor and brings to life a simple Irish mother who tells it like it is, with hilarious consequences. Are you sure you’re ready for Mrs. Brown?  She’s got a bit of a potty mouth on her!


The howlingly hilarious Mrs Brown, created by Brendan O'Carroll and enjoyed by millions when she  became a hit internet youtube phenomenon.  

Have a look at the clip below if you haven't watched one yet! If you are at work you might like to wait till you get home to have a look at it.



On the Red Stage at FROM SCRATCH, a truly a unique and amazing food experience that you can find at 677B South Railway St. S.E.  Check them out for lunch or dinner anytime; your host China Loughlin will make you feel at home whenever you drop by.  She has a great line-up of entertainment booked for you.



Have supper first if you like, and then enjoy the madcap meanderings of Mrs. Brown.  Our readers productions are stripped-down, un-staged, and maybe a bit more intimate than what you are used to.  The experience is between the performers, the audience, and the playwright's words. All this happens Tuesday March 22, 7:30 pm at FROM SCRATCH.  Tickets are only $5.00 and are available at the door.

Shirley Valentine


Performance Date: 2/22/2011, 7:30 pm

Our first Readers Theatre of 2011 is also going to be our first performance in our new venue! We are very excited about appearing on the Red Stage at FROM SCRATCH, a truly a unique and amazing food experience that you can find at 677B South Railway St. S.E.  Check them out for lunch or dinner anytime; your host China Loughlin will make you feel at home whenever you drop by.  She has a great line-up of entertainment booked for you.


And FUT is on that line up starting on Tuesday, February 22 with Shirley Valentine 



Shirley Valentine is a one-character play by Willy Russell.  An hilarious monologue by a middle-aged, working class Liverpool housewife, it focuses on her life before and after a holiday abroad that changes her way of thinking about herself.  Mrs. Joe Bradshaw is the former adventurous vibrant Shirley Valentine longing to get out. Her hopes and self-confidence shattered by school, marriage and life, she is reduced to talking to the kitchen wall while preparing her husband’s evening meal. Shirley dreams of drinking a glass of wine in a country where the grape is grown as she fries up his ‘chips and egg’. Out of the blue, her ‘feminist’ friend offers her a holiday in the sun. With great trepidation and a heck of a lot of soul searching, Shirley finally seizes the opportunity and flies off for a fortnight in the Greek Islands! Once there she finds the love, joy, wonder and passion she left behind in her youth.  
From Scratch & The Red Stage


Have supper first if you like, and then enjoy this wonderful story.  Our readers productions are stripped-down, un-staged, and maybe a bit more intimate than what you are used to.  The experience is between the performers, the audience, and the playwright's words. All this happens at 7:30 pm at FROM SCRATCH.  Tickets are only $5.00 and are available at the door.




Here on the Flight Path


Performance Date: 11/23/2010, 7:30 pm

As part of our Readers Theatre series, FUT in the Hat presents HERE ON THE FLIGHT PATH at the Prickly Pear Cafe downtown on Tuesday, November 23 at 7:30 pm. Here on the Flight Path is written by Norm Foster and is a comedy, guaranteed to make you laugh. Tickets are only $5.00 and are available at the door. Come early and have supper if you like. Come and see what "Barenaked Theatre" is all about!

Purchase Tickets 






Sitting on Paradise


Performance Date: 9/28/2010, 7:30 pm

Our first Readers Theatre of the 2010-2011 season is ready to make you howl at one of the funkiest venues downtown, the Prickly Pear Cafe on 2nd Street.

Our Bare-Naked Reader's Theatre nights are performed the last Tuesday of every month . We call it  Bare-Naked Theatre not because of the lack of any clothes, but because the production is stripped-down, un-staged, and maybe a bit more intimate than what you are used to - the experience is between the performers, the audience, and the playwright's words.

We kick of our season this Tuesday night with some madcap musings on the eternal question of materialism vs spiritualism.

Have supper first if you like, and then enjoy this comedic romp by the Governor General's Award-winning playwright Eugene Stickland. Sitting on Paradise tells the tale of a nature-loving developer and his would-be Wild Man buddy as they plot to build a New Age development in an as-yet unspoiled tract of forest.
But first they have to convince the developer's hard-nosed materialist wife.

Find out how a man gets things done; Discover how much stuff you really need; and marvel at the most peculiar couch transaction ever.  All this happens at 7:30 pm at the Prickly Pear.  Tickets are available at the door only.


2010 - 2011 season Auditions


Audition Dates  : 9/13/2010, 7:30 pm         9/14/2010, 7:30 pm

The summer was spent busily politicking to halt the proposed give-away of the City of Medicine Hat Cultural Centre. The College administration has decided that it finds the Visual Communications department an inconvenient obstacle to their scheme to build a new sports building. Happy to spend dollars on the proposed sports complex, the college is less willing to spend their money on the VisCom students; so they cravenly made a play on the Cultural Centre.   Embarrassingly, the College admin has tried to spin this as "support"  for the Visual Communications program.  It would be damn near comedic if it weren't so appalling!  The Cultural Centre was built with your tax dollars for the use of our cultural organizations - let us hope that our Aldermen can stay true to the people they are meant to represent, and will not betray the trust of the civic leaders who founded one of THE MOST SUCCESSFUL of Medicine Hat's cultural institutions.

But now that fall begins to colour the landscape the FUT in the HAT is gearing up for our 2010- 2011  Season.   We will be kicking our season off with the successful raw and unplugged Reader's Theatre, performed the last Tuesday of every month at the Prickly Pear Cafe. We call this Bare-Naked Theatre, not because of the lack of any clothes, but because the production is stripped-down, unstaged, and intimate as all heck.  The experience is between the performers, the audience, and the playwright's words.   And we promise to call the next day if you need us to.

In the new year we will be premiering a new play, set in Medicine Hat  and based on a ground-breaking court decision. Supper Waltz is written by Shirley Roll Tucker, who grew up in Medicine Hat and has her own history with local theatre. We hope you will all stay tuned for further news on this production as February nears

Auditions September 13 &; 14; 7:30 pm  at the Cultural Centre
To get the ball rolling we are planning mass auditions for the winter season to be held September 13 and 14. On those days we hope everyone will show up at 7:30 pm  at the Cultural Centre (That is, if we haven't been kicked out!)  Remember, part of FUT in the HAT's mandate is to provide a welcoming space for new faces and to give everyone a chance - so don't be shy about coming out.

We will be auditioning for 5 Raw Readers' Theatre pieces and one full stage production.

The Readers' Theatre pieces are:
Sept. 28 -- Sitting on Paradise; a comedic romp by The Governor General's Award - winning playwright Eugene Stickland
Oct. 26 -- Private Peaceful  ; the Edinburgh Fringe Festival sell-out by Michael Morpurgo adapted by Simon Reade
Nov. 23 -- Here on the Flight Path by Norm Foster
Jan. 24 -- Mrs. Brown The howlingly hilarious character created by Brendan O'Carroll and enjoyed by millions via the hit internet youtube phenomenon.  Have a look at the clip below if you haven't watched one yet!
Mar. 22 - Shirley Valentine by Willy Russell


Feb 24 -26 Mar 3 -5 a new script, Supper Waltz by Shirley Roll Tucker.
We will be work-shopping this production October 16 and 17 with Eugene Stickland and rehearsals will start at the beginning of January. Casting will take place at the September auditions and actors will be expected to attend the October workshop.








The Children's Hour


Performance Date: 4/7/2010, 7:30 pm

‘Children’s Hour’ not for children
AMANDA STEPHENSON
astephenson@medicinehatnews.com

The Medicine Hat College Players and the FUT in the Hat theatre group have come together to tackle the dramatic classic, “The Children’s Hour.”  Written by Lillian Hellman in 1934, the play is based on the true story of two school teachers wrongly condemned for lesbianism in 19th century Scotland because of the lie of a spiteful student. Today, the play is recognized in theatre circles as a masterpiece, although its subject matter shocked audiences when it debuted.  “She (Hellman) probably would have got the Pulitzer Prize for it, but because of the topic, some of the people on the committee didn’t want to give it to her,” says FUT in the Hat’s Karen Cunningham, director of the upcoming production. 

The script of “The Children’s Hour” is very dramatic, full of high emotion with very little humour. It makes for a real challenge for the actors, but Cunningham says it’s exactly the kind of thing FUT in the Hat members enjoy.  “We like the stuff with the meat,” she says. “Stuff that’s got a story behind it, that’s going to make you stop and think and give the actors a real challenge to
discover who they need to be on stage.”

The partnership between the College Players and FUT in the Hat is something that started this year. College students contributed to FUT in the Hat’s reader’s theatre series over the fall and winter, and this time around, FUT in the Hat is lending a hand to the college group. Two of the 13 roles in the play will be filled by FUT in the Hat members.

“Often for me at the college, the difficulty is finding older actors to play the older roles. It’s not naturalistic to have someone who’s 17 playing somebody who’s 60,” says Charlie Wilson,
drama instructor at Medicine Hat College and technical director for “The Children’s Hour.” “It’s also great to be able to combine the strengths of the two groups — I have a lot of new students who have an interest in theatre, which is fantastic, and she (Cunningham) has a lot of experienced actors who have something to give.”

“The Children’s Hour” will be performed April 7, 8, 9, and 10 at 7:30 p.m. at the Medicine Hat
College Cultural Centre Black Box Theatre. Tickets are $15 and available through the Esplanade Box Office, www.tixx.ca, or at the door if available. Doors open at 7:15 p.m.
Due to its subject matter, the play is not recommended for children.

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