A FOOTSCRAY producer is right in the thick of this year’s Melbourne Fringe Festival, juggling two new shows.
Emily Sweeney is producing the one-man show Trying Hard — To Be or Not to Bother and “non-rom-com” Play Actually.
In Trying Hard, 28-year-old Alasdair Tremblay-Birchall plays a man confronted with the loss of his youth and feeling desperate in the face of “proper adulthood”.
Tremblay-Birchall is a member of YouTube sketch group Stupid Old Man Media and was co-convener of Brew HaHa, one of Melbourne’s biggest comedy nights.
He has previously performed in the Melbourne and Adelaide Fringe
festivals and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
Sweeney says the show is an absurd, sometimes pensive and punchy comedy attacking the big questions.
“Alasdair is feeling the urgency to find success while simultaneously still trying to define what that means.”
In Play Actually, Katy Houska and Tim Monely parody dating,
relationships and the consequences of manipulating each other for personal gain.
“This show follows two tragi-comic love stories and observes how destructive our fantasies of romance can sometimes be,” Sweeney says. The story follows the bizarre lives of a neurotic girl desperately dating in search of true love and a depressed children’s entertainer finding
fulfilment in a virtual world.
“It explores how our online lives enable us to delude ourselves and confronts the dating world that is rife with cunning tricksters and hopeless desperation — and yes, it’s all pretty funny.”
Trying Hard will be at The Tuxedo Cat, 335 Flinders Lane, Melbourne, from October 4-9 and 11-13 from 7.15pm (6.15pm on Sunday).
Play Actually is at Bella Union Trades Hall from 8.30 each night, except Mondays, throughout the fringe festival (from today to October 13).
Bookings for both shows: melbournefringe.com.au or 9660 9666
