Carleton University student Maggie May Harder and alumna Meghan Burns recently performed at the Fresh Meat Theatre Festival, an experimental performing arts event that ran at Ottawa’s Arts Court over two weekends from Oct. 13 to 22.
Their performance, Always Because: The Adventures of Maggie and Meghan, uses elements of storytelling and stand-up comedy to explore what it means for them to come together as creative and romantic partners navigating different facets of LGBT+ love.
“Stories tell a lot about who we are and I feel like if we tell more stories about love, we’re going to have more love,” Burns said. “So basically, [the production] is about us being big simps for each other and just having fun.”
Burns, who graduated with a bachelor of public affairs and policy management (PAPM) in June, and Harder, a current fourth-year PAPM student, both immersed themselves in the university’s theatre scene during their time at Carleton.
They were both members of Carleton’s theatre troupe, Sock ‘n’ Buskin, and were cast members in The Importance of Being Earnest in April 2021. Harder is also the current president of the Carleton Improv Association.
With the return of in-person events following the COVID-19 pandemic, Harder said they have been embracing every opportunity to get involved in theatre, including applying for Fresh Meat.
Fresh Meat is a paid opportunity for Ottawa-based theatre producers to gain experience, knowledge and confidence in the local theatre scene. The festival offers a twist from many traditional theatre festivals, in that all productions performed at the festival must be brand new and never performed before.
Upon application, producers must submit a short description of a 20-minute production idea they would intend to perform. At the festival, selected individuals and collectives get the opportunity to experiment with their new idea in front of a live audience.
“We call it a playground,” Fresh Meat co-producer Jaime Sadgrove said. “It’s a low-risk, high-reward area for performers and collectives to test out new ideas in front of an audience.”
Burns and Harder said Fresh Meat gave them the opportunity to produce a performance they may not have been motivated to create otherwise.
“We applied for Fresh Meat, and then we wrote the show for Fresh Meat,” Harder said. “Not only were we excited about producing the show, but I don’t think we would have written a play and then sought out places [to perform it].”
Harder, who started performing stand-up comedy six months ago, said they have struggled to establish themselves in the local scene as they said they don’t “fit the brand” of a typical stand-up comedian. She said it was important to them to include elements of stand-up comedy in their performance at Fresh Meat.
“When I recognize that a space isn’t totally made for me, I’d rather make a new one,” Harder said. “In this show, it was really important to me that I did stand-up because this is my community—the people that come to see Fresh Meat are the sort of people that have the same sense of humour as me and enjoy seeing themselves represented in that way.”
Many productions that made their debut on the Fresh Meat stage have gone on to become full-fledged productions in spaces such as the National Arts Centre, the Great Canadian Theatre Company and Fringe Festivals across Canada, according to Sadgrove.
Burns and Harder said the positive response their show received from Fresh Meat audiences will encourage them to look at developing their production and bring it to the Ottawa Fringe Festival in the future.
“I’ll be honest, I was really afraid people weren’t going to get it … but then people enjoyed it,” Harder said. “This is a story we’re telling and I want to continue telling it.”
Featured image provided by Meghan Burns.
