What compels a teenage girl to write and perform a solo theatre piece at Fringe festivals across Canada? Brigette DePape explains how bravely going solo is a powerful way to connect to and inspire others.
I’m Brigette. Bridge-ette. Like a “little bridge.” That’s why my theatre company is called Petit Pont Productions. I’m only 19, (though I often behave as if I’m 7 or 40) but my most recent Fringe show—She Rules with Iron Sticks: An Exploration into the Curious World of Baton Twirling—had been rumbling inside me for a long time. I performed it last summer to small but enthusiastic audiences at Fringe theatre festivals in Ottawa, Winnipeg, and Saskatoon. But it wasn’t my first time. I caught the Fringe bug at a young age.
When I was fourteen, I saw a one-man show called Flawed Genius at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival. As soon as English actor Barnaby King began, I was no longer in the attic of a dingy pub and the lowly piano player on stage—whose only friend was a dead bird—became a guide showing me a fascinating world, one that could elicit Ooos and Ahhs from the simple and the mundane.
Maybe I liked his accent. But there was something about this show.
The following year, I wrote and performed my first one-woman Fringe show in Winnipeg and I co-wrote another show the next year. All of which led to Iron Sticks. And to think that the lowly piano player has no idea.
Iron Sticks came from a factory in my head. A factory crowded with stuff that people had sent me: parcels of poetry, boxes of ideas, cardboard observations wrapped in duct tape—all of it stacked like misshaped Lego from wall to wall. Trouble was, I didn’t know what to do with all of it. I had no fucking clue.
Having just finished my first year at the University in Ottawa, I also had a lot of new stuff going on in my factory, everything from absorbing content from school courses to the experiences that come with living on your own (growing up in Winnipeg seemed almost like a past life). But as jumbled as it was, the stuff in the factory was growing restless. It wanted to be opened up, explored, exposed for other people to see. I had written two plays so I felt comfortable converting my head into a Fringe factory, but what would I manufacture this time? 
I felt I needed a hook for the show, a gimmick. And then, at a funky DIY art party, I found one. A troupe of modern-day gypsies was selling circus toys, including batons. Because I was a baton twirler when I was younger (and a little bit drunk at the time) I borrowed a baton and began to twirl. To my surprise, a kind of break dancing circle began to form around me. I spun to the live African music, hypnotized by the flash of light on the silver shaft. I was the star of the show! That is, until I was shown up by two topless dancers painting each other’s bods.
But no matter! Two dudes from Guerilla magazine saw me twirl and asked me to perform at their next launch event. I began twirling on a regular basis and baton memories came flying back! I knew I was going do a one-woman Fringe show about a baton twirler. In fact, couldn’t believe I hadn’t done so already!
I needed someone to help me sort through all those stored-away ideas, so I hired my friend Dave as my editor. He was on pollution control, making sure we weren’t releasing any toxins into the atmosphere; the kind of shit that makes people sick. He recycled my bad ideas into good ones.
The writing process was long and often discouraging. Showing first drafts to Dave was extremely difficult, as I feared them SUCKING. He assured me that they didn’t suck and then agreed to direct the show, while my friend Ryan Segal produced it.
It was all coming together like a flawless baton routine. The plan was to perform Iron Sticks in the Ottawa, Winnipeg, and Saskatoon Fringe festivals.
Oh jeeze. What was I thinking?
Getting up on stage that very first night was fucking terrifying. It didn’t matter that there was a grand total of eight people in the audience at Ottawa’s SAW Gallery, including my technician. I had performed in more than a dozen plays in my lifetime, but that day I felt like I had never been on stage before. Maybe it was because the show was all my own: if people hated it, I couldn’t blame the playwright.
So when people actually liked Iron Sticks, I felt so ... relieved. Good. PSYCHED.
Later on opening night, after sunset, I celebrated by lighting my baton on fire. I had wanted to do this ever since I was a chubby eight-year-old twirler in a sparkly body suit. My sister sent me a fire staff in the mail, but my parents banned me from using it on the basis that I might singe off my eyebrows. I figured they would grow back so I had been practicing in the park near my house in secret. I spun fire in front of people for the first time this summer. First times are exhilarating. I try to do as many of those as I can.
When Ottawa Fringe was over, I took the Greyhound to Winnipeg. Twenty-six hours. Super fun for the first ten. You imagine yourself zip-lining down the seemingly endless telephone polls. The rest is a sore-back blur.
I was very busy in Winnipeg because in addition to Iron Sticks, I was also playing a lesbian porn star in the show Porn Star. Despite the title, the show was pretty tame. My clever friend Ryan promoted it as ass and tits, but once he’d lured people into the theatre, we hit them with an earnest story about self-discovery and gay rights.
Saskatoon was my third and last Fringe stop, although many other performers continued on to Edmonton and the biggest Fringe in Canada. (Edmonton is on my to-do list, along with Edinburgh, the first and largest Fringe in the world.)
By Saskatoon, the show was running very smoothly. I had the chance to perform in a movie theatre built in the 1950s: red velvet curtains, foldout seats, and a concession stand near the entrance. I felt like I was transported inside a movie as I performed while people munched away on buttered goodness.
I was nearly finished my wonderful run, only one show to go, when finally the foibles of solo performing bit me on my Spandexed butt.
I’m on stage, going through the motions, everything is peanut butter and I don’t even have to think about what comes next, when … I completely forget what comes next. The screen in my mind goes blank, my computer crashes, my factory comes to a screeching halt. This is the kind of shit you dream about, not the kind of shit that actually happens.
Somehow, I recovered and finished the show. Of course, Fringe theatre god T.J. Dawe happened to be in the audience that night. Afterwards, I asked him if he could tell that I had forgotten my line. He said no and that he really liked it and I don’t even think he was lying!
Iron Sticks did really well, selling out in Winnipeg and receiving a five-star review in Saskatoon. (I still can’t believe!) But there was another kind of payoff for me. After seeing Iron Sticks, an Ottawa actress who’s always wanted to do a one-woman show decided she’s going to do her own in next year’s Fringe. Just as the lonely piano player chatting with a dead bird inspired me, my lonely twirler conversing with her baton inspired someone else.
You almost get the feeling that these solo characters we create aren’t alone at all, that they are so extremely together, interconnected, in everything they do.
