Countries Shaped Like Stars

SHOW: Countries Shaped Like Stars by Emily Pearlman & Nicolas Di Gaetano

PRODUCER: Mi Casa Theatre

VENUE: The Culture Lab

DATES & TIMES (View Full Schedule)

  • July 28 - July 30 @ 8:45pm
  • July 31 - Aug 1st @ 7:15pm & 9:00pm

The courtship of Gwendolyn Magnificent and Bartholomew Spectacular is a tale of love best heard through a tin-can telephone. With performer-operated lights, water glasses, whirly winds and a mandolin, they create the sounds and images of a landscape forever altered by regret.

  • "Part fairy tale, part vaudeville routine, part old-fashioned love story… one outstanding hour." - Ottawa Citizen.
  • “This is the theatre show The Decemberists would create if Roald Dahl directed them.” - writer/performer, Amy Salloway.

History of the Work

  • WINNER - Outstanding Production (Ottawa Fringe), Outstanding New Creation (Rideau Awards). Official Selection: 2010 Revolutions Festival New Mexico
  • SOLD OUT PERFORMANCES in Ottawa, Vancouver, New Mexico.
  • Ottawa Fringe BYOV June 2009 (University Lounge)
  • Wakefest, Wakefield QC Aug 2009 (Bar)
  • Café Quaff, Toronto, Sept 2009 (Café)
  • Shenkman Centre Studio, Orleans, Sept 2009 (4000sq foot black box)
  • Canturbury High School, Ottawa Sept, 2009 (High School Studio)
  • Irving Greenberg Studio, Ottawa, ON Dec 2009 (black box theatre)
  • Revolutions International Theatre Festival, Albuquerque New Mexico, January 2010 (Conference Room)
  • Russian Hall Basement, Vancouver February 2010 (Church Basement)
  • Numerous living rooms in the Ottawa region
  • Winnipeg Fringe Festival July 2010
  • Summerworks Festival, Toronto, Aug 2010

Mi Casa Theatre

Blending experience in physically devised work rooted in cabaret, circus and vaudeville with contemporary approaches to interdisciplinary collaboration, Mi Casa creates new work out of disparate vocabularies. The result is an aesthetic fusing of reclaimed traditional forms with post-modern ways of seeing.  Using techniques for performance creation gleaned from such disparate sources as Calgary’s One Yellow Rabbit, Ecole Philippe Gaulier in Paris, London’s Theatre de Complicité and New York’s SITI Company, physical, vocal and spatial parameters are created in which the company improvises and explores. Throughout their process, play, listening, bad jokes, impulse, wonder and a common love for all things old-timey remain central values.

Formed in early 2009, co-artistic directors Emily Pearlman and Nicolas Di Gaetano have created two pieces as Mi Casa and are working on their next piece Live From the Belly of a Whale as the company in residence at the Great Canadian Theatre Company in Ottawa.

Patrick Gauthier, Director

Patrick Gauthier is a multi-award winning playwright and director. When not making art with Mi Casa, Patrick is the artistic director of Ottawa new-work company Gruppo Rubato, which just premiered his newest play Airport Security and the artistic associate at Great Canadian Theatre Company. In 2007, Pat received the "Best New Creation" Rideau Award (shared with Kris Joseph) for Gruppo Rubato’s The Churchill Protocol, and was recently awarded the Council for the Arts in Ottawa RBC Emerging Artist award. He is a graduate of the University of Ottawa Theatre Department, and holds an MFA in Directing for the Theatre from the University of British Columbia.

Emily Pearlman, Performer & Creator

Emily works across disciplines as a performer, writer, director and dramaturg. Recently named Emerging Artist of 2009 from the Prix Rideau Awards, she most recently directed for the Ohio based Missoula Oblongata. She has produced art festivals, created radio documentaries for CBC, and hooked up a golden bicycle to an amplifier so that when you pedal, it plays stories about cycling. Her three solo shows have toured Canada to much acclaim. Emily has an MFA in Interdisciplinary Studies from SFU, and has studied creation with OYR in Calgary and Bouffon with Karen Hines.

Nicolas Di Gaetano, Performer & Creator

Nick is a physical theatre performer specializing in performance creation, clown and bouffon. A member of the 2010-2011 National Art Centre Acting company, he has worked as an actor, director, teacher and musician across Canada and Internationally. Selected credits include The Tooth Fairy (Old Trout Puppet Workshop) The Rideau Project, (Magnetic North Theatre Festival), A Guy Named Joe (Odyssey Theatre) and Richard III in Bouffon, (A Company of Fools).

Nick is a graduate of Ecole Philippe Gaulier (Paris, France), The International School of Comic Acting (Reggio Emilia, Italy) and the University of Ottawa (BA Theatre and World History).