Vancouver Fringe Festival: Burn Job

Big Sandwich Productions Presents

Burn Job

by TJ Dawe

Dawe is a masterful raconteur, a smart thinker, and fast talker who spices his spiel with vivid descriptions (and lots of pop culture references) that bring his story to life. – Edmonton Sun

Burn Job is a poignant, hopeful reminder that although we are encouraged to set aside childish things, that doesn’t mean we should burn them to the ground. – Winnipeg Free Press

VANCOUVER, BC… Burn Job

Long time fringe festival veteran TJ Dawe returns with Burn Job, a fast paced monologue about growing up. Fringe fans will remember TJ from his many solo shows, which he’s been bringing to the Vancouver Fringe and more than 100 festivals around the globe since 1998. Past hits include the Jessie Award winning Tired Cliches, Labrador, The Slipknot, A Canadian Bartender at Butlin’s, Totem Figures, Lucky 9, Medicine and Marathon. He also directed The One Man Star Wars Trilogy, One Man Lord of the Rings, Dishpig, The Power of Ignorance, and many others.

This year year TJ’s involved in four other shows at the Vancouver Fringe as director/dramaturg: Richard Lett’s Sober But Never Clean, Charlie Ross’s One Man Dark Knight: a Batman Parody (both playing at the Rio), Megan Philips’ Not Enough and Mark Hughes’s Tragedy + Time Served = Comedy. TJ also co-wrote and directed One Woman Sex and the City, with Kerry Ipema, which will be featured as part of Pick Plus. TJ doesn’t get much sleep.

Burn Job is about that part of growing up in which you leave behind some aspect of your old life, and distance yourself from it as something new arises. I don’t like that old kind of music, I’m into this new kind! That old music sucks! I’ve got such a great new group of friends, I can’t believe how close we are! Those old friends, I just don’t relate to them anymore.

TJ’s stories are punctuated by a multitude of music tracks and sound effects, manipulated by TJ live on stage, and sometimes distorted using the effects of Korg Kaoss Pad – a technological leap in TJ’s usual no-cues style.

Burn Job came to be after TJ participated in a session of holotropic breathwork – a breathing technique that brings a person into an altered state, comparable to being on LSD or ayahuasca.

In the aftermath of his breathwork session, TJ came to see this pattern of slashing and burning his past, and six months later, wrote the script for Burn Job. He debuted it at the Edmonton

Fringe last year, and has since performed it at fringes in Orlando and Winnipeg, and at ArtsWells in Wells, BC.

Burn Job plays at the Rio Theatre, 1660 East Broadway. Part of the brilliant 7 shows by 7 artists, this “bring your own venue” collaboration includes Gary Jones’ Ask for Details, Beverley Elliott’s Sink or Swim, Charlie Ross’ One Man Dark Knight, Jan Derbyshire’s  Certified, Richard Lett’s Sober But Never Clean and Monster Theatre’s Til Death: the Six Wives of Henry the VIII.

For more information and tickets visit www.vancouverfringe.com.

*Minors permitted in the balcony for all Vancouver Fringe Festival events at the Rio Theatre. Must be 19+ w/ID for bar service.