The nose knows

CYRANO DE BERGERAC by Edmond Rostand, adapted by Chris Coculuzzi and Roxanne Deans, directed by Mary Dwyer, with Coculuzzi, Deans, Justin Conley, Brian Brockenshire and Siobhan Power. Presented by Red Letter Theatre at Trinity College Garden (15 Devonshire). Runs to July 11 (except July 5) at 9 pm.

People keep asking actor Roxanne Deans if she's named after the character in the Police song. Nope. The talented actor, who's done some fine Fringe work (Cloud Tectonics, Lear's Daughters) feels a closer link to the heroine of Edmond Rostand's Cyrano De Bergerac, who's loved by two men, one the large-nosed, poetic Cyrano and the other the handsome but inarticulate Christian.

"It's a bittersweet romantic fairy tale about a man who's unconventional in looks but has everything else you'd want in a lover," notes Deans, who plays her namesake in the adaptation of the play she's done with Chris Coculuzzi, who plays Cyrano.

They've pared the show down to fit into a Fringe slot and use the last act as a frame tale for the rest, turning the piece into a memory play for Roxanne. In this version, she knows almost from the start that the man she truly loves has been right there in front of her, um, nose the whole time.

"We've doing it outdoors at night. In the last act, set in a nunnery garden, the actors get to feel what it was like to be in that setting, talking to each other about love.

"And, anyway, how can we lose? The show is full of good nose jokes."

Strip search

SIMPLE. CELIBATE. SOBER. written and performed by Soo Garay, directed by Nigel Shawn Williams and Shawn Alex Thompson. Presented by Nails and Ribbons at the Poor Alex (296 Brunswick). June 30 at 7:30 pm, July 2 at 4:30 pm, July 5 at 5 pm, July 7 at 11:30 pm, July 8 at 6:30 pm, July 9 at 2 pm, July 10 at 9:30 pm.

The solo character in writer/ performer Soo Garay's Simple. Celibate. Sober. is an exotic dancer, but Garay doesn't see that fact as the central point of her story. "It's more about this character Shawnya's relationship to other people, as she gets closer to herself and takes responsibility for her life and actions," she smiles.

"At the same time," she adds, "I've discovered that with a few minor changes a man could play the part. It's not an I-am-woman-hear-me-roar kind of show.

"Shawnya is incredibly smart and streetwise. There's a fine balance between using her body or just having her body, between what her body does and what her mind thinks."

Known for her committed acting work in such shows as Belle and My Children! My Africa!, Garay's working on the brutally comic script with directors Nigel Shawn Williams and Shawn Alex Thompson.

Moving from from writer to performer is "a whole other swimming pool," notes Garay.

"I have to step back as playwright and let the actor take over, finding out where Shawnya's from, how she moves, speaks and thinks.

"But every once in a while we still have to look at the text again," Garay says lightly, "and we've decided that some days the writer is in town and other days we can't reach her, even by cellphone."

Pub brew

THE WEIR by Conor McPherson, directed by Autumn Smith, with Rod Ceballos, David Mackett, Kyle Horton, Peter Van Wart and Cathy Murphy. Presented by MacKenzieRo at Rowers Pub (150 Harbord). Runs to July 11 (except July 5-6) at 7:30 pm.

It's not just at the fringe beer tent that you can have a drink during the festival. The audiences at director Autumn Smith's show The Weir can watch the show with brew in hand. Cleverly combining the play's locale and the actual venue, she's staging the piece, is set in an Irish public house, in the Annex's Rowers Pub.

The Conor McPherson show involves a series of ghostly stories told by village locals in order to impress an attractive woman who's just moved into the neighbourhood.

"I first saw it in the West End in 1999 and knew I wanted to direct it," Smith recalls with excitement. "I was captivated by the real-time factor. Even with all the spooky individual tales, McPherson still maintains an amazing sense of an average evening in the pub.

"Both alcohol and dialogue are in free flow during the performance."

Smith points out that such Irish pubs are a community's centre. She wants her audience to experience that feeling intimately, without a theatre's fourth wall.

"Viewers share the whole sensory experience with the actors. And then there's the idea of pub theatre in the British Isles, where people grab their pint before watching a performance and then hang about and discuss the show in the same setting."

Smith, who spent two years training and working in England, sees the play in operatic terms.

"Each of the stories is like an aria, which is flanked by recitatives of bantering dialogue. It manages to be both theatrical and contemplative at the same time."

Great goddess

INANNA written and directed by Claire Calnan, with Jenny Young, Nicole Arends, Sean Baek, Claire Jenkins, Yurij Kis, Athena Lamarre and Pasha Mckenley. Presented by Donikers Daily at Royal St. George's College Quadrangle (120 Howland). Runs to July 11 (except July 6) at 7 pm.

Claire Calnan wants people to know that the first hero story wasn't about a guy. Inanna, the 6,000-year-old Sumerian myth Calnan's adapted for the Fringe, is about the all-powerful queen of heaven and earth. In the tale, Inanna fights hairy creatures, outdrinks the god of wisdom and seduces the warrior Gilgamesh.

"It's hard to find source material about her," says Calnan, who also directs the show she's been developing for several years. "There's lots on the Gilgamesh myth, but less on Inanna, who was also known as Ishtar."

She'd not be able to stage a 12-actor show without the support system of the Fringe, and even now it's a challenge to organize the actors for rehearsals and shop at Value Village to get their costumes.

It's always been important to Calnan, who's also an impressive actor, to stage the piece outdoors. The audience will do a walkabout to different places in the Royal St. George's College Quadrangle.

"One of the sites is the underworld, which we've set in a garbage and recycling area right near the gym. We have to be careful," laughs Calnan, "that basketball players don't emerge from the underworld in the middle of the show. And we might have to cover up a Desani vending machine that doesn't quite work in a Sumerian myth.

"One of the show's tunes is the Vulva Love Song, drawn directly from the original text," she enthuses. "The story is about fertility rites, so it's appropriate to bring back the word 'vulva.' It occurs too seldom in everyday speech, but it's clear that the Sumerians made good use of it."

Double time

SLEEPLESS: A NEW MUSICAL by Denis McGrath and Scott White, directed by Shari Hollett, with Eddie Glen, Sharon Heldt, Todd Hofley, Racheal McCaig, Krista Sutton and Mark Terene. Presented by Cattle at the Tarragon Mainspace (30 Bridgman). June 30 at 7 pm, July 2 at 6 pm, July 4 at 2:30 pm, July 5 and 9 at 5 pm, July 6 at 8:30 pm, July 10 at 9:30 pm.

WAITING FOR TRUDEAU: THE RETURN OF THE KING by Brett McCaig and Racheal McCaig, directed by Patrick Burwell, with Paul Constable, Paul Regan, McCaig and McCaig. Presented by Fence Post at the Tarragon Mainspace (30 Bridgman). July 3 at 7 pm, July 5 and 7 at 12:30 pm, July 6 at 10:30 pm, July 8 at 8:30 pm, July 9 at 3:30 pm, July 11 at 5:30 pm.

It's not hard for Racheal Mccaig to walk onstage in character as the overworked Nurse Bridget for Sleepless: A New Musical. She's juggling two premiering Fringe shows and taking care of her young daughter, all at the same time. Not much time for sleep these days, a fact that feeds into the Denis McGrath/Scott White book musical that leads off McCaig's pair of productions.

"There's no method acting going on here," she jokes. "At least I get to use the same rehearsal space."

Sleepless, created by the same team that scored a success with Top Gun: The Musical, involves a set of wacky characters in a sleep disorder clinic. McCaig, who was also in Top Gun, knows the writers have a whole lot to live up to, but she finds the new music more sophisticated.

"Think of pop musicians who've had an outstanding breakout album, like Alanis Morissette, Shania Twain or Avril Lavigne, and how their sophomore efforts were also successes."

The Trudeau show, which she wrote with her husband, Brett McCaig, is a light-hearted look at Canadian history and culture, with numbers that include a Banting and Best vaudeville routine and a look at the Jewish immigrant experience called Oy! Manitoba!

The McCaigs have written two different endings and will use the one that's appropriate to the outcome of the national election.

"We wanted to write a show that promoted Canadian nationalism and quickly realized, given our national apologetic nature, that it had to be a musical satire."