Andrew Camerone is raising money for his indie-theatre label Elkabong Theatre Projects! The inaugural season is well underway and we are gathering funds to help cover the many expenses of getting an indie theatre company off the ground. This money goes towards festival fees, venue rental, transportation, props/costumes, and most importantly compensating our collaborators as well as we possibly can.

The Label:

Elkabong Theatre Projects is a theatre label dedicated to the playful trust and execution of artistic impulse. The goal is to get exciting, challenging work in front of a wide variety of audiences in whatever scrappy, innovative and creative way we possibly can.

For our debut season, we want to establish a keen interest in adding some dark spice to our theatrical landscape and create work that deals with the darker absurdities of our current cultural moment. Moral ambiguity and the brittleness of the contemporary soul are Elkabong's bread and butter (at least for this season we'll see what next year brings!)

The Projects:

DOWN BOY!

DOWN BOY! is the debut production of Elkabong Theatre Projects. It had its premiere at the Montreal Fringe Festival in 2022 and was nominated for the Segal Centre Award for Outstanding English Production. Originally conceived as one act solo show, the play follows fictional internet personality/electronic musician/event promoter/influencer/poet/rapper/performance artist/general party boy KONSTANTINE through a series of exploits culminating in a hellish podcast interview where two mysterious hosts confront him with the demons of his past. The play features the voices of Nick Eddie, Ruthie Nkut and Reanne Spitzer. The play is currently in development and will be expanded to include a larger cast of interconnected characters who populate Konstantine's world.

Fatal Charade.

Elkabong's most ambitious production yet is set in Ancient Rome and deals with the historical practice of carrying out public executions through theatrical spectacle

'Fatal Charade' is a term coined by historians. It describes the Ancient Roman practice of carrying out a death sentence by having the condemned perform in a play wherein they, as their character, are killed for real. This dark comedy follows a condemned criminal who discovers their great talent for the stage and the theatre troupe forced to carry out their demise.

Featuring an original script written by collaborator Jack Rennie and a cast of seven performers, Fatal Charade will be mounted at the 2023 Toronto Fringe Festival.

Camus' THE FALL

This is a new adaptation of Albert Camus' classic novel The Fall. Elkabong has partnered with Kingston musician Arden Rogalsky and Princess Towers for this unique staging. Set in a bar, Princess Towers is the hired entertainment providing a moody ambience for the bar's patrons. Just as the band is about to take a break they are interrupted by a strange character who begins to share the story of his fall from grace. As the story unfolds text and music begin to blend and in the the audience is gradually implicated and provoked to ponder themes of guilt, judgement and the fact that in modern society we like to see ourselves as righteous and virtuous. But how can we really know if we're never tested?

Homesick For Another World: Adapted Short Stories of Ottessa Moshfegh

The idea for this project has been percolating for many years now. Moshfegh's haunting and hilarious collection of short stories offers several gems that are ripe for adaptation and have proved more and more relevant as our world's absurdity continues to accelerate. These are painfully human stories about people who try and often fail to evolve past their cursed circumstances. Moshfegh's characters are in futile pursuit of transcendence, sometimes tragic sometimes hysterically comic but always perversely universal. Elkabong will be staging a workshop production of this adaptation in November 2023!