Kerfuffle

By (author): Dorothy Ellen Palmer

Welcome to Blakkat Theatre, home of the improv comedy troupe Kerfuffle!

Please permit us to introduce our Cast of Players:

NELLIE WOLFE: age 28, recent orphan, pregnant disabled avenger and sword thief

ANDY MCLEAN: age 21, redhead, devoted bike rider and aspiring Anarchist

CONSTANZIA FORGIONE: age 28, reluctant waitress, emerging gay poet and Nellie’s BFF

CALVAIRE PERSONNE: age 29, PHD candidate, brother to a living sister and a dead twin

SHERMAN SILVERSTEIN: turning 30, father, maker of Jesus Toast, married, for now

YOU, OUR AUDIENCE-PARTICIPANT: at every age, your input is an essential ingredient

Kerfuffle is a seriously funny book about serious matters. Jumping on and off stage, the troupe do their best to make sense and nonsense of their lives and the 2010 Toronto G20 protests. Uncertain which player is her baby daddy, nine-months-pregnant Nellie Wolfe wields her crutch as both prop and weapon to hunt him down. She bands with feminist friends to teach the troupe’s male members about the responsible use of their members. From hidden weapons to the marketing of Jesus Toast, simmering personal and political secrets build to an explosive on-stage reveal. It’s an inside-Anarchy exposé of G20’s crucible moments from black balaclavas to a burning police car to life inside the kettle. As satire at its best, it offers both belly laughs and a demand for justice.

AUTHOR

Dorothy Ellen Palmer

Dorothy Ellen Palmer is a mom of two, a binge knitter, a former English/Drama teacher, improv coach and union activist, now a disabled senior writer and disability activist. Her novel, When Fenelon Falls, (Coach House) and adoption-disability memoir, Falling for Myself, (Wolsak and Wynn), were acclaimed by The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, and Quill & Quire. She is the winner of the 2020 Helen Henderson Award for disability journalism, serves on FOLD’s Accessibility Advisory Committee, and has appeared at FOLD, GritLIT, WOTS, The Next Chapter, The Eh List, and CBC Radio. She can always be found tweeting @depalm.

Reviews

Kerfuffle boils over with the energy, (re-)invention, truth-telling and wit of great improv. Like a protest or a parade, we’re pulled along by the story, moved, confounded, delighted and fascinated by its participants as they explore relationships, compassion, love, grief, friendships, activism, and the possibilities of improvisation. Kerfuffle is ultimately about being seen, about allowing yourself to be seen, about seeing yourself. Meanwhile, I was happily combobulated by the kerfuffle & gobsmacked by its perfect surprises and its profound Yes, and…s.