Doing Time photos

Here are some photos from Doing Time at the 2008 Boulder International Fringe Festival. The performances were held in the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art on 13th Street, Boulder, Colorado.


Annie Briggs as "Leda Calder".


Christina Cuffari as "Jane".


Annie in action.


Christina in action.


Annie and Christina. They were both amazing!

Paul Kimball

Doing Time in the future

Only two people will understand this.



For everyone else, keep an eye out for news of further performances for Doing Time in 2008 - 2009.

Paul Kimball

Doing Time photos

Here are some photos from "Doing Time", which is currently running at the 2008 Boulder International Fringe Festival.

Annie Briggs as Leda, a prisoner, and Christina Cuffari as Jane, her jailer.

Annie and Christina in the final act.

Christina as a drunken Jane.

If you're in the Denver / Boulder area, and haven't seen these two great actors at work, you don't know what you're missing... so I'm going to tell you - you're missing one of the best shows you'll see all year!

Come on down - only three shows left:

Wednesday, August 20th - 5:30 pm
Thursday, August 21st - 10:00 pm
Saturday, August 23rd - 3:30 pm

All at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art.

Paul Kimball

Cuffari and Briggs... Amazing!

If you're in the Boulder area, and reading this, you should head out to see two great young actors, Canada's Christina Cuffari and Annie Briggs, as Jane and Leda, in "Doing Time" at the 2008 Boulder International Fringe Festival. The performances are being held at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art - there are only four left!

Christina (on the left in the picture ) and Annie (on the right) have been doing absolutely stellar work. They have put their own unique spin on the play, which has resulted in a production quite different from the version I directed in Halifax back in November, 2007.

It's been my privilege to work with them, and I'm looking forward to seeing four more great shows!

Paul Kimball

Doing Time at the Boulder International Fringe Festival

Doing Time at Boulder International Fringe Festival - The Cast

Here are the two great actors who will be accompanying me to the Boulder International Fringe Festival in August, 2008, to stage Doing Time:

Christina Cuffari reprising her role as Jane



Annie Briggs as Leda Calder



I look forward to working with both of them to bring a great show to the Boulder audience!

Paul Kimball

Doing Time in Boulder

Doing Time, which premiered here in Halifax in late November to enthusiastic crowds and critical acclaim, has been accepted into the Boulder International Fringe Festival in Boulder, Colorado, which runs from the 14th to the 25th of August.

Stay tuned here for more details. I'm looking forward to taking the show on the road south of the border, after which we'll be heading into production on a feature film back here in Halifax.

Busy times, indeed!

Paul Kimball

Doing Time on The Coast's "Best of 2007" List

It's always nice to know that you made an impact, and that of all the low budget indie plays run in Halifax this past year, Doing Time resonated with the critics. The Coast's Year End Review

Most pleasant surprise: Director Paul Kimball's adaptation of a sci-fi short story called Doing Time proved theatre on a shoestring can be as entertaining as big-budget productions. The intimate basement room at The Wired Monk Cafe was perfect - Kate Watson

Thanks Kate for the kind words, and thanks again to everyone who was part of the production, which looks like it will continue to live into 2008 (more on that in the new year). Expect more of the same from Semaphore in 2008!

Paul Kimball

Doing Time - Onward and Upward!

The world premiere run of Doing Time has ended, and it was a great... er, "time". The crowds were enthusiastic, the reviews were great, the work by the actors (Kris McBride, Nick Lachance and Christina Cuffari) was stellar, and the crew (David Connellan and Christine Boss) was super. Both Mac Tonnies, who was in town from Kansas City for the entire run, and I had a great time. It was a wonderful experience.

So... what next?

Well, for starters, Doing Time is being submitted to a number of fringe festivals in North America and Europe for 2008. You can expect to see it somewhere besides Halifax next year, although I can't say just where yet. As anyone who knows me from the film and television industry is aware, however, I love to travel, so it's a safe bet that I'll be taking a play as good as Doing Time on the road.

Speaking of the film and television industry (which is, after all, what I do for a living)...

Plans are afoot to film Doing Time as a 1/2 hour short film sometime in the spring of 2008. I'll be working to raise the money for this venture over the next couple of months, and will keep folks posted.

Finally, Mac and I will be publishing the play within the next couple of months as well. Again, updates when available.

So, that's it... for now. Rest assured, however - Doing Time will live on in 2008, and beyond.

As for the next step for Semaphore Theatre...

Well, that's the subject of another post, for another day!

Thanks to everyone who came to see Doing Time, and everyone involved in the production, for making the first Semaphore Theatre show a rousing success.

Paul Kimball

InfoMonkey review for Doing Time

Doing Time A Breath Of Fresh Air
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 11.28.07 at 7:03pm. [original here ]

There’s something genuinely thrilling - and unsettling - about Semaphore Theatre’s world premiere of the play Doing Time. First off, it’s unapologetically hard-core sci-fi. Second, it’s a stage piece more interested in ideas that character.

For audiences who despair of the contemporary theatre’s capacity for endless navel-gazing, Doing Time is like a breath of fresh air. Adapted by director Paul Kimball and Kansas City author Mac Tonnies from Tonnies’ short story, the play dispenses with the all those self-conscious notions about the relationship between audiences and players to simply present a space-time mystery that rockets along like a great 1950 pulp sci-fi paperback.

At about one hour in length, the play follows a single young female named Leda as she is held prisoner on some kind of spacecraft. With a single unadorned set, we’re spared any attempt to visualize the ship; instead, a few hung sheets, chairs, and bed establish her cell. She’s accompanied by an aggressively chirpy attendant - Chistina Cuffari in neatly robotic role - who keeps Leda’s questions at bay for the first half of the play.

When Nick Lachance enters - as John, the ‘manager’ - Doing Time’s action picks up considerably. Lachance also injects a great deal of wry, unexpected humour into the play with his quizzical delivery and dry asides. He’s clearly having a great deal of fun with the role, defining it as a kind of slightly off-kilter existential space delivery man.

Kris Lee McBride - in the central role of Leda - modulates her performance in the central role of the piece to underplay her growing rage and exasperation. At the end of the play she achieves a striking sense of resignation that translates into a glimmer of hope, especially since she’s faced with the ultimate unknown.

Kimball’s raw, no-nonsense direction often sacrifices delicacy in order to accelerate the plot; a couple of pantomime scenes that illustrate Leda’s boredom with the voyage reflect a cinematic rather than a stage background, with brisk fade-up-and-back-to-blacks.

The only drawback to the production was the odd use of rather well-worn Bob Dylan songs (All Along The Watchtower, Lay Lady Lay) over the scene transitions. Some Tangerine Dream or Portishead might have provided something a bit more appropriately mysterious and futuristic for a show that seems suspended in some other time and space.

The inanimate basement performance space at The Wired Monk coffee shop at the corner of Hollis and Morris proved to be a surprisingly effective place to stage a play. Hanging on the walls is a rather neat series of sci-fi-like paintings that resonate with the show and warrant a separate visit by themselves.

Doing Time is small but smart production that reveals Semaphore Theatre as a substantial new player on the indie theatre scene. Aimed at wider genre-loving audiences rather than the usual jaded theatre crowd, the company has made a serious stride into a totally new direction for theatre in Halifax.

The Coast review for Doing Time

It appears that we're a hit! All credit to Mac for coming up with a great story, and three great actors - Nick, Kris and Christina - for making it come alive.

Paul Kimball

Make Time for a Great Play
Semaphore Theatre Company's sci-fi hit
by Kate Watson
November 30, 2007 09:27 AM
[Original article here]

Time is running out to see Doing Time, a highly entertaining mystery based on a sci-fi short story by Kansas City author Mac Tonnies and adapted by the play's director Paul Kimball. It is staged in the tiny basement room of the Wired Monk Coffee Shop, which makes for a surprisingly effective space for this particular play.

The story is classic sci-fi, but you don't have to be a fan of the genre to enjoy Doing Time.

Three terrific actors elevate this play to must-see status. Kris Lee McBride anchors the work with an entirely convincing performance as the prisoner Leda. Christina Cuffari is controlled without being stiff, and does a fine job of showing the warmth beneath her character's frosty exterior. Nick Lachance is charming and funny and injects the last part of the show with a great energy.

In a season that has already had a banner crop of shows, Doing Time still manages to stand out.

Doing Time runs until Dec. 1st at the Wired Monk, corner of Hollis and Morris, at 7:30. Tickets are $8, $6 for students.

Doing Time - Final Poster 1

Doing Time poster

Meet Christina Cuffari - "Jane"

Christina Cuffari

Current home
Ottawa, Ontario

Education
Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honours – Acting, University of Windsor, 2006

Selected credits

THEATRE
Christina in Violet the Pilot [Solar Stage Children’s Theatre]
Joan in Far Away [Leonard Beaulne Studio]
Mollie in The Mousetrap [University Players]
Vera in Stepping Out [University Players]
Rebecca in Scenes and Revelations [University Players]
Tanis in The Vic [Studio Theatre]

FILM / TELEVISION
Lacey in Autopilot Off [SAW Video]
Jess in Mistletoe Bound [Chad M. Lawson Productions]
Live 88.5 Commercial [Kenneth McGrath Seventh Sense Studios]
Netslingers Commercial [Kenneth McGrath Seventh Sense Studios]

Christina just booked her ticket to Halifax from Ottawa, and arrives on November 4th. In her e-mail to me today to give me her flight information, she made it clear that she wanted to hit the ground running, i.e. start rehearsing the same day she gets here.

Bravo!

Paul Kimball

Illumined Black

Doing Time is based on a short story by Mac Tonnies which first appeared in his book Illumined Black, which was published in 1995.

You can purchase a copy here.

Paul Kimball