Improv Comedy at Perish

Hot Garbage Players share the stage with Cedric Noel, Jane Blanchard, Lina Tullgren and Jon McKiel this weekend.

Saturday night’s lineup on the Wilser’s Room stage will kickoff with a hefty dose of laughter as Fredericton/Toronto improv group Hot Garbage Players join with local and visiting musicians for the second night of performances planned as part of Perish, a mini music & arts festival organized by the fine folks behind Flourish Festival.

This weekend’s show marks the group’s first Fredericton performance since the spring as well as their first time before a music hungry audience.

“Since it’s a new audience for us, we’ve decided to do something a little different,” said HGP’s Jean-Michel Cliche. “HGP typically does long-form material, one long completely improvised story. For Perish, we wanted to do something a little bit more relaxed and fun, so we will be doing a variety of improv games in a Whose Line Is It Anyway? format. We’ll be ending the night with a long-form scene, just to give people a taste of what we normally do.”

The Perish/Flourish organizers have maintained an inclusive structure when it comes to programming events, stretching past expectations by embracing multiple genres of music and artistic disciplines.

Cliche is excited to have the opportunity to perform to a new audience and hopes to find similar opportunities for HGP in the future.

“Being part of Perish is really exciting for us,” he said. “Where it is primarily a music festival, being able to inject some comedy into the lineup is a lot of fun for us. It’s something different and unexpected for audiences. We hope to see more theatre and performance companies in future festivals.”