Over the past few years I’ve seen Australian actor/writer/producer Shane Adamczak perform several times in Montreal. From Edge of the City’s live podcasts to last year’s Fringe Festival, I’ve always found him to be a charming and interesting performer. Recently I had the pleasure of meeting Adamczak, who’s currently promoting his new play Trampoline opening at Mainline Theatre on May 7th.
Hailing from Perth, Adamczak first came to Montreal to perform his Fringe Festival play Love Songs for Future Girl.
“What was meant to be a short stay turned into a much longer one than expected … a lot of that had to do with developing relationships with the folks at Mainline and Montreal Improv,” Adamczak said, “what I love so much about Montreal is the fact that it’s filled with so many like-minded people. People who embrace DYI theatre and telling stories. That’s what really made me want to stick around.”
A quick visit to Adamczak’s website shows the creative evidence of his time here; writing for the blog Bloody Underrated, putting on improv shows like Captain Spaceship, even producing a talk/variety show Up Late Live in his bedroom. While his time in La Belle province has been a productive one, unfortunately Adamczak admitted during our interview that it’s coming to an end. “Yes, after this year’s Fringe Festival is over I will be heading back to Australia for a while. After that I’d like to try living in the states, or maybe Europe… who knows! “
During his last few months in Montreal, Adamczak is enjoying being Mainline Theater’s artist in residence. What exactly does that involve?
“Hanging out a lot at Mainline, which is cool ‘cause when I’m in Montreal I do that anyways,” Adamczak joked, “but seriously being the artist in residence means Mainline helps you develop and produce your work, which in my case has been the show Trampoline.”
The press release for Trampoline gives a pretty straight forward blurb on what to expect from the play: “Matt is a dreamer. He lives in a world where fiction and reality are all mixed up. Kelly, the girl of his dreams, is beautiful, talented, funny, and she even has a trampoline. TRAMPOLINE follows their awkward and impossible courtship as Matt struggles to find what is most important to him and what reality it belongs in.”
Adamczak describes Trampoline as ‘his take’ on a romantic comedy. “The project started off as me writing a dream journal blog under a pseudonym while living here in Montreal,” Adamczak said, “after writing these blog posts for a while, I began to see a natural story line emerge from them. That’s when I saw the possibility of it becoming something more, and I started adapting the blog into a play. ”
Trampoline first debuted in Australia this past October, and now the North American premiere will be at Mainline. The show reunites Adamczak with two actors he’s worked with before; Stevie Pemberton, whom was Janet to Adamczak’s Brad in a production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Vance Gillis from Captain Spaceship.
While it’s unfortunate that Adamczak is moving on from Montreal, I sincerely hope that means he’s off to bigger and better things. I for one will make sure to enjoy him while he’s here and check out Trampoline, which runs until May 17th. For tickets, make sure to head to the Mainline Theatre website.
