Three Great Little Known Performing Artists

I have to make a plug for a few people that have exceptional talent. These are the people that I want to get tons of exposure so they can make a career coming out with stuff that entertains the shit out of me. And when I talk to my friends I will sound like a badass because I'll be able to say that I knew them before almost anyone else. They have more talent than most of the people in Broadway or Hollywood. One exception might be Christopher Nolan whose first film is still insanely good. Nolan would be on my list if he were still making low budget films. But he's a best-selling director now, so it's down to these three.

1. Aaron Jan: This guy is my friend's brother and my brother's friend and an awesome playwright. He is active in Hamilton, Ontario, so if you are ever in the area, try to see one of his plays. I've seen a few of his plays and they are all good but one that I watched last year blew my mind.

   The play is called Breathe and to be fair, it was successful because of an extremely strong cast in addition to the writing and directing. Throughout much of the play, you see the main character try to pick up women with the help of his friend. But the story is deeper than that. I have said that Breathe is about geting laid in the same way that Fight Club is about fighting. The character is really trying to cope with the fact that he has been told to give up his passion... and the fact that one of the greatest inspirations in his life is no longer around. It works so well because it is autobiographical. Breathe is not a musical but live thematic music accompanies the whole thing. It also features a dubstep track by my brother.

   This was produced by Fulcrum Theatre, a company founded by Devin France, Ndola Hutton, Aaron Jan, Evan Mulrooney and Nick Tiringer. I am trying to get a DVD copy of Breathe but apparently they got lost... I must investigate.

2. Class Act (Connor Ruther, Dharu Ravi, Rohit Joseph): This is a rap group that is active in the Vancouver poetry scene. They describe themselves as a band but "without the instruments and without the creativity". This is a total lie - they are overflowing with creativity.

   They say this because the audience is supposed to provide some creativity by suggesting a rap topic. They do this in order to prove that their rap is true freestyle. I have only seen them perform once but I was awed by their showmanship and lyrical ability. Ruther was the one rhyming while Ravi and Joseph provided the beats. To give you an idea, the three topics that got suggested at the event I attended were "the war of 1812", "a love triangle between Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader and Chewbacca" and "an elephant riding a unicycle". It's not like these topics were suggested and then they started rapping an hour later... the turn around time was about ten seconds. And they didn't rap for ten seconds, they were rapping for several minutes. In their historical song, they worked "white house", "militia" and "Queenston Heights" into the lyrics. Their Star Wars rap consisted of three parts, one of which was "translated" so that we didn't hear Chewbacca speak in his own language. The elephant one discussed so many facets of what seemed like a silly topic. I can't wait until I get the chance to provide one.

   Now about the beatboxing. It would not be quite correct for me to say that they were the best beatboxers I have seen in person. That title is held by a guy I knew in Kingston named Nick. But the beatboxing was still excellent.

3. Steve Love: Some people might think I'm joking with this because he does "drunken impressions" but they are really good. At the time of writing, there are five impression videos on his channel. I'm sure he'd have a future selling tickets for live shows. But if not, watch his stuff on YouTube. I was hooked since I saw his first one. I'm still wondering if there is a backstory to some of his impressions - i.e. the two sports announcers are done back to back and the two presidents are done back to back. The president ones are my favourites. Maybe the act where Dr. Phill talks about sexual promiscuity leads into the Arnold Schwarzenegger impression. And this might be the person to whom George Bush refers when he talks about a body builder. Anyway, this guy is good. A friend of mine compared Steve Love's impressions to those of Kevin Spacey. I think the skill is comparable. But unlike Spacey, Love doesn't have annoying audience members interrupting him during the video.