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Creator of ‘Me and You and the Highland Coo’ shares journey bringing it to life

August 21, 2025   ·   0 Comments

By Joshua Drakes

When the lights came up on the Toronto Fringe show, “Me and You and the Highland Coo,” at Orangeville’s Summer Arts Fest, audiences saw a quick-witted road trip comedy filled with laughter, conflict, and unexpected heart.

What audiences didn’t see was the years of work put into delivering this unique interactive performance.

For the cast and crew, especially writer and director Sara Masciotra-Milstein, it started two years ago with a desire to present a story that could involve the audience in the narrative, and they’ve been tweaking the script and production since then.

“I thought that audience participation was important, like dramaturgically, to tell this story, because I wanted the audience to feel like they had a part to play in distracting Charlie and Jackie,” Masciotra-Milstein said. “The two girls go on this road trip because they’re avoiding their problems back home, and I thought a fun way to include the audience would be ‘okay, now you have to also help us distract these two girls.’”

This angle was actually inspired by her own personal experience in Scotland.

“When I was living in Scotland, I saw that they’re quite big on audience participation,” she said. “I saw a lot of shows happening, like in pubs, very intimate settings, and it always seemed like the audience was invited to participate in one way or another. I wanted to try and recreate that feeling here at the Fringe in Toronto.”

Of course, the risk involved with audience interaction is that, no matter how unlikely, anything can happen. This meant that anytime the cast engaged the audience, they needed to be able to think on their feet and play off of whatever energy the audience gave back to them.

Masciotra-Milstein said that meant improv would be essential for the production. Actors were given not lines, but general guidelines to accompany moments when the audience was brought in, whether that was trivia, drink tasting, or asking them to settle an argument.

Amy Ring, who plays Charlie and worked as co-producer, said that Masciotra-Milstein asked her to find strong improv actors for this play, and that was how the cast and crew came together.

“Sarah said, ‘Amy, you’re an actor, do you know any actors who are really into improv and would be good at audience interaction and are generally, really funny people?’,” Ring recalled. “I said, Brooklyn Melnyk and Jeremy Lewis, let’s get them involved.”

Both actors regularly perform improv back in Montreal, so they were perfect fits for fast-paced banter with the audience.

The actors settled into their roles very naturally, as Ring described her experience with Charlie’s character.

“Sarah had asked me back in the fall if I wanted to be involved and help her get this thing up on its feet, and she asked me who I wanted to play,” she said. “I really envisioned myself as Charlie, just off the top, because I have a lot of things in common with her. Jackie has, like, this big, big personality, while Charlie is a little bit more of a debbie-downer and pushover, which I related to because I was like that in the past.”

Jackie and Charlie are contrasting characters by design, and Ring said that a lot of her direction of the character came from reacting to how Melnyk portrayed Jackie. As a more passive-minded character, Charlie reacted more than acted first.

“Charlie was born of reacting to Brooklyn’s performances,” she said. “Charlie would not exist without Brooklyn’s version of Jackie. Brooklyn and I had already been friends and co-workers, so we had a lot of chemistry, so her big personality as Jackie helps me find the balance of, ‘where does Charlie play along and think that this is fun and when does she not?’”

Willow’s character also went through a transition as the production went on. What started as a simple GPS-inspired character evolved into the dramatic, flamboyant highland spirit you see on stage.

Jeremy Lewis, who portrayed Willow, said that it was a unique challenge to blend Willow’s character into the cast while still maintaining this unique separation from the story.

“I remember in the first read through, I was like, really sticking hard to the idea of, like a GPS voice,” he said. “So it felt like Willow was existing in this solely robotic space. Sara said she wanted to have a more human spirit feel for Willow, and I think that allowed for the transition into the other characters to be more approachable.”

Lewis said it gave more clues to the audience to better understand Willow’s motivations, such as why Willow is there and why they are trying to entertain or distract Charlie and Jackie.

This collaborative effort carried over into production as well. As the Toronto Fringe got closer, the team had to figure out the best way to minimize their set to fit within the strict space allotted by the festival for props and sets.

Lewis said that even chairs weren’t safe from the axe.

“Initially, we were going to have chairs on stage with us as car seats,” he said. “But they were taking up too much of the stage and the playing space. We were trying to figure out how to make it work until someone said ‘Do we need these chairs? Couldn’t we just stand behind the car?’”

While Fringe tested the limits of how small they could go with the set, the team said that Orangeville was a breath of fresh air to work with. A larger stage and more space in the audience gave them some much-needed breathing room.

Abi Sanie, assistant director and stage manager, said that they were very grateful for the Theatre Orangeville staff, who, despite a tough time crunch, helped them set up whatever they needed.

“In Toronto, our venue was an eight-foot by 16-foot stage,” Sanie said. “When we got to Orangeville, we realized that the show would live in a very different way, because it’s an incredible space to work with.”

“What’s incredible about Summer Arts Fest is just how fast everything has to go. We got into the theater, we had about a little over an hour to re-space and re-block, and then another two hours or so to completely redo the lighting and sound design in the space, and then do a full run-through. Huge shout-out to the Orangeville staff for helping us make that happen.”

The help they received gave them the opportunity to make full use of the theater, especially with Willow’s character, who could now make use of the side and rear doors to fully move through the bigger audience throughout the show.

Despite the festivals now being concluded, the team said they are likely to stick together to continue this story.

“I think we know this is not the end of the coo crew,” Masciotra-Milstein said. “We’re all really dedicated to this story, which is so heartwarming for me, because for so long it existed just in my head. We had the best summer ever for our first fringe as a team. We didn’t expect sold-out shows for our first-ever show together, and then to win the Best of Fringe presented by Theatre Orangeville was just unreal. We’re so grateful for the opportunity to come to Orangeville.”

With high spirits and well-earned awards on their belts, the cast and crew of “Me and You and the Highland Coo” are optimistic and ready for whatever comes next.

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