It’s no secret that Orangeville and surrounding communities have produced a wealth of talented and successful individuals. From athletes who have gone on to participate in large-titled events and national teams, to singers, actresses, writers and more who have earned titles and become recognized in their fields.

Recently, two former residents did just that, being recognized at the Toronto Fringe Festival for a play called People Suck. The play was co-written by Peter Cavell and a featured Allison Price, who both grew up in East Garafraxa and attended high school in Orangeville. They have also appeared in several Theatre Orangeville productions over the years.

The production came to fruition after Mr. Cavell was contacted by Megan Phillips, a former colleague from university.

“We kept in touch after university, and last year Megan called me and said she had a great idea for a show that she wanted us to co-write together,” explained Mr. Cavell. “I asked her to share a bit with me, and she told me that it was called ‘People Suck’ and it was about how people suck. I was definitely interested.”

The idea Ms. Phillips presented him with was a production that featured a series of songs that would go together. There wasn’t necessarily a specific plot, but the songs were all about how people can be horrible to one another or themselves. They worked together writing it over Skype and Google Docs, and ended up being accepted into the Toronto Fringe.

“It’s a lottery-based admission, so anyone can apply to get in, but only a few get accepted,” said Mr. Cavell. “At that point, we had to start thinking about casting and directing.”

They asked Kerry Griffin, who is considered a funny person extraordinaire and current director of Second City’s ‘How to Kill a Comedian’ if he would consider directing, and they got together to brainstorm ideas of performers.

After putting together a short-list of people, Allison Price was at the top of the list, and so they reached out to see if she would be interested.

“Kerry has directed me two times before on the main stage at Second City,” said Ms. Price. “He emailed me and told me they wanted me to perform in this production called People Suck, and that it was written by Peter. Normally at this time in my career I wouldn’t sign on without seeing a scrip, but I trust Kerry implicitly and had confidence that no matter the source material, Kerry would be able to work with it.”

Finding out that Mr. Cavell had been one of the writers also spurred Ms. Price into saying yes.

“We both grew up in Orangeville, and our paths crossed over the years.” she explained. “We did theatre together, piano lessons together; he was so brilliant and funny. Defi- nitely equal parts, brilliant and funny. I just had this sense.”

When rehearsals began, things were a little chaotic. Mr. Cavell was working at a full-time job, and thus unable to attend all rehearsals. He came back on board about a week before their first performance at Toronto Fringe was set, and although he and his cast had confidence in their material, it was a nerve-wracking experience.

“The really cool thing about working on anew script is that it makes if feel like everything is really evolving as you work on it,” said Ms. Price. “We were always finding new jokes and new scenes. It didn’t really feel like a finished project until days — maybe hours even — before we opened.”

Multiple performances go on at the same time throughout the Fringe Festival, with different stage locations, so it’s up to the members of the performance to come up with ways to entice people to their show. Mr. Cavell and Ms. Phillips had developed this idea to have a song, designed like a jingle, to sing in the line-ups and get people interested in a fun way.

“They taught us the jingle before our first show, so we went to the Fringe tent and sang it,” said Ms. Price. “We had a venue of 215 seats for our first show, and we ended up sold out. They were turning people away at the door, and it was like that for us the whole festival.”

Their popularity grew even further after Glen Sumi of Now Toronto Magazine cov- ered their show and put two of their actors on the front page.

“We had a great cast, had a lot of great people, and we had that adrenaline going,” said Mr. Cavell. “We never thought we would see the response we did after our first show. I will always remember, we were in the alley-way next to the theatre, rehearsing and warming up, and people were lined up all the way past the alley for our show. We had no idea where they came from; we don’t know that many people.”

He added that when they did the first show, he was very focused on getting every- thing done.

“I was very much ‘eyes on the road’, just making sure that everyone got to the next song,” he said. “The lights went down on the final song, and the audience leapt to their feet. At that point, we all kind of stopped, jaws dropped, and we wondered what happened and how we could do that again. It was surreal, but neat.”

They were sold out for almost all of their shows. Even at a 12:30 p.m. on a Monday, they managed to sell 75 per cent of the tickets.

Following the success of their performances, the Fringe Festival selected Peo- ple Suck as one of the top eight shows, at which point they held an encore run at the Toronto Centre for the Arts in North York. That encore performance led People Suck to winning the Ed Mirvish award, which is given to the performance who sells the highest proportion of their tickets.

“We were also in the biggest theatre, so technically, we also sold the most tickets,” added Mr. Cavell.

In late August, the team was presented with the Ed Mirvish award by David Mirvish. They were told to meet with him at Honest Ed’s, in the alleyway.

“The doors opened, and we were ushered in through this door, up to Ed Mirvish’s office,” said Ms. Price. “It looked like it hadn’t been redecorated since Honest Ed’s opened. There was all sorts of memorabilia in there; Ed didn’t throw stuff away. It was a really cool, surreal experience to be ushered into this inner sanctum. David was this down-to-earth guy, really nice to us and making jokes. It was lovely he took the time to present us with the award.”

Along with the award that People Suck took home, Ms. Price (who was also in another performance at Fringe), was named as the Fringe MVP for this year.

“I saw Allison’s other show, and it was gorgeous,” said Mr. Cavell. “Probably my favourite thing I saw at the Fringe this year. We half-joked, but half-seriously say behind the scenes that since both her shows did so well, maybe she’s the common element.”

Although they don’t have a lot of information available for the public yet, Mr. Cavell confirmed that following Fringe, there has been a lot of interest from a number of groups in the States who would like to do more with People Suck.

“We’re not sure what it means or if anything will happen, but it’s looking clearly like this is not the end for People Suck,” he said. “People should stay tuned; there might be more performances in Toronto, or some- where else in the future.”

For more information, to contact the team, or to see photographs from the show visit www.peoplesuckmusical.com