Jonno Katz in CACTUS... the seduction...

[ClaireButlerX]

G'day Moshers...
Introducing Jonno Katz... fabulous Melbourne comdian, fresh from overseas success in Canada, has returned to his home town (with a swag of awards from o/seas) for a comedy festival show not to be missed!
Read on...
Cheers!

Epicworlds.com – Jonno Katz
presents
CACTUS
the seduction…

Melbourne International Comedy Festival season
Dates: 24th March – 17th April (not Mondays), Previews 24th – 27th March
Venue: The Victoria Hotel (Acacia Room)
Times: 7.00pm Monday to Saturday, 6.00pm Sunday (60 minutes)
Tickets: $20.00 Full, $15.00 Concession (No concession Friday, Saturday), Preview Price $14.00, Tightarse Tuesday, Winner Wednesday, Slap Happy Sunday $16.00, Laugh Pack Price $15.00, Group Price (8 or more) $15.00. Bookings: Ticketmaster7.com, at the door or call 136 100

After sell out shows in six cities in Canada, young and super talented Australian comedian JONNO KATZ is returning to hometown Melbourne with his new solo show “CACTUS- the seduction.”

Jonno Katz’s second solo show is a physically devised work, part theatre and part stand up comedy, a work which according to its author and performer ‘saunters between character comedy, stand up and physical mania.’

Cactus is ’a stream-of-consciousness tale about Phil who is searching for love in a desert. Phil alternates between reality, walking through the desert with 2 weird characters, and a fantasy where he talks directly to the audience spinning yarns and leaving them in hysterics. It is directed by Mark Chavez, from Sabotage, who was recently short listed for the Perrier Best Newcomer Award at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2004. Its highly original style of comedy offers a refreshingly different and unique experience for Melbourne audiences.

“This is just about the wackiest, most delightful and unique thing I’ve witnessed in years. Super-talented and spontaneous Jonno Katz, who hails from Down Under, slips seamlessly between a series of characters and their inner psyches…” Ottawa Citizen ****

''the only show that can be described as both 'Brechtian' and 'pants-wettingly hilarious'…'' Toronto Eye Magazine **** ½

Jonno Katz found his passion and life’s work at the John Bolton Theatre School where he was trained in the LeCoq style of physically devised theatre. He followed a dream and went and lived in New York, where he eye-witnessed the 2nd plane going into the world trade centre, made his first full length solo show, “Uber Alice-the elaborate adventures of a New Zealand manicurist,”, toured throughout Canada, North America and Australia, returned to Canada with a new solo show, “CACTUS-the seduction,” winning awards in Toronto and Vancouver and selling out in six Canadian cities, and now brings this new show to Melbourne.

Katz says, “I prefer not to use a mix of scripted dialogue and tangential improvisations in my shows. Structure is important but I believe audiences love seeing performers deal with genuine mistakes. Therefore I embrace my stuff-ups and even try to make them happen by doing thinks like giving my technicians leeway to surprise me or openly engage with the audience…The line between chaos and control is constantly shifting and evolving throughout the show.”

“It deserves more exclamation marks that the paper will allow, so thusly, if you can’t get tickets, it is imperative that you either steal them or sneak in.” Terminal City, Vancouver

“Many performers attempt to create comedy that’s whimsical and bizarre. It’s a difficult trick to pull off, and a few succeed/ Enter Australia’s Jonno Katz, who absolutely nails this theatrical form…Take my word for it, CACTUS is a must-see. Jonno Katz is brilliant.” Times Colonist, Victoria ****1/2

For more information, please contact:
Claire Butler
Miranda Brown Publicity
Post // PO Box 2765, Fitzroy VIC 3065
Phone // +61 3 9419 0931
Fax // + 61 3 9417 4475
Email // claire@mbpublicity.com.au

[ClaireButlerX]

THE AGE
Reviewer Helen Razer
April 5, 2005
Jonno Katz in Cactus - the seduction, Victoria Hotel, until April 17
The landscape of Jonno Katz's peculiar imagining is littered with shards of identity, spiralling desire and some genuinely good laughs.
One of a handful of Comedy Festival shows that truly strives to enlarge the vernacular of comedy, Cactus takes its audience on a tour of a psyche that is, in turn, Lenten and lush.
Splitting into cartoonish facets of a single identity, our wilfully absurd protagonist strives to make it through the desert of the self.
A carnival of boundless imagining and endlessly mutating self, Cactus is something like the kicking love child of the Wachowski Brothers and Andy Kaufman.
If you don't mind an untethered space walk in the orbit of the self, you'll be mesmerised by Katz's brave offerings.