If you don't know who Lucas Myers is, now is your chance to find out.
The local actor-playwright was named Nelson's 2013 Cultural Ambassador and, as a way of saying thanks to the community that supported him, he's offering two free shows at the Capitol Theatre, tonight and next Friday.
"There're people in Nelson who've never seen one of my shows, and others who come out for every one of them — I'd be happy to see either come out for the free shows," Myers said.
On March 15, Myers will play Deck: How I Instigated then Overcame an Existential Crisis Through Home Improvement, which is about an obsessive single father who moves with his teenage children to a small town and a free wheeling carpenter who helps him with some home improvements. This is the show that was banned from a Grand Forks high school for partial nudity — yes, you will get to see the actor's bare bottom for a brief moment.
(That Grand Forks controversy resulted in the local arts group building a new performance space in an old movie theatre, so future performers can avoid arbitrary censorship from the school district.)
Then on March 22, Lucas will bring Hello Baby: An Instructional Lecture by a First Time, Semi-Competent Father to the stage, a show Lucas wrote when his first daughter was born. It features a handful of eccentric male characters examining their roles as fathers and memorable musical numbers like, "Making Love to Pregnant Woman is Easy as Pie."
Myers remounted the show last summer for a theatre festival on Gabriola Island and hopes to get it into more festivals this year. But one thing Myers has been noticing at the trade shows where he goes to promote his work (most actors would send their agents to those things, but Myers prefers to go himself... and also he doesn't have an agent) is that everyone wants to see a video of the show.
So, part of the purpose of these free shows is for the actor to finally get a good quality video recording of them, which can then be edited down to a short promotional video to help sell the shows.
"I thought, where better to make these videos than in my own hometown on the Capitol stage," Myers said. "It's something I should have done a long time ago."
See Deck on March 15 and Hello Baby on March 22 at the Capitol Theatre. Shows start at 8 p.m. both nights. There will be no reserved seating, so come early to get your spot.