In the mid-90's, Lucia Frangione got together with fellow theatre school graduates Marie Russell and Rene Joshi to put on a Fringe show together. They thought it would be fun to do a large epic tale, something like Cecil B. Demill's The Ten Commandments, but on a shoestring budget with three women. That was when the first Holy Mo – a 50-minute comic retelling of the story of Moses and the Exodus – was born.
A total hit at the Fringe Festival, Frangione, Russell, and Joshi took the show on the road, touring Fringe Festivals and theatres across Canada and into the United States. In the meantime, Pacific Theatre's Artistic Director Ron Reed saw the show and loved it. A perfect fit for Pacific Theatre, he asked them to write a second act and make it into a full-length show.
Frangione added the story of King David to the show, calling is Spew Boy, and hence Holy Mo and Spew Boy made its debut at Pacific Theatre in 1999.
A fast audience favourite, Holy Mo and Spew Boy played two more times at Pacific Theatre, most recently in its 25th anniversary season in 2008.
Since then, while the play has been produced by other companies, it hasn't seen the PacificTheatre stage.
This is the latest iteration of the Holy Mo genre, a brand-new play where three female clowns delve into the epic story of the Nativity, commissioned by Pacific Theatre.
-Andrea Loewen, Publicity and Marketing
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