Best Burlesque Troupe:
Screaming Chicken Theatrical Society
ScreamingChicken.net
Back in 2002, a then-relatively unknown Melody Mangler spent most Monday evenings co-hosting an R-rated game show at the Cobalt, where contestants drank beer out of fish, and put pies out with their lady parts while a character called Evil Bastard ran amok.
Gaining popularity while pushing the boundaries of sex, comedy, and theatre (with a healthy dose of nudity), Mangler’s imagination was set in motion and it soon became clear that burlesque was a natural next-step.
And so it was that Mangler and her creative partner, Norm Elmore, co-founded the Screaming Chicken Theatrical Society.
Innovative in Vancouver’s performance scene, Screaming Chicken produces the Taboo Revue at the WISE Hall in East Van (the city’s longest-running burlesque show), as well as staging a host of interactive musicals (Greece Does Grease, Terror at Rock Out Beach) and reigning supreme on the international stage earning accolades in major American burlesque cities like New York and Las Vegas.
Next month, the chickens take Europe as the Munich Burlesque Festival has devoted an entire evening of the festival to Screaming Chicken numbers.
“We’re excited, we’re taking some really weird acts over to new audiences,” Mangler says. “With of course, a bit of Canadiana.”
The secret to their success has been to remain fresh, constantly changing and nurturing the city’s burlesque scene beyond just Screaming Chicken and to maintain curiosity – both in their performers, and in their audience.
“There was this idea that burlesque would just be a passing trend,” Mangler says. “But it’s now turned into an industry. There are people making a living just from making costumes.”
Mangler and her fellow chickens, April O’Peel and Diva Mercedes Gould have also worked behind the scenes, creating Becoming Burlesque, a two-month intensive workshop designed “to turn the girl-next-door into a whole lot more”. Now in its 30th session over at the chicken coop, the East Van studio the chickens call home, many of the graduates have gone on to work in performance full-time.
Elmore estimates there are hundreds of alumni, while chicken membership currently sits around 60 people who take on performance, stagehand, and volunteer roles, immersing themselves in chicken culture, forming a community of artistry.
“We have some members of Screaming Chicken now who are 19. And, thank god!” Mangler laughs. “It’s what keeps the scene going.”
