Rebecca Spence, Arts & Culture Editor
Give Cheryl Hann a long, blonde wig and she will transform into a total bitch.
The 24-year-old Dalhousie student wrapped up her final performance of *Bitches*, her one-woman show, last week at the Plutonium Playhouse. The 40-minute show, which was part of the Atlantic Fringe Festival, featured a flock of frightening females. From a psychopathic, tap-dancing weight loss instructor to a macho man eating stand-up comedian named Shelly Dupont, Hann makes each of her characters more loathsome than the last.
The ultimate bitch proved to be Hann’s impersonation of pop star Ke$ha, in which she donned a voluminous, champagne-coloured wig, aviator sunglasses, and a furry white vest. As soon as she started spewing asinine musings on relationships, friends, and culture, the audience was in a tearful fit of laughter.
My Date With Ke$ha came on and she started saying crazy things. So I started writing them down, and now it’s a sketch.
“It’s so easy to get into character when you have something so elaborate on like a huge blonde wig,” says Hann. “You kind of get lost in it.”
But perhaps the most shocking thing about Hann’s impression was that each word was actually taken straight from the real Ke$ha’s mouth.
“I was sick and lying on the couch watching MuchMusic when *My Date With Ke$ha* came on and she started saying crazy things,” explains Hann. “So I started writing them down, and now it’s a sketch.”
Hann spent a mere two days at the end of August writing the script for *Bitches*, despite the fact that her roommate Tara Thorne came up with the idea to write something for the Atlantic Fringe Festival almost three months ago. Hann, a proud procrastinator, took only one day to memorize her material before she opened the show on Sept. 2.
“I feel like I work best under pressure, which is part of why I put off writing this show until the last minute,” says Hann.
“I had a professor last year who said that all academic types are procrastinators who put everything off until the eleventh hour. You almost want to put things off to the last minute just to prove to yourself that you can do something that should take two weeks in two days.”
Although Hann is confident in her abilities to work under pressure, she still finds the experience of performing onstage by herself to be somewhat stressful. As a member of Picnicface, a Halifax-based comedy troupe, she is used to working with seven other people who can take the attention away from her at any given moment.
“When it’s just me, it’s different,” says Hann.
Since Hann did not have a group of actors onstage to work off of in *Bitches*, she could only work off of the crowd’s energy. For that reason, she decided to begin the show by riding the back of fellow Picnicface member Evany Rosen, who dressed in a fat suit, across the stage.
“Basically I just berated one of my closest friends for 15 minutes,” says Hann. “But that gives the audience an immediate reaction, which then gives me a boost of energy to keep going.”
When considering the intimacy of the stage, where the front row was about two feet away from Hann, one must wonder how it is possible that she can resist cracking a smile as she lashes out at her silent subordinate.
“Sometimes I do,” she admits. “It’s hard not to break character.”
Overall, Hann says that the found her first show in the Fringe Festival to be a “really liberating experience.” She recommends it to anyone who wants to prove themselves in the industry and break into theatre. She acknowledges that having money in their pocket is a great reward as well.
Now that *Bitches* has been put to rest, Hann is focused on an array of new projects. She began shooting Picnicface’s movie Roller Town this week; is gearing up for the release of the group’s new comedy book; and is in the process of trying to get a TV show on the Comedy Network. On top of that, Hann is working towards an honours degree in philosophy and English. She recently won the H.L. Stewart Memorial Scholarship for having the highest G.P.A in the philosophy program.
Is there anything that this prodigious performer can’t do?
“I can’t say ‘no’ to things,” she says. “I try everything.”
*Believe it or not, Hann and Picnicface still perform at Joker’s Comedy Club on Sundays at 8 p.m. Cover is $5.*
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