Little Miss Understood
Fringe Cabaret Lounge (10330 – 84 avenue) August 17, 18, 20, 22, 23, 24

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An interview with Stephanie Fowler.

Describe your show in five words. 

Light-hearted look at adolescent insanity.

Okay, now that we’re interested… what’s the longer description?

Little Miss Understood takes a comic approach to what is normally a difficult time of life – the teenage years.  Through storytelling and vignettes, we delve into those typical areas of teenage conflict – messy rooms, chores, siblings, friendships, the ever-present iPod and the struggle to become an adult while still sometimes feeling like just a kid.

What in particular inspired you and your daughter to create this show?

Raising a teenager is not fun.  There are no guidelines.  There is no safety net.  You go along the parenting path feeling pretty darned good about yourself until you hit the teenage years.  Then everything you thought you knew flies out the window.  You feel like Alice in Wonderland.

So we decided to deal with these crazy years by putting it all on stage.

We decided to make it fun.  Or at least, turn these difficult years upside down and look at the humour underneath.

What are you hoping audiences will walk away with?

We love that audiences find this show humorous but also touching and real.  Ultimately, we hope that audiences will walk out of the theatre a little better able to laugh at their own situations.

One of our audience members in Toronto sent us this message that pretty much sums up what we hope to inspire:

“I too have a 14 year old daughter and I swore they set up secret cameras in our home and used our own dialogue for the show!  It was a great learning experience to witness and laugh at my own insanity.”

You created this show with your 14 year old daughter – tell us a bit about the creation process. Was there anything that surprised you?

I was surprised by how willingly she set about writing.  The mother – teenage daughter relationship can often be a series of struggles.  But every time I suggested we sit and work on the show, Beatrice very happily sat down to write.

The result is that Little Miss Understood is three-dimensional.  We show both sides of what it’s like to be a teenager and raise one.  So now we have a show that appeals to both generations.

We love to see mothers and daughters – of all ages – come out and see the show.  Each of them draws out something from their own childhood or parenthood and it becomes a beautiful, shared moment.

The 33rd Edmonton International Fringe is August 14 – 24. Get your tickets at tickets.fringetheatre.ca