nerdfucker by Cameryn Moore
August 13, 15, 16, 18 – 21 at the Telus Phone Museum
More information: camerynmoore.com

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An interview with Cameryn Moore. 

Describe your show in five words.

geeks, love, and bad boundaries

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

nerdfucker is a challenging new solo drama that digs deep into the heart and crotch of geekdom, at a sexy after-hours event at a con. (“Welcome to Bareback Chess, the newest after-hours attraction from Call of Booty Productions! Since 2009, we’re the people to see to make your con even kinkier!”) nerdfucker is an unflinching character study that lands hard and true, an unexpected tale of love, betrayal, and bad boundaries that is all the more wrenching for being so recognizable. Audiences can look for laughs of recognition and loads of cultural commentary amid the rapid unwinding of a woman on the edge of the troubling truth.

You say your character is “on the edge: of truth, of sanity, of losing her faith in everyone.” Can you tell us a bit about your character’s backstory and where she’s at now in her life?

She is a classic nerdfucker; that is, she has been drawn to geeks and nerds all her life. She is, in her own words, “a geek for geeks.” She loves the fire and passion, even while she’s aware how monomaniacal geeks can get about their “thing.” The other commonality about her relationships is how much of herself she places in the service of these geeks whom she loves. She is a strong woman and very smart/talented in her own right, but with her lovers she will be the sounding board, the supporter, the carer. Her current lover is the producer for Bareback Chess, and he has shamelessly exploited her love for chess and her skills at event production, even as he derides them.

Your character has a thing for “smart boys” – why was this attraction something you wanted to explore?

This is very much me, in some ways. Although I have never been a human chessboard, I have always been drawn to “smart boys”. 95% of my male lovers have been geeks in one way or another. Even while I have been recognizing this pattern in myself, I also recognized the dysfunction that can go along with it, if I’m not paying attention. I had my own realizations around this, and my own breaking point, quite recently, in the past couple of years. And lord knows I hear enough about/from other women, about the personal sacrifices they make, consciously or unconsciously, when they are so in lust or in love. This is a very common dynamic in relationships, whatever our gender. Sometimes we can pull out of it, and make things better. Sometimes we don’t even know that we’re doing it, and when we become aware, we don’t know how to stop. This felt like an important thing to embody and perform.

What post-show conversations do you hope nerdfucker inspires in audience members?

“Oh my god, what is she going to do next?”
“I would never have put up with that! How could she allow herself to get there?”
“Wait, are you victim-blaming?”
“Jesus christ, I’ve been there.”
<whisper> “I’m still there, please help me.”
“How much are we responsible for in our own lives?”
“Am I taking care of my own boundaries?”
“Am I acknowledging other people’s boundaries?”
“Honey, I’ve never done that to you, have I?”
“Well, actually…”
“What would I do in order to be seen, to be loved?”

Anything else you want audiences to know about the show?

The chessboard on my back in the marketing image was body paint, done over 1.5 hours by Montreal F/X artist Vladimir Cara for the shoot. For the tour, he and my director and I made our own temporary tattoos, over a magnificent 4-hour glue-fest. Each temp tattoo is 11×11, and I have three of those per festival (they don’t last as long as they could, thanks to my bra rubbing at them), plus a bunch extra for when I take nerdfucker down to the states this fall and to the UK in 2017.

The 35th Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival is August 11 – 21. Tickets go on sale August 3 at noon and will be available at tickets.fringetheatre.ca.