Mandi Molloy and Matthew Oliver van Diepen in My Boyfriend’s Girlfriend. Photo credit: Jamie Price
My Boyfriend’s Girlfriend by Jamie Price
August 13 – 15, 17, 19, 20 at the Telus Phone Museum
An interview with Jamie Price.
Describe your show in five words.
Queer Poly Gamers: The Musical
Okay, now that we’re intrigued… what’s the longer description?
My Boyfriend’s Girlfriend is about a couple, Decker and Tricia, who are a pair of likeable video game nerds who consider the perfect date night to be an evening of pizza and killing monsters in an online RPG. Decker’s best friend Sage is in a polyamorous relationship – her boyfriend has another girlfriend – and as he learns more about it, Decker really likes the idea of having the big support system that could result from lots of interconnected relationships. Meanwhile Tricia is figuring out her gender and deciding whether to transition. Over the course of the story, the three of them miscommunicate and they have their drama, but it’s a generally light-hearted story about people who genuinely care about each other, with lots of hugs and very funny songs.
My Boyfriend’s Girlfriend started as Jamie Price’s album Cover Me I’m Going In. What was it like to create this play from the album?
To clarify, some of the songs are from Cover Me I’m Going In, some are from an earlier EP called My Boyfriend’s Girlfriend, and some have never been recorded before. And the album and EP both include songs that are not in the musical.
I started out by picking and choosing songs I had written that have similar themes: songs about video games, songs about gender, songs about relationships and polyamory… and then I started coming up with a plot arc based on those themes, with help from my friend Carrie Day (also an Edmonton musician). We sketched out the course the story would take and inserted the songs into the scenes, and then I started writing the script. It turns out writing dialogue is a lot harder than writing songs, and I ended up co-writing the first draft with my mom, Anne Price (a retired communications instructor). We got together on Saturdays all last year and talked through everything, partly inspired by real life (eg. my feelings about gender being non-binary, and what it’s like to be misgendered), and partly completely fictional (eg. Sage feeling left behind when her boyfriend and his other girlfriend go on vacation). We managed to finish the first draft by November, in time to apply for this year’s Fringe!
What style of music do you perform in My Boyfriend’s Girlfriend?
I switch between playing a keyboard and a guitar on stage, and it’s generally pretty folky, though there are often heavy influences from Broadway and Disney musicals, as well as pop and a little jazz.
Who do you hope comes to My Boyfriend’s Girlfriend and what post-show conversations do you hope they have?
I hope some trans and non-binary people come to the show, and that they enjoy seeing a story about a happy trans guy in a loving relationship. I also hope some people come who are not already familiar with transgender stuff or polyamory. There is a strong message in the story about communication being extremely important in a relationship, and I hope it’s helpful to both monogamous and polyamorous audience members. And of course I also hope it makes people laugh, and that they remember the jokes with a smile!
The 35th Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival is August 11 – 21. Get your tickets at tickets.fringetheatre.ca.