Venue Stories - Playhouse

Venue Stories is an open column which any Indyish member can contribute to by writing a story about a venue they’ve been in. Currently I’m working my way through stories of our first year’s worth of Indyish Monthly Mess shows which were all in Montreal…

Playhouse is like that bar in Buffy, (not the Bronze, which has it’s own Wikipedia entry btw, the other one… and ye gods please excuse my current state of addiction.) Inside the bar on Parc Ave, near St.Viateur, everything seems somehow potentially vampirious or demonesque. Turns out though, in business dealings they can be quite goodhearted if you’re fair and straight with them… and if you’re willing to do all Playhouse communications with the owner - Wax, member of Evil Boys From Hell - only after sundown…

Fun fact - I initially went in to check out Playhouse not for a Mess but for a potential Fringe venue (this was when it seemed the Festival might end up one venue short, as a result of cascading effects through the city from what was going on at Green Room, but anyway that’s a long story, and everything got sorted out fine in the end.) Suffice to say, Tessa and I checked out the space and met with the kind lady behind the bar. We introduced ourselves as being from Indyish, but looking into spaces for Fringe. To our surprise, she cringed and asked, are you Fringe or Infringe? And she made us promise we were with the Fringe before continuing the conversation.

Apparently they had had an unfortunate experience with the young and committedly rebellious Infringement festival - something to do with a group of performers arriving at Playhouse’s doorstep from the US, having been promised a show and a place to stay as part of Infringement. Since the people at Playhouse didn’t know anything about this, they could easily have turned the poor travelers away. But instead, according to our storyteller the sweet barmaid, Wax, with his quiet looming size and cowboy hat, put them up in a local hotel and gave them a show in his venue for free. Anyway, that’s a bit of gossip from behind the bar, so don’t take it as gospel (if you take gospel for all-fact, and I worry a bit for you if you do). Fact or fiction, this good Samaritan story left me with a strong first impression that the people in Montreal’s Playhouse venue were serious in their support of artists, with no tolerance for bs. Which definitely made me want to work with them.

When booking the Monthly Mess in Playhouse, Josh got the same vibe. He was told Playhouse would never charge artists to perform there, the sound technician would be provided, and free beers for the acts would be taken care of as far as possible, and indeed they were. (We got a couple pitchers for free, and then a cheap price on a few more. Not a bad deal at all - we book 8-15 acts per Mess usually, so it’s fair if the bar can’t afford to get everyone more then wet-whistled.)

The space is odd, but was kind of perfect for that Mess. The stage is central with mirrors behind and no wings. Most seating is to either sides of the stage, though there is narrow room right in front for some condensed moshing or, in our case, seated head bobs. The sound technician booth is almost directly facing the stage, and if all the tech we needed was provided, far as I remember. I definitely remember that the layout felt sprawling, relaxed, casual. The staff are helpful, and they don’t mind if you want to move stuff around to suit your needs.

The vibe onthe whole is honestly pretty hard and dark; grungy, with tinted windows and slot machines. But it’s got glints of gold, and style if you like irony. This place used to be a strip club and you can definitely feel it, and the slot machine regulars are like ghosts passing through the room, they barely notice you. But the layout and energy is perfectly suited to songs of urban heart break, raunchy burlesque, poetry and spoken word, hip hop, rock, metal with pedals, comedy, and gritty jazz not in spite, but because of the odd, dear darkness here.

Here’s an almost detail-free video from our Mess at the Playhouse…
at best, it gives a feeling, at worst seizures… but still!

Playhouse
5656 Parc, Montreal, QC