Big Time Toppers

by Patrick Vermillion

After a new juggling trick goes horrifically awry, aspiring professional clowns Harlow and Stubs must find a way to treat the severe wounds they’ve accidentally inflicted on each other before the most important audition of their fledgling careers. A farcical comedy about making that money no matter what it takes! Even if there's a tornado.

After a new juggling trick goes horrifically awry, aspiring professional clowns Harlow and Stubs must find a way to treat the severe wounds they’ve accidentally inflicted on each other before the most important audition of their fledgling careers. A farcical comedy about making that money no matter what it takes! Even if there's a tornado.

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Big Time Toppers

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  • Christian Flynn: Big Time Toppers

    Ay - YO!!! This play MOVES! Its 175 pages long and I read it in one sitting??? It's hilarious, painful, and suspenseful in a way only a Vermillion play can be — but this one's extra special due to 1. the circus aesthetic, 2. the very real and (likely) personal dilemma of an artist approaching their thirties, and 3. HARLOWWW. Patrick's written a lot of great flawed protagonists, but this slimey fucker tops them all. Endlessly loveable, hateable, and intoxicating, Harlow is a vortex of ambition -- something simultaneously gorgeous and hideous when morphed under capitalism... lemme audition for...

    Ay - YO!!! This play MOVES! Its 175 pages long and I read it in one sitting??? It's hilarious, painful, and suspenseful in a way only a Vermillion play can be — but this one's extra special due to 1. the circus aesthetic, 2. the very real and (likely) personal dilemma of an artist approaching their thirties, and 3. HARLOWWW. Patrick's written a lot of great flawed protagonists, but this slimey fucker tops them all. Endlessly loveable, hateable, and intoxicating, Harlow is a vortex of ambition -- something simultaneously gorgeous and hideous when morphed under capitalism... lemme audition for 'em?

  • Theatre L'Acadie: Big Time Toppers

    Big Time Toppers is a non-stop emotional rollercoaster that NEEDS to be seen and heard. It's so incredibly relevant and heart-wrenching while also keeping you laughing the whole way through. Patrick beautifully blends magic and logic in this fast-paced dark farce.

    Big Time Toppers is a non-stop emotional rollercoaster that NEEDS to be seen and heard. It's so incredibly relevant and heart-wrenching while also keeping you laughing the whole way through. Patrick beautifully blends magic and logic in this fast-paced dark farce.

  • Skyler Tarnas: Big Time Toppers

    This play is laugh-out-loud funny and head-in-hands horrifying (a perfect combo). Patrick proposes a hard-to-hear thesis - that the worlds of work and art are equally destructive and illogical - through a farce rich with layers and constant escalation. Can doing what you love sustain you? Perhaps, but it can destroy everything and everyone else. The system, of course, is always at fault, but we have choices for how we operate within it, and this glorious cast of characters shows a whole over-the-top spectrum of doom and hope.

    This play is laugh-out-loud funny and head-in-hands horrifying (a perfect combo). Patrick proposes a hard-to-hear thesis - that the worlds of work and art are equally destructive and illogical - through a farce rich with layers and constant escalation. Can doing what you love sustain you? Perhaps, but it can destroy everything and everyone else. The system, of course, is always at fault, but we have choices for how we operate within it, and this glorious cast of characters shows a whole over-the-top spectrum of doom and hope.

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