Smarty Pants

What if You Could Control Your Home with Your Underpants?

When artistic director Thom Currie planned Magnus Theatre’s 2021/2022 season, he was keen for a good comedy. “I wanted to let people come to the theatre and laugh again,” he says. “Have a good physical laugh!”

Magnus’s show in May,

Smarty Pants, is bound to do that. It’s a romantic comedy about a middle-aged divorced couple who discover that their divorce may have been a mistake. The husband, Rob, is a tech entrepreneur who made millions from wearable tech—smart underwear, in fact.

Smarty Pants is the second play by playwrights Stephen Sparks (a.k.a. Sparky) and Shelley Hoffman. Their first, Buying the Farm, was produced at Magnus Theatre in 2019, and has since become successful all over Canada. “Both Sparky and Shelley have had a great relationship with Magnus Theatre,” Currie says. The married couple first met in 1998 when they were both actors on the stage at Magnus.

Currie, who is directing

Smarty Pants, is excited that the world premiere of Smarty Pants is taking place in his theatre. “It’s fun to be on the ground floor, when you see a play and you’re part of developing a play,” he says.

He convinced Sparks to take the role of the male protagonist. “That’s going to be a fascinating process, having the author in the room, speaking his own words,” Currie says. “We have the agency in the moment, to make changes, or make alterations to the script as we go, which you normally can’t do with a published play.” The female lead will be played by local actor Amy Sellors. “They actually wrote the play for Amy Sellors,” Currie says, ”Amy and Sparky have worked together many times all over the country.”

“It’s cool, at the end of COVID, to be able to pull together people that have a good working relationship. We’re going to make this into a very, very strong production, to cap off what’s been a very difficult season here at Magnus,” he adds.

There will be 20 shows from May 5 to May 21, and the theatre is open at 50% capacity. There will also be a pay-what-you-can-show May 8.

“It’s fun to be on the ground floor, when you see a play and you’re part of developing a play.”