About the Play:

Legoland is a full-length drama by Jacob Richmond. Wildly inventive and darkly funny, this coming-of-age tale chronicles the misadventures of two precocious teens on their odyssey from a hippie-commune to the big city world they call "Legoland." Acclaimed at fringe festivals across North America, this offbeat comedy is a contemporary vaudeville routine, complete with ukulele, puppets and gangster rap.

Legoland tells the story of Penny and Ezra Lamb who have been home-schooled by their parents on a hippie colony near Uranium City until the police discover it also happens to be the largest marijuana grow-op in Saskatchewan. "Legoland" is how their pot-smoking elders always described the outside world, and the Lamb siblings are dying to get there. Once the commune is busted and their parents are sent to prison, sixteen-year-old Penny and her younger brother Ezra, each seething cauldrons of repression, are enrolled in a Catholic private school, where they are instant social outcasts. Penny, ostracized for being a weird "lesbo" (she's not gay), is vulnerably but brilliantly depressive until a classmate gives her a copy of boy band Seven Up's CD and she becomes obsessed with singer Johnny Moon. The self-absorbed Ezra, fixated on German nihilism, plays with his Jeffrey Dahmer puppet, wears white stockings and pops a mind-altering combination of Ritalin and Dexedrine to combat his ADHD. When Seven Up breaks up, Johnny Moon remakes himself as a misogynistic gangsta rapper. Penny, heartbroken but determined to save him and bring back the "real" Johnny Moon, persuades Ezra to accompany her on a pilgrimage down to Orlando to confront her idol. The Lamb siblings run away from school on a bus tour of the Wal-Marts and McDonald's of the continent, financing their trip by selling the Paxil and Ritalin they've been prescribed. Arrested and deported for assault after their hilarious encounter with her pop icon, Penny has been ordered to give public service speeches to atone for attacking a celebrity. Dressed in a private school uniform and under the supervision of her social worker in order to avoid doing community service, Penny delivers her hyperactive sermon on juvenile delinquency, including a description of sex as "the Devil's Pilates," punctuated with the scattergun codas of her deadpan brother.

Legoland premiered in 2006 at SummerWorks Festival in Toronto and has been performed in Vancouver, Victoria, New York, Bellingham, Seattle and L.A. The play has won numerous awards across Canada, including: The Contra Guys Award for Best New Play at Toronto's SummerWorks Festival; Pick of the Fringe at the Vancouver Fringe Festival; Critic's Choice Award for Best Fringe Production in Victoria; and Festival Favorite Award at the New York Frigid Festival.

Cast: 1 female, 1 male

What people say:

"In its scattershot and scatological approach to satire, and the way it uses children to highlight the absurdities of North American culture, Legoland is like a variety show version of South Park." — Globe & Mail

"Satirical, scatological and sharp as a razor, Legoland is a savvy little play that is part cabaret, part confessional and all theatrical entertainment." — Toronto Star

"The very best kind of festival theater." — New York Frigid Festival

"Jacob Richmond's comedy Legoland is a sort of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas for teenagers… the braininess and original touches in Richmond's script... This is top-drawer theatre: sharp, crisp and bristling with naughty ideas." — Victoria Times-Colonist

"[Richmond's] irreverent writing is clever enough that it amuses and solid enough that it can support an ultimately reverential, wonderful closing statement." — nytheatre.com

"Legoland is one of this Fringe’s must-see events." Vancouver Sun

"…hilariously dark… wildly original…." Georgia Straight

"This play by Jacob Richmond manages to be satiric, whimsical, and provocative all at the same time. It is also very amusing." — Classical 96.3 FM, Toronto

About the Playwright:

Jacob Richmond studied acting and playwriting at Concordia University in Montréal and at the University of Victoria. He received the Montréal English Critic's Circle Award and was nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award. He has also written pieces for CBC Radio as well as for film and television. Having worked as a writer and performer at numerous cabarets in Montréal, he was inspired to collaborate with director Britt Small to create Atomic Vaudeville, a monthly award-winning cabaret in Victoria, British Columbia, where he now resides.