Where did Bean & Hat come from?

The story behind the story

What’s the story behind the show? Who ARE Bean and Hat? When was it written and what has the journey been like up until now?

I get these questions every day. Everyone wants to know who the famous Bean and Hat are and how they were born. I joke. I tease. Nobody has asked me these questions. Well, maybe a couple of people… but I thought it would be a nice thing to write about, to invite you into the world of Bean & Hat. There is certainly a history there, and this show has been a long time coming in a way, but then also feels like it’s just begun!

I will attempt to paint a picture of how I started thinking about writing Bean & Hat, and what the process has been up until now. I’ve been reflecting on this journey as I work on the show. We start rehearsals in one week and once that happens, it will be full speed ahead until the production opens and Bean and Hat are properly introduced to the WORLD. Well, to Vancouver at least.

A bit about me. I feel it’s kind of needed to begin talking about where this show came from. My name is Katie Gartlan-Close and I am the playwright and co-producer of Bean & Hat. I studied Theatre and Communications at Simon Fraser University, and it is there that I was introduced to Clowning! I absolutely loved it, and finally felt like I’d found a world in performance where I could thrive. I’m not saying I was great at it or anything, it just felt FUN and exciting and scary and a place where I could bring myself and my weirdness into the work. There were two forms of clowning courses, one which followed the European style of clowning from the teachings of Jacques Lecoq by the lovely Steven Hill. The other followed the Canadian style of clowning from the teachings of Richard Pochinko, and was taught at SFU by Lisa Voth (and previously by David Macmurray Smith). They were very different, which I could go into another time, but I enjoyed both of them. In school, I also took a playwriting Directed Study with Cole Lewis, where I was able to explore my love of writing and realized that playwriting was a path I wanted to continue on.

After graduating, I was interested in both playwriting and clowning and wanted to develop my skills and practices in these areas. I took a clowning intensive, called Deep Clown, with David Macmurray Smith. It may sound funny, deep clown, but we really did have to go deep. We laughed, cried, laughed, cried again, and created strong friendships with the other clowns in the class. I remember on the first day, we were sitting introducing ourselves and what we were curious about/wanted to get out of the class and I spoke about wanting to combine playwriting and clowning, and figure out what that looked like. That’s still something I’m curious about today! But this was the first spark of Bean & Hat. They were not yet born, but maybe they were already crawling around somewhere in my brain.

After deep clown, I was sitting one day and trying to write. WRITE. A. PLAY. Write a play. Okay, yeah. Sure. I can do that… Can I do that? Maybe I’ll just take the pressure away for a bit and try a warm up. Just write whatever comes to me… This silly scene spilled out. I don’t know how to describe it, except to say it really did feel like it spilled out of me. It was a fast process. There was no editing, no staring at a blank screen, just a flowing of dialogue and actions spilling out onto the page. I immediately assigned “names” to these two characters – they were Bean and Hat person. Yes, Hat person. Because of the hats. You’ll see soon. I’m not sure why I thought Bean, but I did. Within probably less than ten minutes, I had poured out this first ever scene of Bean & Hat. Here are the first stage directions and few lines.

An empty room, except for a large plant-taller than your average human. A window. A red chair. Silence. Then whistling, coming from outside the window. You see fingers extend above the window. They fold over the ledge. Then you see the top of a hat. The fingers take off the hat and throw it into the room. Another hat appears. It gets thrown into the room. This continues until the room is littered with maybe half a dozen hats. The hands pull up to reveal a face, of an average looking person. They look serious. They climb through the window. They sit on the chair. They wait.

A knock. It is quiet. Then, without waiting for a response the door opens to reveal another person. Let’s call them Bean.

Bean: Hello. I’m here.

Hat person: So you are.

Bean: How long have you been waiting?

Hat person: An hour. Two hours. Not too long.  

Bean: Oh no. I came as fast as I could, as soon as I heard the news.

This would have likely been back in 2018.

Then, we are in 2019 and I apply to the Pull Festival’s 10-minute play fest, which Bean & Hat. Since that first scene, I have written a bunch of little scenes with these characters. I string together my favourites and create a short show. For the Pull Festival, the show is directed by Davey Calderon. He also went to SFU with me, and was in the Deep Clown course with me. He is also currently directing the production of Bean & Hat! The part of Bean was played by the hilarious and talented Eddy Van Wyk and Hat was played by the superb and surprisingly Southern Geneva Perkins, who I am so grateful to say is still our Hat today.

The show was great. Davey did a phenomenal job directing, and Eddy & Geneva were this dynamic duo that played so well together and made everyone laugh. We received positive feedback, and there was talk about expanding the show to bring it to the Fringe Festival in the future.

Then… years passed. I applied, got in, and went to study playwriting in Edinburgh, Scotland at the University of Edinburgh. That was 2020-2021. I moved abroad and wrote three plays in the span of one year. I learned so much about playwriting, thanks to the honest, kind, and talented guidance of my mentor Nicola McCartney, who runs the playwriting program. I became a better playwright.

Then… well we all know what happened. It starts with a C and rhymes with grovid. I know grovid’s not a word, but I don’t think there’s anything else that rhymes with it. I came home early, finished my Masters from home. I picked up Bean & Hat again in 2021 and applied for a Canada Council Grant to workshop the script into a full-length play. Then I spent the fall of 2021 and spring of 2022 workshopping with Anjela Magpantay as Bean, Geneva Perkins as Hat, and with my Dramaturg, Eveleen Kozak. I built the show up from ten minutes to seventy minutes. We did a staged reading in May of 2022. I then applied for the next Canada Council Grant, to produce the show and with big huge thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts, was successful. So I gathered a team and away we went.

We are now producing the WORLD PREMIERE of Bean & Hat. I am producing for the first time, which is quite a learning experience. Thankfully, I am also co-producing with the fabulous Olivia Etey, so I have assistance and help along the way. Davey Calderon is directing the show, my dear friend and long-time collaborator, Carmine Santavenere, is designing the costumes, props, and set for the show, and we have an unbelievable creative team to help make this dream a reality.

I really do think that Theatre is all about a bunch of creative minds and bodies coming together to work towards one goal, one show, and it is both a challenge and a dream. Mostly though, I am finding it to be such a dream. There are so many talented, kind, cool artists out there and I get the absolute privilege of having them put their time and creative energy into a show I wrote. I am so excited to see what Bean & Hat becomes with their visions. This show, this experience feels like it’s not real sometimes.

Huge thank you to the whole team and to everyone who has supported the show up until now, helped us to get here, and will be coming out to see the show in April! I appreciate each and every one of you and can’t wait to share Bean & Hat with the WORLD! Well, with Vancouver at least.

*Graphics by Thomas Newton, with original illustrations by Carmine Santavenere