To be filmed in front of a live studio audience at Halifax’s Bus Stop Theatre, the live theatre/sitcom hybrid The Crevice returns for a second season.
I had always thought about how thankful I was to comedy series for being present and dependable for isolated people. That’s why it became a sitcom about people who need sitcoms. – The Crevice creator Rebecca Falvey
“It’s about two best friends in their mid-twenties, and their relationship with their single mothers,” series creator Rebecca Falvey explains.
“It specifically looks at how the daughters are concerned about their mother’s well-being in terms of depression and poverty and how that upbringing affects them; their similarities, their differences and the different ways they approach the world.”
Beginning life as a full-scale theatrical play, turning it into a series was never far from Falvey and the production team’s mind.
“We received a grant to do it as a full production, but when COVID happened, our producer and director Meg Hubley reconfigured the budget to turn it into a live-streamed mini-series, which worked out well because sitcoms always inspired it,” says Falvey.
It was a genre that Falvey saw as helping the lonely and isolated, a problem enhanced by pandemic restrictions.
“I had always thought about how thankful I was to comedy series for being present and dependable for isolated people,” she says. “That’s why it became a sitcom about people who need sitcoms.”
Turning it into a web series has allowed Falvey and the team to continue paying homage to the sitcom genre and to reach a wider audience. “It is still a live show, but by live streaming it, we’re able to reach more people,” she says.
Because it is filmed live, the version the in-studio audience sees is what viewers will see online.
“A lot of people didn’t believe that when it was happening the first time because it looked edited, but that’s just camera rehearsals,” says Falvey. “A few scenes are pre-recorded because of people’s availability, but most are filmed live.”
For audiences who have followed the exploits of the characters Falvey created in the first season, she says the world they inhabit will expand in season two. “There’s more characters, more locations, and you get to meet characters you’ve only heard about in the first season,” she says.
This will not be the last audiences will see of the characters in The Crevice, as Falvey says there are plans for even more episodes. “We have two more episodes coming in October, and I have more planned after that,” she says.
While the season two live tapings are currently sold-out, there are still opportunities for audiences to join them for rehearsals. And, of course, there is always the live-stream version.
“One of the best responses I heard about the first season was somebody saying that they felt like the episodes were looking at things they had never seen represented before,” says Falvey. “Plus it’s funny.”
The Crevice tapes live before a studio audience and live-streamed from the Bus Stop Theatre in Halifax on March 10, 17 & 24. Visit crevice.ca for more information.