Beholden Productions Profiled in the Montreal Gazette

Hard-up Fringe acts inspired when it comes to marketing (Excerpt)

Published:Sunday, June 10, 2007

"I do know attention-grabbing publicity when it crosses my desk."

BILL BROWNSTEIN, The Gazette

One Night in Berlin Press Package (Front)Beholden Productions, the other co-winner of the Fringe Promo Contest, went relatively whole-hog with a $150 advertising budget. But talk about inspiration. To promote her neo-noir thriller One Night in Berlin, writer-director-producer Liesl Barrell opted for a clever mix of the macabre and the kinky. In an actual police-evidence bag, she enclosed real, spent bullet shells, bloodied cigarettes and lurid black-and-white-and-red photos of various human couplings.Piece of Berlin Wall Teaser (Closed)

"Have we got your attention so far?" inquires Barrell, a South African native with Teutonic roots now living in Montreal.

You bet.

"The play is even more titillating than the marketing," she pledges. "I wrote it at a time when I was unemployed, despaired and disillusioned, and I think it shows that quite vividly."

While talking to Barrell, I hear gunshots in the background. "Don't be alarmed - we're rehearsing," she explains. "I want people to know that no actors were hurt in the making of this play. Okay, one of the actresses did suffer a little handcuff burn, but we are assured she'll be just fine soon."

One Night in Berlin Press Package (Back)The marketing clearly continues. Barrell also followed up the initial press pack with another, this one containing a chunk of concrete in a clear display case, held together by yellow crime-scene cop-tape. Written on the concrete: "One Night in Berlin!"Piece of Berlin Wall Teaser (Open)

It is with both considerable anticipation as well as dread that I look forward to see what Barrell's fevered promotional ravings produce next.

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For more of Liesl Barrell's ravings, check out Beholden's Publicity & Promotion Galleries.