Fandoms Unite!

geekologymag
Dec 4, 2014
3 min read

By Hassan Mohamud

The crowd at this year’s Unplugged Expo roared with laughter as Tyler Mann, dressed up as Sora from the Kingdom Hearts video game series. He poked fun at the audience with hilariously timed punch lines, one of which involves asking a question and then disregarding the spectators’ responses by simply going off to ‘find’ the answer.

Fast forward almost a month later, Mann met up with fellow members of the Toronto based comedy/musical troupe at York University’s Keele Campus for their second-last Thursday rehearsal before the premiere of their new show Frost Bite, appearing at this year’s ConBravo: Fanfare Geek Fest II on Nov. 8.

“I was always interested in theatrical related stuff at conventions,” he said. “The first year at ConBravo, I decided to sum up the entire story line of the Kingdom Hearts video game series in six minutes as a masquerade sketch with some colleagues and it went over really well with the audience of the convention.”

Mann, 23, explained that following the success of their sketches dedicated to the early 2000-era video games, he had pitched an abridged/fun-poking musical version to his fellow Fandom Musicals co-founder Tarif Khondker, only to be met with skepticism.

“I suggested doing a musical version of our original sketches and it was met with uncertainty,” he said.

Khondker, 24, acknowledges the doubtful reception to Mann’s proposition, but notes his immediate change in outlook upon seeing the work in progress.

“Tyler had approached me and a couple others and put it out there that we should do a musical,” he said. “Sure, there were a lot of mixed results in terms of our reaction to the suggestion, but Tyler came back to me six months later and pulls out a draft for half of a script and 18 songs written and rough-recorded.”

Mann talked about how the finished product, aptly titled Fandom Hearts, was crowd-funded through the Indiegogo website in order to raise money for costumes, props, sets and the recording of the soundtrack during the production phase before their audience-winning performance at ConBravo 2013.

Christian Teatro, who was initially brought in to help put together Fandom Hearts, is now the director for this year’s Frost Bite show.

He recounts the thinking process that eventually led to basing the performance around one of pop culture’s most well-known genres.

“Right after Fandom Hearts, we were in a hotel room talking about what we should write next,” he said. “I kind of put out the idea for us to do zombies and everybody else was instantly behind it. I took about a whole year to eventually finalize the script.”

Teatro, 22, echoed the shared sentiment of great teamwork among his group mates. He points out that although Fandom Musicals functions through one individual writing a script for a proposed show, everybody else chips in with their own ideas and suggestions.

“In rehearsal I could literally disregard a line that I had written and instead go with something that one of the cast members said offhandedly,” he said.

Mann, Khondker and Teatro are self-professed fans of comedy, video games and anime. Their interests vary from Kingdom Hearts to the Legend of Zelda video game series and the old-school Spongebob Squarepants show. Teatro also has a background in improv comedy, having belonged to a troupe that Mann was also a member of for eight years.

According to Mann, the amount of fan reactions to his work in Fandom Musicals has been a very humbling experience. He was even recognized by a fan at his day job.

“Somebody recognized me at work, which was pretty fascinating,” he said. “I was just interacting with someone at my workplace and the person suddenly asked, ‘Were you Sora (the main character from Kingdom Hearts video games) in Fandom Hearts?’”

The three look back on how challenging it was for them in the beginning to put the Fandom Musicals group together, stick to schedules, find the right management and hold auditions, all while juggling their personal lives. They repeatedly mention what a great learning experience it has been.

“My experience in Fandom Musicals has taught me to…I’m going to quote Walt Disney, ‘keep moving forward,’” Mann said. “My mother got sick before I finished the script for what would become Fandom Musicals and passed away right before the auditions. It made me want to go through with this more than ever.”