The one-woman play RiderGirl pays tribute to the greatest fans on the planet.
Born in Carlyle, and raised in Rosetown and Regina, Colleen Sutton bleeds green. She is a Saskatchewan Roughrider fan to her very bones and has found that the story of the Rider fan is an intoxicating subject.
RiderGirl is truly Sutton's baby, written by her, performed solely by her, and includes autobiographical material and real life people she has turned into characters for her show. Sutton is bringing RiderGirl to the Souris Valley Theatre with shows beginning this evening, and running each night until Aug. 4. A tailgate party outside Frehlick Hall will kick off each performance at 6:30 p.m.
She spoke with the Mercury from Hamilton last week, where she was performing RiderGirl at the Hamilton Fringe Festival before heading to Guelph to watch the Riders beat the Hamilton Tiger Cats 32-20 last Saturday.
Sutton noticed football fans and lovers of live theatre get excited for the same things: high stakes and down-to-the-wire drama. For her, it made sense to combine the two.
She goes to the Grey Cup every year and remembers in 2009 looking around at the other people in the stands and witnessing the strain, heartbreak and intensity of the fans in the stadium. She was filming some moments of the game to show people why she goes to the big game each year.
"I saw this drama, this incredible drama in the stands. Theatre audiences and football audiences - there's no difference - we go for the same reason," said Sutton. "We go to be carried away. We go to be taken up into a story, to be engaged, to care and to be in a different place in the end than we were in the beginning. Good theatre has to have high stakes and it doesn't get more high stakes, than when your boys are trying to hold off a field goal with five seconds to go that's going to win or lose the game."
She discovered RiderGirl because she wanted to write her own work, and when looking for a topic, the one thing she wanted to explore was Rider Nation.
"There's just something about our fanbase, our sense of community, that I admire and gives me strength. I find that there's a curiosity about us, even by those who don't watch football," said Sutton, who said she also wanted to portray Rider Nation as an homage to the fans.
"The reason they speak to me is that despite the worst record in the CFL for Grey Cup wins, we have the strongest, the largest, the most fervent, the most passionate, the most dedicated fans, arguably, in the world."
In just over 100 years, the Roughriders have only managed three championships in a league with fewer than 10 teams. That could also make Rider fans the most masochistic in the world, but Sutton said through good and bad, the fans will always love their team.
"It just shows that you don't have to be a winner to be in our hearts. (The fans) expect a lot, but I think that's the best kind of love, people who expect the best from you and push you to give your best. That's love in itself."
Sutton approached the subject of her favourite sports team by looking at how they have shaped her life.
"For me, I had to really go at it from a personal angle because of how at times, when I don't think anybody else in my life could have picked me up, the Riders would win a game. I remember in 2007, (the Riders Grey Cup win) couldn't have come along at a better time in my life. It gave me this sense of will and drive and unstaggering belief and conviction that if I stick to it, if I stick to what I want, which is acting, that it can happen. I just have to keep the faith and keep working."
RiderGirl covers the beginning of Sutton's love of the Riders, when she became a fan in 1993, up until 2009, with the team's fourth quarter collapse in the Grey Cup.
She started performing RiderGirl last summer and said there's always something special about bringing her passion project to the Prairies.
"It's like my brethren, you know. Performing in Regina last year, it was something else to look out at the house and see that sea of green. They didn't need the lyrics to Green is the Colour, they knew the lyrics to Green is the Colour. They just belt it out."
Sutton points out that while Rider fans have a particular connection to her show, it isn't just for Rider Nation, and it isn't just for football fans. She has had audience members approach her and tell her they aren't football fans, but really connected with the character and the passion Rider fans have for their team.
With the Grey Cup coming to Regina in November, Sutton will be performing in Regina in the days leading up to the championship game. With the Roughriders off to a hot 5-0 start to the 2013 season, Sutton is part of a Rider Nation that is abuzz with pride and expectation.
"What I'm loving the most about these boys is that I've never found it to be a cocky team. They are playing hard until the end. They're playing like every play counts. They never let up, and that's the way the game should be played," said Sutton on her early critique of the team. "If they keep this up I'm almost afraid to say it."
The "it" she was referring to, however, is certainly in the back of every Rider fan's mind: A storybook season with a fairytale ending.
RiderGirl runs to Aug. 4, and theatergoers are invited to wear their CFL colours to each show.
