Finding community and laughter in Camille Pavlenko’s play Go for Gold, Audrey Pham
By Hannah Caparino, February 24 2025—
Lunchbox Theatre’s third show in the 2024-2025 season is Camille Pavlenko’s Go for Gold, Audrey Pham, a witty comedy that focuses on Audrey Pham’s journey towards performing in the Ski Ballet event in the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. The cast includes Ali DeRegt as Audrey Pham and Kira Bradley as Birchwoman in a story about pursuing dreams and making unlikely friendships.
Lunchbox Theatre’s Artistic Director and Director of the play, Bronwyn Steinberg spoke about working with Camille Pavlenko, the process of staging the play and the driving themes of the show.
Steinberg introduced the theme of the 2024-2025 season, and how the show fits within Lunchbox Theatre’s goals.
“All the shows have a sense of looking back at a different moment in history, but also finding those special connections between people … One of our themes is looking back, coming together, and moving forward,” said Steinberg.
Steinberg spoke on working with Camille Pavlenko and developing the show from various workshops and festivals.
“Camille Pavlenko is the playwright of this lovely piece and we first developed it at Lunchbox in our Stage One Festival,” Steinberg said. “Ever since then it’s kind of been to the side waiting for the right moment for this play to have a chance to be on our stage. And I’m just a big fan of Camille … so I’ve been wanting to work with her for a while.”
The setting of the play takes place during the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, and Steinberg explored how audiences each have a different experience with the Olympics. Audiences and volunteers bring their own memories to the show and share how the 1988 Olympics have shaped Calgary’s identity and its place from a global standpoint.
The staging of the show saw the close collaboration between Steinberg and Pavlenko, sharing ideas about the design, casting and more. A particular challenge that Steinberg came across was tackling the obstacle that is presenting the demonstrative sport, ski ballet, on stage.
“We just get to play and see what happens if we take all those ideas and start running with it. The biggest challenge of the play was of course actually doing the ski ballet,” said Steinberg. “It’s really a sort of fun theatrical magic trick, how we actually show the ski ballet on stage.”
One aspect of the show that Steinberg emphasized with pride and gratitude was that the team behind the production was made up of all women; she explained how it reflected the show’s themes of friendship and coming together.
“The whole artistic team was amazing and we were all women which is a really fun to do a play that’s about these two women and across generations making friends. But to have a team where the playwright, the director, all the designers, stage managers and the actors are all women, we just had a really good time and everybody was really collaborative.”
Steinberg also commented on the talent of Ali DeRegt and Kira Bradley, exploring their chemistry and ability to work with Pavlenko’s text to bring the comedy and quirkiness to the stage. Both actors had an immediate understanding of the characters, embodying their energy and mannerisms. The process of bringing the written dialogue to the stage required lots of workshopping to ensure that the comedic beats hit at every moment.
“It’s a tricky thing because writing is often something that you do home alone … but theatre is something you can only do with people,” said Steinberg. “So Ali and Kira had a really good sense of who these characters were and they’re also really funny, and Camille’s script is really funny so they bring their incredible sense of comedic timing [and] their understanding of what’s funny.”
Steinberg urged people to see the show due to its light hearted nature to alleviate viewers, as well as showcase a play centered around Calgary.
“There’s a lot of scary, sad and depressing stuff in the news and this play is a chance to come and be with a bunch of people and just laugh and have a good time. Which I think is so important, but not only is it super funny and a fun time at the theatre, but like I said it’s kind of about Calgary,” she said.
The show will complete its run on Feb. 16. For tickets and information about Lunchbox Theatre’s 2024-2025 season, click here.