Funny Girl: Cassie Barradas

Posted by admin on Apr 13, 2010 in Featured Articles | 1 comment

With the last 11:07 show of the year set to go this Friday, Cassie Barradas recants on her time on stage with a bittersweet oulook to me as we sit in the Lower Caf. A relative newcomer to 11:07, Barradas is, on many nights, the funniest cast member of the improv troup. Her dry and soft comments, mixed with the appropriate outburst of physical comedy made her one of the chief reasons to watch 11:07 this year.
Barradas, a fifth-year, did not get involved until her fourth year, long after the idea had first been presented to her.

“Will Graham, a former improv-er planted the idea in my head in first-year, but I was too chicken until fourth-year to do anything,” explains Barradas as she weaves through an array of odd posture movements that are as natural as breathing for her. With her Toms planted firmly on the booth she’s sitting on, Barradas explains to me how improv went from an idea to a reality. “I slept over at Kyla [Ferrier’s], and went to a workshop with her – that got me hooked.” The strange posture, she explains, comes from years spent reading in strange positions, which have left her back permantly crooked.

For Barradas, she wasn’t sure at first if she was right for 11:07. “I was used sparingly my first year. Last year, I was only in two shows, and one was the final show with like 23 people,” explains Barradas. After contemplating whether or not to return to the stage this year, she received some encouragement from 11:07 coordinator Julia Church. “After last year I was really discouraged, but Julia told me to come back and encouraged me, and this year has been a great experience.”

While 11:07 will surely miss Barradas next year, she’ll miss the improv as well, which is tailor made for the Langley native. “I enjoy not knowing what I’m going to say next, but knowing that I’m going to have something to say and that it will be funny. I’m also quite compulsive, but maybe that’s because I can’t read social cues very well,” Barradas explains mildly.

Barradas, who’ll be married this spring and then must finish her Education practicum to graduate, isn’t sure why she’s so funny and few other girls can pull it off.

“For guys, they have to be funny for procreation – women rarely want a guy that isn’t funny. For me, I’m not sure where it came from. People have even told me, ‘you’re so funny, you’re not even like a woman.’ ”

Whatever it is, it has worked and given anyone the pleasure of seeing her in 11:07 a barrell of laughs. Whomever follows her onto the stage next year, will have some pretty big Toms to fill.

- John Hennenfent