New, locally produced sitcom celebrates family

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This article was published 14/04/2022 (1265 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TRANSCONA

A new web-based sitcom is out to show that the road less travelled is fertile ground for comedy.

On April 11, DJ Burnt Bannock premiered on APTN lumi. A joint production by APTN and Eagle Vision, the show was written and created by Darcy Waite.

“It was one of those ideas that just stuck around,” the Transcona resident, who also stars in the show, said leading up to the show’s premiere. “It’s a crazy wild sitcom about just the struggles that every family goes through, Brooklyn 99 or Parks & Rec, something you can take it easy and watch after a long day.”

“APTN lumi is proud to amplify the Indigenous stories and voices that spark meaningful conversations in our communities,” Lisa Ducharme, director of online content at APTN, said in a statement. “We are thrilled to add DJ Burnt Bannock to our lineup of APTN lumi originals to share with audiences across Canada.”

Waite, an accomplished director and producer, as well as a writer and actor, came up with the eponymous character in 2018 while playing the part of a DJ in the film Ruthless Souls, which he produced.

“I’m not musically inclined or know anything about DJing,” he said. “When I walked out, I tripped over a chair and broke it. The character just brought joy, you know?”

When an opportunity to pitch a sitcom came up in 2019, Waite dug into the character.

“I brought some of my personal experience trying to get into the arts,” Waite said. “I started in film about 18, 19 and I hadn’t been an arts person before. That’s kind of the same journey our main character Kevin goes through. So for this pitch, I wondered what his world looked like. I made it very personalized. Indigenous people from the city.”

The pitch didn’t quite make the cut, but APTN saw something in DJ Burnt Bannock, and encouraged Waite to continue working on the idea.

“I took it off the shelf during the pandemic and pitched it to Eagle Vision,” Waite said. “After that, we were super fortunate, and it got picked up.”

DJ Burnt Bannock follows Waite’s character, Kevin Cardinal, who is a struggling Cree DJ determined to chart his own path. But as most artists can attest, his journey will not be an easy one. The ensemble cast playing Kevin’s extended family, including local comedian Paul Rabliauskas, who plays Kevin’s brother Allan, and Joy Keeper, who plays Kevin’s Kookum, provide both support to the struggling DJ and storylines of their own.

“I wanted to know what an Indigenous family in the city, with some success, looks like,” Waite, who grew up in Alberta before moving to Winnipeg, said. “Kookum has a bannock burger business. Allan has a business degree, though it might be from the online University of Papua New Guinea, and Kevin, he went to a top music school in the country but kind of messed around and got kicked out.”

At heart, DJ Burnt Bannock is about the journeys people take to achieve their dreams.

“This is an Indigenous comedy, but it’s for everyone,” Waite said. “Everyone has a journey, and everyone comes to the point that the characters do, that one point where it’s like, keep going with it or put it to the side.”

To watch DJ Burnt Bannock, visit watchaptnlumi.ca or find it on the AppleTV app.