Izzy and The Naz, with Izzy Ferguson and Briane Nasimok, is two men taking turns telling stories. It’s like having a dinner conversation with two interesting friends, except you don’t say a word and just listen to them talk.
The stories loosely revolve around love, of people or pastimes, and are told with a gentle sense of self reflection that draws you in, knowing there’s nothing here that’s going to upset you.
An hour spent with these two is a perfect dessert to some of the more intense shows at this venue. Watching Monster and then going to this show would be a weirdly interesting double bill.
Izzy and Naz was a last-minute addition to the Fringe, and it would have been a shame if these two didn’t bring this show to Hamilton. Beyond this, there’s not much for a reviewer to say, except go and listen to these two men, you’ll feel better for it.
In Toronto Briane has performed as part of numerous International Storytelling Festivals and regularly appears at various local shows.
His three, one-person storytelling shows have played at Fringe Festivals across Canada .
During Covid he performed on-line in storytelling shows in Chicago, Boston, Ottawa, California and Mumbai and is a three-time winner of the Six Feet Apart Story Slam on-line completion out of California.
Briane has written for almost every genre. He got his start writing children’s theatre and continued to entertain the younger set when he moved to television creating scripts for Canadian “Sesame Park”, “Fred Penners’ Place”, “Max and Ruby”, and Rotten Ralph”.
For film, he wrote and directed “tricia”, a short film that played commercial with “Birth of a Nation”. He is a credited writer on the feature film“Spring Fever”
He co-wrote “Dead Air’, which played at the Charlottetown Festival, over twenty interactive scripts for the Grafton Street Dinner and Feast Dinner Theatre and three one-person shows.
Briane began producing while still in high school, taking charge of a group which he named 2nd Century Players. They performed children’s shows at Toronto’ Colonade Theatre for three years, as well as in public school.
He produces shows with Storytelling Toronto along with his monthly showcase Tales at the Tranzac, with co-producers Madeline Sedgewick and Andrew Wong through their company, ‘Tales Toronto’.
Briane offers three workshops, storytelling, improvisation and corporate team building.
He has created workshops for; the.Toronto Board of Education; Telus; Sheridan College; the Charlottetown Festival; Toronto High School Principal’s Association; Humber College and Tales Toronto.
He can create a special program for organizations’ need.