Events

One Acts Festival

Thursday, February 20, 2014 | By Brock University

Break-a-leg! to the student directors, cast and crew, faculty and staff who are opening the One Acts Festival TODAY!

Every year as the final assignment for the Third Year Directing class each student choses a one act play to produce for the One Act Festival. This year’s One Acts Festival is approaching and the dates are as follow:

Friday March 21st: Group A starting at 2pm Group B at 7pm
Saturday March 22nd: Group B starting at 2pm & Group A at 7pm.

Group A’s shows are:
The Feast
Overtones
Hide & Seek
Fourteen

Group B’s shows are:
Tales of the Grotesque
Don Juan in Chicago
Playwriting 101
Rat Snake

When: March 21 & 22, 2014 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.
Location: ST 107 “Studio Theatre” and ST 103 “Black”
Admission: Donations Accepted
Contact: dramatic@brocku.ca or 905-988-5550 x 5255

Come out and support the 3rd year directors and all the students involved this year! Seating is limited, so please show up early to get your seats! See the FB events page here.

Tags: One Acts, One Acts Festival
Categories: Events, Plays
Join us for the special two-day colloquium ‘The Changing Face of Theatre Criticism in the Digital Age,’ beginning February 21, 2014.

Wednesday, February 19, 2014 | By mbalsom

In photo: Jill Dolan

Listening to theatre companies, they’ve never needed theatre critics more. Listening to them after a bad review, they’ve also never resented them more. This strange dance of mutual need has been going on since the first time someone recited dialogue on stage, and someone in the next day’s paper wrote “it doth sucked, verily.” But what of that relationship today? Do critics matter? Can anyone with a blog call themselves a theatre critic? Are critics there to serve theatre companies or readers? (John Law)

See the complete article by John Law in the Niagara Falls Review about his upcoming participation in the two-day colloquium ‘The Changing Face of Theatre Criticism in the Digital Age‘ organized by Professor Karen Fricker of the Department of Dramatic Arts on the occasion of the special visit by Jill Dolan, Annan Professor in English, Professor of Theater in the Lewis Center for the Arts, Director, Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies, at Princeton University, noted theatre blogger (thefeministspectator.com) and a Walker Cultural Leader for 2013-14. Special guests J. Kelly Nestruck of The Globe and Mail and Richard Ouzounian of the Toronto Star will join local guests and luminaries including cultural leaders like Jackie Maxwell, artistic director of the Shaw Festival, and Steve Solski, director of the St. Catharines Centre for the Performing Arts.

The two day program begins this Friday morning with the public lecture, “Moving the Body Politic: How Feminism and Theatre Inspire Social Re-imaginings” by Professor Jill Dolan. The lecture is presented in association with the Department of Dramatic Arts and the Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies.

For a complete list of participants and more information please see the Brock News Article, the Department of Dramatic Arts and the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts web pages.

Come join us! There is no charge to attend and engage in what will surely be a remarkable exchange of ideas and opinions in this “blossoming” cultural scene of Niagara (Professor Karen Fricker).

All events will be live-streamed at BrockVideoCentre’s DART channel [Click on the “live video” button on that page.]

Tags: colloquium, guest speakers, J. Kelly Nestruck, Jackie Maxwell, Jill Dolan, John Law, Karen Fricker, Richard Ouzounian, Steve Solski, Walker Cultural Leader Series
Categories: Announcements, Events, News
Brock community event looks at theatre criticism in the digital age

Monday, February 10, 2014 | By Brock University
(Source: The Brock News, Monday, February 10, 2014)

An upcoming series of community discussions at Brock University later this month will debate the question: is everyone a critic?

Media professionals, theatre experts, scholars and students will assemble in Sankey Chamber at Brock Feb. 21 and Feb. 22 to take part in the colloquium, The Changing Face of Theatre Criticism in the Digital Age, hosted by the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts.

“The rise of blogging and Twitter, combined with the decline of print journalism, is raising important questions about what counts as legitimate, professional criticism,” says Karen Fricker, event co-ordinator and a professor of dramatic arts. “Our discussions will focus on the current critical scene in Niagara, as well as imagining possible futures for the arts in our community.”

Panel members include two of Toronto’s most influential theatre critics: J. Kelly Nestruck of The Globe and Mail and Richard Ouzounian of the Toronto Star. Others include local figures like Jackie Maxwell, artistic director of the Shaw Festival, and Steve Solski, director of the St. Catharines Centre for the Performing Arts.

The colloquium will also feature international critics: Jill Dolan, Princeton University professor and noted theatre blogger (thefeministspectator.com); Maddy Costa, a London, England blogger and journalist; and Andy Horwitz, founder of New York arts blog culturebot.net

Dolan is visiting Brock as part of the Walker Cultural Leaders series. While here, she will deliver a public lecture, “Moving the Body Politic: How Feminism and Theatre Inspire Social Re-imaginings.” Her lecture, co-sponsored by the Department of Dramatic Arts and Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies at Brock, takes place Friday, Feb. 21, from 10 a.m. to 12 noon, also in Sankey Chamber.

All of these events are free and open to the public.

Funding for these events is provided by the Walker Cultural Leaders Series, the Brock Humanities Research Institute and the SSHRC Institutional Grant scheme, and the St. Catharines Performing Arts Centre.

All events will be live-streamed. [Click on “live video”]

—

SCHEDULE: The Changing Face of Theatre Criticism in the Digital Age

All events take place in Sankey Chamber at Brock University

FRIDAY, FEB. 21:

* 2 – 2:30 p.m.: Welcome
Presentation by Brock dramatic arts students from the third-year class, Studies in Praxis – Theatre Criticism

* 2:30 – 4 p.m.: Panel discussion “Critics and the arts in Niagara”
- Jill Dolan (respondent)
- Monica Dufault, artistic director, Essential Collective Theatre
- David Fancy, associate professor of Dramatic Arts, Brock University, co-artistic director, neXt Company Theatre (chair)
- John Law, arts and entertainment writer, Sun Media
- Sara Palmieri, co-founder, In the Soil Festival
- Stephen Remus, minister of energy, minds, and resources, Niagara Arts Centre
- Steve Solski, director, St. Catharines Centre for the Performing Arts
- Candice Turner-Smith, managing director, Niagara Symphony Orchestra
* 4:15 – 5:45 p.m.: Panel discussion “Embedded criticism: a new way forward, or criticism-as-PR?”
- Maddy Costa, critic and blogger
- Karen Fricker
- Andy Horwitz, founder, culturebot.org
- Jackie Maxwell, artistic director, Shaw Festival
- Jacob Gallagher-Ross, assistant professor of theatre, University of Buffalo (respondent)
- Lawrence Switzky, assistant professor of Drama, University of Toronto at Mississauga (chair)
SATURDAY, FEB. 22:

* 10 – 10:30 a.m.: Welcome
Presentation by Brock dramatic arts students from the third-year class, Studies in Praxis – Theatre Criticism

* 10:30 a.m. – 12 noon: Panel discussion “Bloggers, critics, and cultural legitimation”
- Jill Dolan
- Karen Fricker (chair)
- Andy Horwitz (respondent)
- J. Kelly Nestruck, lead theatre critic, The Globe and Mail
- Richard Ouzounian, lead theatre critic, Toronto Star
- Holger Syme, chair, Department of English and Drama, University of Toronto at Mississauga, and blogger (disposito.net)
- Odette Yazbeck, director of public relations, Shaw Festival
* 12:15 – 1 p.m.: Colloquium wrap-up
- Maddy Costa; Jill Dolan; Karen Fricker (chair); Rosemary Drage Hale, director of the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Brock University; and Andy Horwitz
Tags: Andy Horwitz, art criticism, Candice Turner-Smith, colloquium, DARTcritics, David Fancy, Holger Syme, J. Kelly Nestruck, Jackie Maxwell, Jacob Gallagher-Ross, Jill Dolan, John Law, Karen Fricker, Lawrence Switzky, Maddy Costa, Monica Dufault, Odette Yazbeck, Richard Ouzounian, Rosemary Drage Hale, Sara Palmieri, Stephen Remus, Steve Solski, The Brock News, theatre criticism, visiting artists, Walker Cultural Leader Series
Categories: Announcements, Events, In the Media, News
Gimme 2!

Wednesday, February 05, 2014 | By mbalsom

2 minutes, 2 actors! Gimme 2! is the first presentation of our first year students in short performances written and directed by their senior DART mentors. An Homage to Jerzy Growtowski!

Open Rehearsal at 6 pm, show at 8 pm. Admission is first-come, first-seated.

For more information: dramatic@brocku.ca or 905-688-5550 x5255

Contact bcumberland@brocku.ca to reserve a seat if you know you can only attend one or the other presentations.

Date & Time: March 5, 2014: 8 pm – 10 pm
Location: ST 107 (Studio Theatre), Schmon Tower, Brock University
Cost: $0.00
Contact: dramatic@brocku.ca or 905-688-5550 x5255

Tags: Gimme 2
Categories: Events, Plays
Jehanne of the Witches

Tuesday, January 28, 2014 | By mbalsom
JEHANNE OF THE WITCHES

by Sally Clark

February 13-15, 2014 at 7:30 PM
Student Matinee February 14 at 1:00 PM

DIRECTED BY Virginia Reh
Scenographer: David Vivian

Assistant Director: Casey Gillis
Assistant Designer: James McCoy
Dramaturg: Brittany Stewart

Black magic, illusion, and the suppression of Truth. Voices swirl as Joan of Arc and Gilles de Rais, the infamous Bluebeard, concoct a witches’ brew of sexuality and the use – and abuse – of power.

The Department of Dramatic Arts of the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts is proud to present this play by Canadian playwright Sally Clark. Ms Clark was part of a wave of female playwrights in the 1980s who wrote plays about notable women from a female perspective. The play is mostly based on solid historical fact; Clark weaves her magic through unique interpretation and theatricality.

Information:

View our media release.

High-School teachers should read this letter about the Matinee performance opportunity available for Jehanne of the Witches (February 2014). We’re also providing information on Secondary Education Curriculum Ties.

NEW! An Audience Guide is available for download.

Download the poster

Join us on our Facebook event page

Purchase tickets here!

Media:

see the preview on Cogeco TV below:

see the article in the Brock News:

That burning feeling: Jehanne of the Witches

Media call photos:
Tags: Jehanne of the Witches, Mainstage, plays
Categories: Events, Plays
TWELFTH NIGHT, (or what you will) a comedy by William Shakespeare at the Department of Dramatic Arts

Tuesday, October 29, 2013 | By mbalsom

image by Nitin Vadukul

TWELFTH NIGHT, (or what you will)

a comedy by William Shakespeare

November 7 – 9, 2013 at 7:30 PM
Student Matinee November 08 at 11:30 AM

DIRECTED BY Gyllian Raby
Co-Director and Vocal Coach: Danielle Wilson
Assistant Director and Dramaturge: Keavy Lynch

If music be the food of love, play on!
“Twelfth Night, (or what you will)” presented on stage at the Sean O’Sullivan Theatre

The Department of Dramatic Arts’ rendition of Twelfth Night gives this classic Shakespearean comedy a 20th century twist, setting it in the 1950s and taking audiences to the era of soul-searching country blues. This production runs November 7, 8 and 9, 2013 at 7:30 p.m., and November 8 at 11:30 a.m., held at the Sean O’Sullivan Theatre, Brock University.

The magical fictitious kingdom of Illyria is a modern world where boys are boys and girls are girls and subterranean passions blow apart rigid conventions. Fools, lovers, and shipwrecked souls grapple adverse fortunes and comic misunderstandings to find what truth and love might mean. To meet Shakespeare’s demand that Illyria be a land where music is “the food of love,” we present the fool musician Feste as the leader of a country blues band.

The production is a directorial collaboration between Dramatic Arts faculty Gyllian Raby and Danielle Wilson, assisted by Keavy Lynch. Raby states, “We are performing Twelfth Night using music rooted in contemporary culture, so although this production is not a musical, music is threaded throughout the play.” Wilson adds, “The play has many of the elements common to Elizabethan romantic comedy, including the devices of mistaken identity, separated twins, and gender-crossing disguise, and its plot revolves around whether one can manage betrayal, and overcome the obstacles to truth and love.“

Have a look at our media release (PDF).

Let us know you’re coming by joining our Facebook Event.

High-School teachers should read this letter about the Matinee performance opportunities available for Twefth Night (November 2013) and Jehanne of the Witches (February 2014) (PDF)

A Study Guide is available for review,
prepared by Gyllian Raby and Keavy Lynch:
download to print a copy (PDF, 2.0 MB)

watch this preview on Cogeco TV:

see the article in the Brock News!

(From left): Sean Rintoul, Chris Chapman and Bri Lidstone perform in the Department of Dramatic Arts production of Twelfth Night, which opens Nov. 7 at the Sean O’Sullivan Theatre.

Announcing $5.00 Fridays!

all holders of Brock ID cards – students, staff and faculty – are invited to take advantage of a special new price for the Matinee mainstage performance. Please present your ID card upon purchase of your ticket.
Tickets for all performances including the $5.00 Friday Matinees are available through the Box Office of the Centre for the Arts
or 905.688.5550 x 3257

For more information, please contact Marie Balsom, Co-ordinator of the School of Fine and Performing Arts, at 905-688-5550, ext. 4765; e-mail: mbalsom@brocku.ca

Tags: comedy, Mainstage, plays, Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Categories: Events, Plays
The Walker Cultural Leader Series 2013-14 at the Department of Dramatic Arts

Monday, August 26, 2013 | By mbalsom
The Walker Cultural Leader series brings leading artists, performers, practitioners and academics to the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts at Brock University. Engaging, lively and erudite, these sessions celebrate professional achievement, artistic endeavour and the indelible role of culture in our society. Please join us.

This educational program is generously funded by Marilyn I. Walker.

Here is the programming hosted by the Department of Dramatic Arts for the WCL2013-14.
For complete program information please see the MIWSFPA.

Jill Dolan

Jill Dolan is the Annan Professor of English and Professor of Theater at Princeton University, where she also directs the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies.

Dolan will give a masterclass in online arts criticism, as well as a public lecture on “Moving the Body Politic: How Feminism and Theatre Inspire Social Re-imaginings.” She will participate in a colloquium and open roundtable on the changing face of arts criticism in the digital age.

Feb. 20
- Masterclass in Online Arts Criticism: DART 3P95/96 students 2 – 5 pm, Rm. TH 257 (closed session)
Feb. 21
- Public Lecture: “Moving the Body Politic: How Feminism and Theatre Inspire Social Re-imaginings” 10 am, Sankey Chambers (free community event). Presented in association with the Department of Dramatic Arts and the Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies
- Colloquium: “The changing face of arts criticism in the digital age,” 2 – 6 pm, Sankey Chambers Keynote and presentations. (free community event)
2:00 pm – 2:30 pm
- WELCOME AND PRESENTATION by students in DART 3P96: Studies in Praxis – Theatre Criticism
2:30 pm – 4:00 pm
- PANEL DISCUSSION: Critics and the arts in Niagara
- Chair: David Fancy, associate professor of Dramatic Arts, Brock University, co-artistic director, neXt Company Theatre.
- Participants: Monica Dufault, artistic director, Essential Collective Theatre; John Law, arts and entertainment writer, Sun Media; Sara Palmieri, Marketing Manager at the Centre for the Arts, Brock University and co-founder of the In the Soil Arts Festival; Stephen Remus, minister of energy, minds, and resources, Niagara Arts Centre; Steve Solski, director, St. Catharines Centre for the Performing Arts; Candice Turner-Smith, managing director, Niagara Symphony Orchestra
- Respondent: Jill Dolan
4:15 pm – 5:45 pm
- PANEL DISCUSSION: Embedded criticism: a new way forward, or criticism-as-PR?
- Chair: Lawrence Switzky, assistant professor of Drama, University of Toronto at Mississauga
- Participants: Maddy Costa, critic and blogger, London, UK; Karen Fricker, assistant professor of Dramatic Arts, Brock University; Andy Horwitz, founder, Culturebot.org, New York; Jackie Maxwell, artistic director, Shaw Festival
- Respondent: Jacob Gallagher-Ross, assistant professor of Theatre, State University of New York at Buffalo
Feb. 22
- Colloquium cont’d.: “The changing face of arts criticism in the digital age,” 10 am – 1 pm, Sankey Chambers. There will be a roundtable component (free community event)
10:00 am – 10:30 am
- WELCOME AND PRESENTATION by students in DART 3P96: Studies in Praxis – Theatre Criticism
10:30 am – 12:00 pm
- PANEL DISCUSSION: Bloggers, critics, and cultural legitimation
- Chair: Karen Fricker
- Participants: Jill Dolan; J. Kelly Nestruck, lead theatre critic, The Globe and Mail; Richard Ouzonian, lead theatre critic, Toronto Star; Holger Syme, Chair, Department of English and Drama, University of Toronto at Mississauga, and blogger; Odette Yazbeck, director of public relations, Shaw Festival
- Respondent: Andy Horwitz
12:15 pm – 1:00 pm
- COLLOQUIUM WRAP-UP
- Chair: Karen Fricker
- Participants: Maddy Costa; Jill Dolan; Rosemary Drage Hale, Director of the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Brock University; Andy Horwitz
DOWNLOAD THE POSTER (click to download)

INFORMATION SHEET (click to download): The Changing Face of Theatre Criticism in the Digital Age A Colloquium at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts at Brock University 21-22 February 2014

In addition to the support of the Walker Cultural Leaders series, the colloquium is funded by Brock’s Humanities Research Institute and its SSHRC Institutional Grant scheme, and by the St Catharines Performing Arts Centre.
We are grateful for these important investments by our collaborating partners.

CONTACT: Prof. Karen Fricker, Dramatic Arts, kfricker@brocku.ca

Jill Dolan is the author of The Feminist Spectator as Critic (1989, 2012); Utopia in Performance: Finding Hope at the Theatre (2005); Theatre & Sexuality (2010); and many other books and essays. She won the 2011 Outstanding Teacher Award from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education and a lifetime achievement award from the Women and Theatre Program (2011). She writes The Feminist Spectator blog at www.TheFeministSpectator.com, for which she won the 2010-11 George Jean Nathan Award for dramatic criticism. A book of her selected blog posts and new essays, The Feminist Spectator in Action: Feminist Criticism for Stage and Screen, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in July 2013. Her full bio can be found at www.princeton.edu/arts/arts_at_princeton/theater/professor_bios/dolan/

Patrice Baldwin

Patrice Baldwin is a world leader in Drama, Education and the Arts in learning, and their connections to the latest developments in Neuroscience.

Baldwin will spend eight days teaching, speaking, and giving demonstration classes at Brock and throughout the Niagara peninsula.

Oct. 3 & 8
- Teaching/Demonstrations: DART 1F95, 2P01, 3P03, 3F92 students, scheduled class times (closed session)
Oct. 5
- Drama in Education Intensive Workshop: 9:30 am – 5:30 pm,Centre Stage Theatre School and Productions, 3505 Mainway, Burlington, ON (free for DART students; all others $20 to cover costs for refreshments and venue). Limited registration.
Oct. 7
- Teaching/Demonstration Classes: FOE pre-service and DART students and alumni, 8 am – 2 pm, Faculty of Education (FOE), Hamilton Campus, 1842 King St. East, Hamilton, ON (closed session)
Oct. 9
- Teaching/Demonstrations in Niagara Schools: FOE pre-service students, DART students and alumni, and Niagara teachers (closed session)
- Public Lecture: “Neuroscience, Creativity, and Learning: Recent Research and Connections to Drama in Education and Arts-Based Learning,” 7:30 – 8:30 pm, Pond Inlet (free community event)
CONTACT: Georgann Watson, Administrative Assistant, Dramatic Arts, dramatic@brocku.ca

Patrice Baldwin is president of the International Drama, Theatre and Education Association (IDEA), and Chair of National Drama (the UK’s leading professional association for drama teachers and theatre educators), and is also an Executive Forum member of the World Alliance for Arts Education. A renowned advocate for the Arts and Drama Education, she is a prolific and respected author, with a particular interest in: Drama as a way of teaching literacy and as a way of learning across the curriculum; Drama and Arts-based creativity; and Drama and Neuroscience. Baldwin, a visiting lecturer at the University of Warwick, is known for her lectures, keynote addresses, and workshops at international conferences.

DOWNLOAD THE POSTER
Tags: Jill Dolan, Patrice Baldwin, Walker Cultural Leader Series
Categories: Events
Brock Musical Theatre presents the Broadway Hit Spring Awakening

Monday, March 11, 2013 | By Brock University

Brock Musical Theatre, the company that brought you GLEE CLUB and RENT! Is returning again this year with Broadway’s hit SPRING AWAKENING; by Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater, winner of 8 Tony Awards including Best Musical. This rock musical explores the lives of adolescent students living in 19th century Germany as they journey through the confusing and frustrating world of teenager self-discovery.

The show opens at the Seneca Queen Theatre in Niagara Falls on Thursday, March 21st at 7:30pm and runs until Saturday, March 23rd. Tickets are $15.00 in advance as well as at the door. Tickets may be purchased through the Centre for the Arts at Brock University in person during business hours, or on the website, or over the phone, call 905-688-5550 x3257 or toll-free 1-866-617-3257.

FREE transportation has been arranged from Brock to the Seneca Queen Theatre as well as from the Theatre to St. Catharines (downtown), Brock University and the Thorold route.

More information about show times and the company is available here.

Brock Musical Theatre is a student run organization devoted to creating quality musical theatre for the Brock and St. Catharines/Niagara communities. Brock Musical Theatre is a ratified club under the Brock University Student’s Union. It is not affiliated with the Brock University Department of Dramatic Arts or with any University department, staff or faculty member.

Brock Musical Theatre was created in 2005 to provide all Brock University students with the opportunity to participate in quality musical theatre. Today, the company is open to all Brock students no matter their major field of study. Brock Musical Theatre has become a showcase for the wide range of talents that the entire Brock University community possess in the musical field. Students from the Department of Dramatic Arts have developed new learning opportunities and honed their craft by participating in this club. Brock Musical Theatre is devoted to a healthy, respectful and positive learning environment where students can learn and achieve hands on experience in all aspects of a musical theatre production.

SHOW DATES & TIMES

THURSDAY March 21st – 7:30pm
FRIDAY March 22nd – 7:30pm
SATURDAY March 23rd 1:00pm & 7:30pm

THEATRE
Seneca Queen Theatre
4624 Queen Street, Niagara Falls L2R 2L7

Tags: Brock Musical Theatre, musical theatre, Spring Awakening
Categories: Announcements, Current Students, Events, News
An Acre of Time by Jason Sherman (DART 4F56)

Monday, March 11, 2013 | By mbalsom

April 11, 12 & 13, 2013 at 7:30 p.m.
A government land surveyor (Julia) uncovers the history of an acre of land near the Ottawa River, a barren rectangle that contains the memories of all who passed through it, from the last native hunter to the first white settler. Somehow, the layers of loss, land and remembrance enable Julia to grasp what she needs in order to let go.
Location: Room ST107 (Studio Theatre) Schmon Tower, Brock Campus
Admission: Donations accepted

This is part of the Industrial Fabric 3 program. (Click the link for more information.)

BROCK UNIVERSITY
MEDIA RELEASE
April 2, 2013
Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts
905.688.5550 x4765

An Acre of Time by Jason Sherman, presented on stage at the Studio Theatre, Brock University Inspired by the book of the same title by Phil Jenkins.
Graduating Dramatic Arts students enrolled in Advanced Studies in Theatre (DART 4F56) at Brock University, will perform An Acre of Time by Canadian award-winning playwright Jason Sherman, held at the Studio Theatre at Brock University, from April 11 – 13, 2013 at 7:30 p.m.

An Acre of Time tells the story of government land surveyor (Julia) who uncovers the history of an acre of land on the LeBreton Flats near the Ottawa River. This barren rectangle contains the memories of all who passed through it, from the last native hunter to the first white settler. Somehow, the layers of loss, land and remembrance enable Julia to grasp what she needs in order to let go.
The LeBreton Flats is a blank urban space that has been in limbo for decades. In 1962, the government expropriated it and knocked down its community. The Flats represent not only a government’s abdication of responsibility, but also an emotional void that can only be filled by recognizing and honouring the ghosts who still live there.

Julia, played in different time periods by three actors: Kaitlin Race, Cassandra van Wyck, and Olivia Jackson, learns that there are different kinds of mapping processes, and that the most important survey brings our own lives to light. Julia’s government work crew colleagues, played by Kanthan Annalingam, Karyn Lorence, Shauna James and Emma Strong, become guides on Julia’s journey as she encounters the ghosts of Samuel de Champlain, played by Erica Charles, and surveyor John Stegmann, played by Jessi Robinson. The speculator John LeBreton is played by Stephanie Neale. Tom, a first nations artist played by James Lowe, conjures the spirit of Constant Penency, an Algonquin hunter who has joined the spirit of Julia’s daughter, Louise, played by Grace Ruppenthal. Evan Mulroney plays Bill, Julia’s husband who lost their daughter Louise to a river drowning.

The set, lighting and video design, by Dylan O’Connor, James McCoy and Nathan Heuchan, is a meditation on mapping and memory that pulls the layers of story into a unified whole with props and costumes designed by Jo Pacinda and John McGowan. The production, in its complex entirety, is stage managed by Kate Hardy and directed by professor Gyllian Raby.

An Acre of Time performances run: Thursday, April 11, Friday, April 12, and Saturday, April 13, 2013, at 7:30 p.m., and will be held at the Studio Theatre (Rm. ST107) Schmon Tower, Brock University. Admission is by donation.

For more information about this production, e-mail dramatic.arts@brocku.ca

Such productions from the Department of Dramatic Arts are an integral part of the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts’ mandate in building connections between the community and the breadth of creative talent that defines our academic programs at Brock University.
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Tags: An Acre of Time, DART 4F56, Jason Sherman
Categories: Events, Media Releases, Plays
Khalida: a play for the Arab Spring, opens in St. Catharines at the Sullivan-Mahoney Theatre

Thursday, February 28, 2013 | By Brock University

By Dr. Karen Fricker and staff

The story told in Khalida, a new theatre production playing this week in St Catharines, might at first glance seem somewhat removed from the experience of many Canadians. Subtitled ‘a play for the Arab Spring’, it takes the form of the confession and testimony of Said, a man on the run from his native Middle Eastern country, which has become a battle zone.

But the play’s origins couldn’t be more local: it springs from the friendship between author/director David Fancy, Associate Professor of Dramatic Arts at Brock, and the Iraqi actor Addil Hussain, who received a BA in Dramatic Arts degree from Brock in 2006.

‘Addil was Saddam Hussein’s favourite actor,’ Fancy explains. ‘He fled Iraq during the first Gulf War and, after living as a refugee in Jordan for six or seven years, finally ended up in Canada. He did a degree in the Drama in Education and Society stream at Brock and became a Canadian citizen’. Audiences might remember Hussain’s performances in two of the three plays performed in An Arabian Trilogy, a departmental Mainstage production in 2006. In the third play he performed the role of the father in Leila Tatadaffah Bil Rasass. Mun Youaniquha? (By the Warmth of the Bullet that Kills) set in modern-day Baghdad and written by another Brock graduate Abbas Aldilami.

Fancy says he wrote the play ‘for the express purpose of continuing a conversation with Addil, having witnessed the challenges that he experienced as an individual and as an artist finding a voice as a new Canadian.’ The play is being produced by neXt Company Theatre, of which Fancy is co-artistic director.

While his friendship with Hussain offers fascinating insight into Khalida’s origins, Fancy believes an appreciation of the production does not rely on this backstory. ‘This is about a person somewhere in the world who has experienced difficulty and is using creativity to frame that and move beyond it,’ he explains.

The role of Said is being played by Toronto-based actor Jason Jazrawy, whose father is from Iraq. Jazrawy calls Said ‘an Arabic Everyman who whom all ethnicities can relate’ and says he welcomes the opportunity to ‘portray an Arab as a positive role model for a change,’ having found himself often cast as a terrorist jihadi because of his heritage.

Alongside Khalida, neXt Company Theatre has facilitated a community engagement project, The Arab Spring Monologues, which features 9-10 Niagarans, including four Brock students and recent graduates, writing about how the Arab Spring connects with their own experience or with the region.

Students from across the DART concentrations – Applied Theatre and Drama in Education, Theatre Praxis, Performance, and Production and Design – will be attending the production. The production presents an excellent model for the Brock students’ creative investigations in writing and dramaturgy, performance, and production, as well as personal and social identities and citizenship, remarks the Chair or the Department, David Vivian.

As for Addil Hussain, he returned to the Middle East in 2010, and is now working as an actor in Baghdad. Despite being half a world away, this production of Khalida is very much on his radar. Via Facebook, he sent this message to Fancy and his collaborators: ‘Khalida was just a wish, and an idea, then became reality… I’m fully confident that Khalida is in great hands, hands with a great level of professionalism. Break a leg!’
———-
Khalida plays at the Sullivan Mahoney Courthouse Theatre from 26 February-2 March. Tickets are available here. The Arab Spring Monologues play 5-7 pm on Saturday, March 2 at Robertson Hall, 85 Church Street, St. Catharines. Admission free; groups are requested to contact the company in advance here.

Tags: Addil Hussain, David Fancy, Karen Fricker, Khalida, The Arab Spring
Categories: Alumni, Events, Faculty & Instructors, News, Plays