Events

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
The Blue Room

Saturday, January 26, 2013 | By mbalsom

By David Hare, freely adapted from Arthur Schnitzler’s La Ronde

Director: Virginia Reh
Scenographer: David Vivian
Lighting Design: Ken Garrett
Assistant Director: Jessi Robinson

February 14, 15 & 16, 2013: 7:30pm – 9:30pm
Matinee: February 15, 2013: 1pm – 3 pm

Directed by Professor Virginia Reh, The Blue Room is David Hare’s 1998 adaptation of Schnitzler’s Reigen (La Ronde), first produced in 1921. The plot is a “sexual daisychain”: the Girl couples with the Cab Driver, then the Cab Driver with the Au Pair, etc. Each time the new participant in one scene moves on to the next scene and so on, until in the final scene the Girl returns and encounters the Aristocrat. The play looks at casual sexual encounters as a (mostly) unsatisfactory substitute for human connection. This is a universal and timeless quest. The play is an important exploration with diverse current points-of-view: as each character has encounters with two different partners, the play explores the shifting status relationships (both social and personal). The relational dynamics of the play have interesting correspondences to explorations on social media.

Tickets: Adults $15.00, Students/Seniors $12.00, Groups $10.00, eyeGo $5.00. H.S.T. extra.

Theme-oriented and moderated workshops will be available. DART 3F93: Social Issues Theatre for Community Development, taught by Professor Joe Norris, will employ Process Drama and Applied Theatre techniques to explore themes that underlie the Blue Room. Scenes will be created that delve into issue of identity, innocence, risks, thresholds, secrets, awkwardness, beliefs, mores, taboos, exploitation and power. With a participatory dimension cast and audience will enter into conversations to explore the issues further.

Please contact us for more information.

THE BLUE ROOM: A Primer
is available for review before you come to see the production

low res 709kb
high res 2139 kb
print res 3690 kb

Media:

Interactive Arts and Science program student Patrick Gagliardi has put together a sultry trailer for the show.

from COGECO TV, Published on Feb 8, 2013: The Department of Dramatic Arts at Brock University are hoping to spice up your Valentines Day with their new production “The Blue Room’.

In the buff with Brock’s Blue Room:
A fun full-first-page-of-the-section article about our upcoming mainstage in the city paper – another great reason to study dramatic arts at Brock University. Come see the play and discover what its really all about.

See the article about the show in The Brock Press, the independent student newspaper.

Tags: Arthur Schnitzler, David Hare, La Ronde, Mainstage, plays, The Blue Room
Categories: Events, Plays
The Suicide – A Russian Comedy

Sunday, October 07, 2012 | By mbalsom
November 8-10, 2012 at 7:30 PM
Student Matinee: November 09 at 11:30 AM

A Russian Comedy by Nikolai Erdman
Adapted by: Gyllian Raby and Anna MacAlpine
Director: Gyllian Raby
Russian Consultant: Larisa Brodsky
Set Design: Nigel Scott
Costume Design: Roberta Doylend
Lighting Design: Ken Garrett
Assistant Director: Dylan Sylvester
Assistant Designer and Poster Design: Stephanie Baxter
Music Director: Anna MacAlpine
Movement: Trevor Copp, with Rachel Romanowski

A classic comedy that satirizes the New society which was developing in Russia under Lenin’s New Economic Policy of 1924 – a program that many communists considered to be a step backwards for communism. A fast moving, unpretentious examination of hubris and lifestyle and its expression in style: physical poise, dress and drawl. An examination of conformity. The play is ultimately very homely in its definition of human happiness with the physicalized characters, balancing serious satire and comedy.

Themes: big items in the human condition: love, ego, appetite, meaning of life and social convention.

There is NO mature language or sexual content and the violence is “keystone cops” – this show is fine for youth.

High-School teachers should read this letter about the Matinee performance opportunity (PDF, 247 KB)
A Study Guide is available for review, prepared by Gyllian Raby and Anna MacAlpine.

A copy of this special new adaptation of the script is available for download here. (PDF, 120kb)

The Suicide, By Nicolai Erdman
Adapted by Gyllian Raby and Anna MacAlpine
Thanks to Larisa Brodsky.
Royalty free with permission, 2012.
Gyllian Raby
Department of Dramatic Arts
Brock University
graby@brocku.ca

Photos:

Director Gyllian Raby and Set Designer Nigel Scott present the concept of the set design for this innovative new production of The Suicide, seen below:
Production images below courtesy of Naturally in Niagara. Click the link to see more of their images from our media call.
Tags: Mainstage, Nikolai Erdman, The Suicide - A Russian Comedy
Categories: Events, Plays
Graduates of the Department of Dramatic Arts are on the boards again and this time they are playing IN THE SOIL.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012 | By Brock University

The Clockmaker by Stephen Massicotte

April 27 @ 8:00pm and April 28 @ 2:00pm
Sullivan Mahoney Courthouse Theatre 101 King Street, St Catharines

Tickets: $10 at the door
Festival pass: $25 through inthesoil.on.ca

Nathan Tanner MacDonald – Director
Geoffrey Heaney – Performer
Dylan Mawson – Performer
Michael Pearson – Performer
Caitlin Popek – Performer
Kate Hardy – Stage Manager
Finn Archinuk – Designer

Nathan Tanner Mac Donald – a resident of the St Catharines and recent graduate of the Department of Dramatic Arts – has brought together a company of DART students to present The Clockmaker by Stephen Massicotte. A metaphysical rollercoaster, The Clockmaker may seem like little more than a love story set inside a murder-mystery-to-be, but it just might end up exposing the very truth of existence itself. The show will be performed April 27 @ 8:00pm and April 28 @ 2:00pm at the Sullivan Mahoney Courthouse Theatre in downtown St Catharines.

Nathan recently performed in the 2011 STRUTT wearable art show and this past summer he wrote and directed Circus, which played at Factory Theatre in the 2011 Toronto Fringe Festival. Nathan’s company includes graduates and Geoffrey Heaney, Dylan Mawson, Michael Pearson, Caitlin Popek as Performers, current student Kate Hardy as Stage Manager and graduate Finn Archinuk as the Designer.

In the Soil Arts Festival brings Niagara artists from a range of disciplines together to provide unique audience experiences. The festival nurtures the creation of new work, showcases talent, encourages innovation, offers learning opportunities for youth and provides intimate and uncommon platforms for audiences to experience work by contemporary performing and literary artists, musicians and media artists. In the Soil is Niagara’s homegrown arts festival and is working to make a Niagara that is self-determining and culturally distinct.

for more information see the IN THE SOIL website.

Break-a-leg, Nathan, Caitlin, Dylan, Finn, Geoffrey, Kate and Michael!

Tags: Caitlin Popek, Dylan Mawson, Finn Archinuk, Geoffrey Heaney, In the Soil, Kate Hardy, Michale Pearson, Nathan Tanner MacDonald, The Clockmaker
Categories: Alumni, Current Students, Events, News, Plays
Shadows of a Toymaker

Sunday, March 11, 2012 | By Nikki Prudden

A new play starts April 11 in ST 103 “Black” at Brock University. The graduating students of DART 4F56 present the outcome of their year-long exploration in collective creation.

April 11, 2012 – 7:00pm
April 12, 2012 – 7:00pm
April 13, 2012 – 7:00pm

Shadows of a Toymaker is written and created by the graduating students of the Department of Dramatic Arts, Brock University, inspired by the gothic stories of writers Edgar Allen Poe and Angela Carter. This play explores the fictitious lives of the toymaker Mattel and his family, exposing their bizarre methods of survival as they confront the monsters lurking in the darkness within themselves and each other. Come join the madness as we search for the light!

This is the story of a house on a hill,
A house full of secrets sure to make your blood chill.
Nobody knows of what’s taken place,
In this house full of misfits all fallen from grace.
So take a peek inside these walls,
As the door swings open and the curtain falls.
For they are not enough to hide,
All of the madness that takes place inside…

Gather round everyone and open your ears,
I will tell you a story to quiet your fears.
We live in a world of darkness and sorrow,
But we have to believe in a brighter tomorrow.
Yes, there are monsters that live on this earth,
There were monsters before that had given them birth.
There have always been evils to put us to test,
But there have always been people to put them to rest…

Tags: DART 4F56, Shadows of a Toymaker
Categories: Events, Plays