September 2015 – April 2016
Opening: Alumni Homecoming and Grand Opening,
September 18, 2015
Location: DART Theatre Lobby, 2nd Level, 15 Artists’ Common
Exhibit of DART’s participation in the Canadian PQ2015 (Prague Quadrennial) exhibit Elevations, including parts of national collective project Totem. Theme: MUSIC. WEATHER. POLITICS. Also including: Fault Lines: digital exhibit of Brock students’ work.
COLLEAGUES, STUDENTS, FRIENDS & FAMILY, If you were in Toronto in early June you were fortunate to see a performance of:
A 12th-CENTURY EASTER MUSIC DRAMA
acting version transcribed and translated
by W. L. Smoldon from the ‘Fleury Playbook’
A collaboration between:
Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies,
Department of Dramatic Arts, Department of Music
Part of the PLS (Poculi Ludique Societas) Festival of Medieval Theatre.
When: Saturday, June 6, 7 p.m.
Sunday, June 7, 2:30 p.m.
Where: Trinity College Chapel University of Toronto, 6 Hoskin Avenue
Music Director: Dr. Brian Power, Department of Music
Stage Director: Professor Virginia Reh, Department of Dramatic Arts
The company of Visitatio Sepulchri in the Trinity College Chapel. Photograph by Mrs. Chin Tso.
Saturday, April 18 2015, 7:30 pm to 10 pm
Three interlocking stories explore how to survive the turbulence that washes over us when we question fundamental aspects of our identities. Is it better to find the answers to our secrets or to leave them locked away? And where is that elusive happy ending?
Presented by the Department of Dramatic Arts (DART 4F56).
Location: Room ST107 (Studio Theatre), Schmon Tower, Brock University, 500 Glenridge Avenue, St. Catharines.
Admission: Donations accepted
Book your tickets by emailing: [email protected] or calling 906.688.5550 x5255
Awkward and Uncomfortable, DART 4F56, Industrial Fabric, plays
Categories: Events, Plays
Three interlocking stories explore how to survive the turbulence that washes over us when we question fundamental aspects of our identities. Is it better to find the answers to our secrets or to leave them locked away? And where is that elusive happy ending?
More details:
The Department of Dramatic Arts’ fourth-year production brings “Awkward and Uncomfortable” to a whole new level!
An original performance by the fourth-year Devised Theatre class (DART 4F56) will be held on April 16, 17, and 18, 2015 at 7:30 pm, in the Studio Theatre (ST107) at Brock University.
It is awkward and uncomfortable, but you’ll always have to deal with the two per cent of negative extremists. If you’re an artist or you buck the trend of mainstream culture you’ll always be shouting out from the margins! How does one keep going when the struggle always comes looking for us? Answers are explored through spoken word, choreography and scenes that explore trust, relationships, and self-acceptance. Do we continue relationships when trust is unclear? Do we follow our future when those around us do not believe in it?
Tracy is a construction worker who’s just been accepted by the guys, but it all falls apart. Diane and her partner have struggled to be accepted as a lesbian couple, and won, but suddenly her relationship seems empty. Carl has successfully completed his gender transition but his past comes back to bite him in a lawsuit that has unexpected consequences. This production by graduating students of Dramatic Arts’ devising class offers superhero guidance for the survival of the quirkiest at the Droopy Vine bar where all are welcome.
Set designer Alanna Stewart has created a playful space inspired by Brazilian Favelas that displays the distressed urban world though graffiti and bright colours, a giant community piecing together against all odds. Costume designer Gina Greco, positions the characters as parts of the urban hierarchy through a clash of modern Toronto Queen West and Church Wellesley style, in order to present a beautiful slum, haute, and fantasy world.
Professor and director Gyllian Raby guided the creative process drawing on her experience of creating new plays with One Yellow Rabbit and the RSVP process. Ensemble members include: Amanda McDonnell; Nick Leno; Kendra Neaves; Hayley Malouin; Misha Harding; Michael Caccamo; Chloe Coyle; Bri Lidstone; Nicola Franco; Rachel Romanoski; Katie Coseni; Sean Rintoul; Marie Barros; Emily Ferrier; Maggi Robertson and Kate Croome.
The DART 4F56 class is one where students work together collectively. Students use the knowledge they have accumulated throughout their four years of the Dramatic Arts program to create, build, and produce a collaborative piece that embraces the physical expressivity of Grotowski and LeCoq, action study from Stanislavsky, the performance clarity of Brechtian theories, and the work in voice, speech and spontaneity that grounds research and critical theory in human relations. A good theatre process takes awkward and uncomfortable to a whole new level!
FOR TICKET RESERVATIONS: [email protected]
Location: Room ST107 (Studio Theatre), Schmon Tower, Brock Campus.
Admission: Donations accepted
Alanna Stewart, Amanda McDonnell, Brianne Lidstone, Chloe Coyle, DART 4F56, Emily Ferrier, Gina Greco, Gyllian Raby, Hayley Malouin, Kate Croome, Katie Coseni, Kendra Neaves, Maggi Robertson, Marie Barros, Michael Caccamo, Misha Harding, Nick Leno, Nicola Franco, Rachel Romanoski, Sean Rintoul
Categories: Events, Plays
We are dedicating this final production in the Sean O’Sullivan Theatre to the memory of our late poet, Terrance Cox, who passed in the evening of January 16, 2015. Please see this post for more information.
Directed by David Fancy
Set Design & Costume Design by David Vivian
Lighting Design by Jennifer Jimenez
Music by Steve Chan
An updated version of Karel Capek’s 1930s classic robot play.
The past and future of artificial life, complete with phasers and show tunes!
Show dates/times: February 12, 13, and 14, 2015 at 7:30 p.m.
Matinee performance: February 13 at 11:30 a.m.
social media: rurrobotrising.tumblr.com
on twitter: #rurrobotrising
Performed in the Sean O’Sullivan Theatre, Brock University
Karel Capek invented the word ‘robot’ in 1920s Czechoslovakia and the world has never been the same since. Our updated version of this Marxist robot melodrama features lots of bots and borgs, an apocalyptic vision of the future, and, of course, a theremin. Come witness the robot apocalypse!
In Rossum’s Universal Robots (1920), Karel Capek invites us into an uncertain future in which the world is overrun by mass-produced robots. Although their makers hoped these machines would free human beings from the bondage of labour, instead, the robots mimic their makers and resort to war against all humans. This play is a precursor to so much subsequent science fiction dealing with artificial intelligence—from Star Trek to Terminator, from 2001: A Space Odyssey to Her. Like these later stories, the play deals with the anxieties of creating artificial life-forms, the awe in the face of robot power and possibility, and the fear of the end of human life on the planet.
In the play, Rossum’s robot factory is visited by President Glory’s daughter Helena, a robot emancipationist. She attempts to convince the other humans working at the plant that the robots deserve their own freedom. Instead, she never leaves the factory, marries into the Rossum clan, and is present when the robot genocide of humans takes place. The final humans on the planet struggle to understand what has gone wrong. At a time of increasing technologization of labour and the becoming-digital of many people’s daily lives in the Economic North, this production offers an opportunity to imagine different futures beyond the ‘mechanization of everything.’
Teachers and faculty should read this letter about group bookings and discounts.
A Primer for Robot Audiences is available for review, prepared by Lead robot author, Andrew Godin: download to print a copy. (PDF, 4.8 MB)
See the video below to learn more about the show!
see the article in Niagara This Week!
“Marie Antoinette” by Yuling Deng
WRITTEN BY: Hannah Cowley
DIRECTED BY: Gyllian Raby
SCENOGRAPHER: Kelly Wolf
November 13, 14, and 15, 2014 at 7:30 p.m.
Matinee performance: November 14 at 11:30 a.m.
Performed in the Sean O’Sullivan Theatre, Brock University
Hannah Cowley’s most successful Town Comedy of 1783 demonstrated how to get your man and keep him in Georgian times — but once relocated in today’s Toronto, the laughing feminism lurking within the Marriage Plot is exposed in all its decadent hilarity.
A Study Guide is available for review, prepared by Assistant Director Nicholas Leno: download to print a copy (PDF, 3.7 MB)
Please scan here to buy tickets and follow us on social media. keepingupwithmrsracket.com
The Belle’s (Social Media) Stratagem
A central character in the Department of Dramatic Arts’ autumn Mainstage production, The Belle’s Stratagem, will have an active life on social media thanks to a partnership between students in one of the department’s courses and the Mainstage production team. The goal of this partnership is extend the life of The Belle’s Stratagem both before ad after the actual run (November 13-15) and to engage audiences in critical dialogue around the show.
Director and DART professor Gyllian Raby and assistant director Nick Leno have adapted and updated Hannah Cowley’s 18th-century comedy to be set in today’s Toronto. Through Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, tech-savvy students in DART 3P95: Studies in Praxis I: Theatre Criticism are creating an online identity for one of the play’s central characters, Mrs. Racket. Followers of @racketlife can see photos of her favourite products, read her daily aphorisms, and watch “fan” videos posted on YouTube. Mrs. Racket’s online persona not only develops the character beyond the page and stage, but also highlights some of the production’s key themes related to consumerism, celebrity, and social class.
The social media platforms officially launch on October 20. Each platform is interconnected through the blog www.keepingupwithmrsracket.com; the blog is also accessible via the production’s QR code, which is included in all publicity materials. Followers are encouraged to interact with Mrs. Racket across all three platforms using the hashtag #racketlife: they can repost her Instagram photos or post and tag their own, tweet with Mrs. Racket, and vlog about the production on YouTube. The possibilities for participation are endless! During the show’s run, Praxis students will be present before each performance to demonstrate this technology through an interactive lobby display.
This partnership is part of a key component of the Theatre Criticism course, in which students immerse themselves behind-the-scenes in creative processes with local arts organizations, and write about it for the course blog, DARTcritics.com. The Belle’s (Social Media) Stratagem is an innovation this year, the first time that Theatre Criticism students have gone behind the scenes on a DART Mainstage and the first time that the learning outcomes involve a social media strategy.
Instagram account: @racketlife
Twitter account: @racketlife
YouTube channel: Racketlife
…excellent adaptation with the references to modern Toronto and all its foibles.
– Associate Dean, Dr. Brian Power
By re-historicizing Hannah Cowley, [Gyllian Raby, the director] is able to liberate her message. Cowley’s hesitant feminism is sharpened in Raby’s adaption. And shifting the play’s locale from eighteenth-century London to twenty-first century Toronto, Raby adds biting commentary – much of it delivered through choruses of rap music – on the ravaging cultural and economic effects of unfettered financial capitalism, which goes well beyond Cowley’s predictable tut-tutting about the vulgar spending displays of England’s nabobs. . . . . Mixing rap music with formal eighteenth-century drama sounds depressingly like a sterile post-modern conceit. But it works wonderfully well in this instance, partly because Raby is the director of the play she adapted. She directs an exuberant student cast who seem just as much at home mincing through the formalities of a masqued ball as they do gyrating to the strains of Rick Ross, Lil’ Mama, and Salt ’n’ Pepa.
– from a review by Professor Emeritus John Sainsbury in the online British Journal of Eighteenth-Century Studies published by the The British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies.
Published on Nov 8, 2014: The Department of Dramatic Arts at Brock University presents The Belle’s Stratagem from November 13th to 15th. Katie Jones reports. See the Cogeco TV report on The Belle’s Stratagem:
Published on Nov 11, 2014: From Brock TV, a look into The Belles Stratagem, opening this Thursday! Meet the cast and crew of DART’s latest production of Hannah Cowley’s The Belle’s Stratagem.
Painting the set floor for Belles Stratagem. L-R: Nikka Collison, Caroline Coon, Andrew Von Lukawiecki, and Brian Cumberland (Production Manager)
2014-15, Gyllian Raby, Hannah Cowley, Kelly Wolf, Mainstage, plays, The Belle's Stratagem
Categories: Events, Plays
The Niagara Symphony Orchestra on the stage of the Sean O’Sullivan Theatre of the Centre for the Arts at Brock University. Pictured below are Elizabeth Pereira, Virginia Reh and Evan Mulrooney.
Many Canadian orchestras have brought Classical Kids’ Beethoven Lives Upstairs program to their stages over the years, but the Niagara Symphony has brought a fresh new approach to this classic event. Brock Dramatic Arts student Elizabeth Pereira and alumnus Evan Mulrooney will play the roles of Christoph and the Uncle respectively, in performance with the Niagara Symphony (led by music director Bradley Thachuk) in April 2015. They earned the roles through competitive auditions at the school, and will be directed by Brock Professor of Drama Virginia Reh.
It’s part of a many-faceted partnership between the NSA and the university. The Niagara Symphony is Orchestra in Residence at Brock University, NSO concert notes are prepared by Brock Music Department faculty member Dr. Brian E. Power, the NSO participates in the Community Arts Partnership with the Brock Department of Music, Brock Music Ed Plus ensembles are featured in as part of Spotlight On!, Music Ed Plus students mentor and volunteer at Summer Music Camp, Brock faculty members coach, and adjudicate practice auditions, for students in The Academy @ SMC, NSO musicians Laura Thomas, Brent Adams, Gordon Cleland, Steve Fralick, Zoltan Kalman, Vera Alexeeva and Patricia Dydnansky are on faculty with the Brock Department of Music, and the NSO offers special PSSTnso (post secondary student ticket) pricing for university students.
from the article posted September 17 in the Orchestra News, Weekly Newsletter
at http://orchestrascanada.org/2014/09/17/new-partnership-for-the-niagara-symphony/
Theatrical Design Exhibition (DART 3F61)
When: March 26 – April 2, 2014, 9 am – 5 pm
Location: Design Studio Room ST102, Schmon Tower, Brock University.
Admission: Free
A public showing of Theatre Design projects by senior design students. Scale maquettes of set designs, costume designs and storyboards for a variety of plays, musicals, songs and proposed films.
Sponsored by the Department of Dramatic Arts, part of the Industrial Fabric 2014 Festival.
April 11, & 12, 2014 at 7:30 p.m.
Matinee: Saturday, April 12th – 2pm
It’s 1938 and in the fractured world left behind The Great Depression, the Spanish Civil War seizes the hopes and fears of the world as people unite and divide over the threat of Fascism. In Canada it is declared a crime to volunteer to fight in Spain, yet 1,546 Canadians make the illegal journey to fight for Democracy in the hopes of creating a better world. Fragmentos follows the journeys of 18 Canadians and Spaniards as they pursue their beliefs in the possibilities of a new life.
Written by the students of DART 4F56, this ensemble production explores the creation of actor-created theatre incorporating circus, song, movement, dance and visual media.
Location: Room ST107 (Studio Theatre), Schmon Tower, Brock Campus
Admission: Donations Accepted
This presentation is the culmination of 6-months of play development and rehearsal by our graduating Performance, and Production & Design Concentrations students
Admission is first-come, first-seated.
For more information: [email protected] or x5255
Let us know you’re coming by joining our Facebook event.
Canada, DART 4F56, Fragmentos, Spanish Civil War, The Great Depression
Categories: Events, Plays
In an interdepartmental collaboration, MUSIC student Leanne Vida, under the direction of DART professor Virginia Reh, explores the character of Rosina in the Figaro operas of Rossini, Mozart, Milhaud and Corigliano.
Location: Sean O’Sullivan Theatre, Brock Campus
Admission: Donations accepted
When: March 31, 2014, 8 p.m. – 10 p.m.
Contact: Marie Balsom, [email protected]
collaboration, Corigliano, Figaro, Leanne Vida, Milhaud, Mozart, Music, opera, Rosina, Rossini, The Rosina Project, Virginia Reh
Categories: Events