Current Students

  • Dramatic Arts welcomes celebrated theatre leader for mainstage production

    Tuesday, October 22, 2024 | By

    Director Soheil Parsa works with students Simone Cinapri and Lennon Paul on stage.

    Image caption: Simone Cinapri (left), a fourth-year Concurrent Education student with teachables in Dramatic Arts (DART) and History, rehearses on stage at the Marilyn I. Walker Theatre with guest Director Soheil Parsa and second-year DART student Lennon Paul (right) in preparation for DART’s mainstage production of Scorched.

    Tuesday, October 22, 2024 | by 

    Director and writer Soheil Parsa is bringing his award-winning theatre expertise and artistry to Brock’s Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts (MIWSFPA).

    Parsa, co-founder and former artistic director of Modern Times Stage Company in Toronto, is directing Scorched, a bold, innovative play written by Wajdi Mouawad, for the Department of Dramatic Arts (DART) fall mainstage production. Parsa was Dramatic Arts Walker Cultural Leader for the 2023-24 season.

    With set and costume design by DART Associate Professor and Scenographer David Vivian, the deeply political and philosophical play explores fate, retribution and the human capacity for violence and destruction.

    Scorched tells the story of Nawal, a woman who fled a country tormented by violence, and her twins, Janine and Simon, who were raised in Quebec. Following Nawal’s death, the twins must return to their mother’s war-torn country to carry out her last wishes and deliver letters to their father, believed dead, and a brother they didn’t know they had.

    Parsa said Scorched strongly resonates with the events shaping the world today.

    “In this remarkable poetic piece, Mouawad explores the darker sides of human nature, contemporary barbarism, dehumanization in the face of war, friendship, separation, love and loss,” he said.

    Fourth-year Concurrent Education student Simone Cinapri, who plays the role of Janine, said Parsa guided the cast and creative team through the challenging script with patience and wisdom.

    “Beyond developing my skills as an actor, this experience has taught me about dedication, communication and creativity, lessons I will carry with me beyond my time at Brock,” she said.

    Cinapri explored how to bring characters like Janine to life — characters Parsa described as archetypal beings representing the essence of human hope, struggle and failure — as a tribute to women who have been affected by war and sexual violence.

    “By exploring the cycle of violence experienced by immigrant families in the play, I have drawn connections to my own family who faced many barriers to live in Canada today,” she said. “I am so grateful for DART’s dedication to providing memorable learning opportunities through mainstage productions.”

    Vivian, who attended National Theatre School with Mouawad, said the DART students involved in the production have “carried the characters in the play very carefully in our hearts these past few months.”

    “Digging deep into the histories and destinies of a multi-generation family led by women of great humanity has been simultaneously a privilege and a challenging responsibility for the artists of DART,” he said.

    Scorched opens Friday, Nov. 1 at 7:30 p.m. at the Marilyn I. Walker Theatre at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts in downtown St. Catharines. Performances will also take place Saturday, Nov. 2, Friday, Nov. 8 and Saturday, Nov. 9 at 7:30 p.m. A matinee performance is scheduled for 2 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 3.

    General admission tickets are available for $25 and tickets for students and seniors are available for $20. Visit the DART event website to reserve tickets.

    The public is also invited to a mini symposium on Wednesday, Nov. 13 at 6:00 p.m. at the Film House (FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre) for an engaging conversation with lead creatives from the production and guest scholars from Brock’s Faculties of Humanities and Applied Health Sciences. Free registration, ticket required.

    Content Advisory: The production contains mature content and is only recommended for individuals aged 16 and up.

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    Categories: Current Students, Events, Faculty & Instructors, Media Releases, News, Performance Season, Plays

  • Announcing DART Open Studies and Summer Institute

    Thursday, May 02, 2024 | By

    Three people stand on an empty stage with a bank seats and theatre lights behind them.

    The Department of Dramatic Arts is launching the summer of 2024 with a selection of learning and creative theatre-making opportunities at both the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts in downtown St. Catharines, at the Stratford Festival, and at theatres in Toronto and the region.  Many of the courses have online learning components.

    Following the Spring Session course, DART 1F01 Acting for Non Majors, a successful online course that began April 29, Dramatic Arts has opened registration to a selection of courses for non-Dramatic Arts students, alumni, students from other universities, and members of the public. This is an especially good opportunity for recent alumni looking to build their professional networks, graduate students looking for research-creation experience, or for other non-DART students looking to get some creative research experience in theatre and/or work on a particular project of interest.

    This includes:

    DART 3P91 Shakespeare in Performance and DART 4P51 Shakespeare: Voice and Text: two-weeks of viewing, studying, and performing Shakespeare with members of the Stratford Festival company in Stratford, Ontario. June 10-22, 2024.

    DART 3P40 Self-Producing: a two week, online intensive preparing students to produce independent projects with producer, writer, and director Matt Mackenzie. Online. June 24-July 6, 2024.

    DART 4P94 Creative and Critical Responses to Theatre: three weeks of viewing and responding to professional theatre in the GTA and Niagara region with theatre critic Karen Fricker.  Online and at the theatres. July 15-Aug 2, 2024.

    DART 3P90 Performance Research Workshop: five weeks of creative research and development workshops with professional theatre companies at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts. June 7-July 26, 2024.

    DART 3F90 Performance Research Project: five weeks of staged workshop development with Hamilton’s Red Beti Theatre at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts.

    July 29-August 30, 2024

    Members of the public interested in registering for these courses, including roles as creative researchers in the Summer Institute program, may join us through the Open Studies program. Open studies is a good opportunity for anyone (eg. artists, producers, teachers, recent alumni, mature students) to enhance skills in a particular area, take a course for interest, or try out DART before applying to a degree program. This will be of particular interest to people interested in the self-producing and theatre criticism courses! If you are taking the course for credit, tuition is charged, but the application process is very quick and easy.  Brock University Open Studies is available to people with all educational backgrounds, is part-time study, does not require you to enroll in a full certificate or degree, and has no formal admission requirements. Folks participating in the Summer Institute as creative researchers are not obliged to enrol in a course; they can also apply to participate part -time on just one or a few projects.

    See the Open Studies and Summer Institute flyers for more information.

     

    Categories: Alumni, Announcements, Current Students, Events, News, Uncategorised

  • Putting theatre skills to work at Edinburgh Fringe Festival

    Friday, November 10, 2023 | By

    Pictured above: Fourth-year Dramatic Arts student Manikham Marianne Vongboutdy recently returned from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where she put her Brock theatre training to work gaining international experience.

    THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 09, 2023 | by

    Carrying with her the skills she’s learned as a Brock Dramatic Arts (DART) student, Manikham Marianne Vongboutdy recently headed overseas to work at the world’s largest performance arts festival.

    The fourth-year student spent time this summer with the prestigious Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where she was invited by her high school to work as a stage manager on the St. Catharines Collegiate and West Niagara Secondary School production, Piece of Me.

    With a concentration in production and design, Vongboutdy said her Brock theatre training was key to her landing the stage management gig in Scotland.

    “Working with Brock’s state-of-the-art technology in Dramatic Arts has been invaluable,” she said. “Learning tech in the theatre has been a special experience. I am developing the skills I will need in the professional theatre world.”

    Piece of Me navigates the relationship of a mother and daughter in a coming-of-age tale offering an innovative take on adolescence told through a teenager’s eyes. Like the characters in the play, Vongboutdy has found many moments of personal reflection as she has grown in her creative practice at Brock.

    Piece of Me was an adaptation based on two different plays exploring similar subject matter, which from a stage management perspective, meant merging two plays into one. This complex staging posed interesting challenges that Vongboutdy was prepared to take on.

    As an upper-year DART student, she was able to transfer the skills gained in her first few years at Brock to her international experience, such as learning to sew in wardrobe classes so she could step up and help with costumes or painting props using skills from props classes.

    “A unique thing about studying at the Marilyn is that we get to learn about different aspects of staging a show, which served me so well during my Edinburgh experience,” she said. “We are stronger artists because of it.”

    After her experience abroad, Vongboutdy said she has a wider perspective of what theatre can look like.

    “It was eye-opening for me,” she said. “As a stage manager, we try and put forward the best show possible, but part of our job is to work with what is happening in the moment. I am thrilled to put my experience into practice.”

    Vongboutdy is now working as stage manager for Brock’s upcoming winter mainstage production, The Mysterious Mind of Molly McGillicuddy, written and directed by DART Instructor Mike Griffin. The play explores brain injury and related mental health issues through the styles of full-mask, puppetry and physical theatre.

    Working with Griffin is a valuable experience for Vongboutdy, who aims to pursue a master’s degree in puppetry. Exploring the medium is especially important to her Laotian heritage, a culture in which many teachings occur using masks and puppets.

    “As an immigrant, I always hold my home and culture in Laos very close, and I try to incorporate elements of my culture into the work I do every day creating theatre,” she said.

    The Mysterious Mind of Molly McGillicuddy will run at the Marilyn I. Walker Theatre Feb. 15 to 19. More information can be found on the DART website.

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    Categories: Current Students, Events, In the Media, News, Uncategorised

  • New summer workshop puts students at centre of creative process

    Tuesday, July 18, 2023 | By

    Image caption: Dramatic Arts (DART) Research Assistants Geneviève Batista (left) and Ezri Fenton participated in the DART Summer Institute of Performance Research workshop session ‘Anthr-Apology.’

    Brock arts students have been honing their creative skills and working alongside professional theatre artists through a new summer workshop series presented by the Department of Dramatic Arts (DART).

    The inaugural DART Summer Institute of Performance Research ran from May 29 to July 7 at the University’s Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts (MIWSFPA).

    Conceptualized by DART Chair and Professor Jennifer Roberts-Smith, the workshop allowed students to be at the centre of the creative process as professional theatre-makers, artists and DART faculty explored performance ideas, working scripts and scenic possibilities for future work.

    Roberts-Smith said DART’s Summer Institute was founded to expand opportunities for what the department calls ‘vertically-integrated’ experiential learning.

    “It’s ‘vertical’ because members of the DART community at all career stages are learning together,” she said. “Collaborative research means we’re asking questions that none of us — not even the most seasoned professionals and faculty — know how to answer.”

    Roberts-Smith said the model sees students’ perspectives and contributions as just as important as workshop leaders.

    Anthr-Apology, a session led by DART Professor David Fancy and DART Scenographer and Associate Professor David Vivian, explored the creative possibilities of a new performance collective, with the first stage of presentation slated for 2024, building on creative research undertaken on the fall DART Mainstage production AnthropoScene.

    Fancy and Vivian are motivated by exploring the ways in which theatre and performance as art forms can be truly responsive to the climate crisis.

    “The project is based on the idea that the world needs a truth and reconciliation commission for all humans and their relationship with one another, as well as their individual and collective relationships with the planet,” Fancy said.

    Vivian said the workshop also generated opportunities for participating graduate- and senior-level MIWSFPA students “to bridge their undergraduate studies to the next level of scholarship and professional opportunities.”

    In another session, Packing a Punch, students worked directly with theatre artist Trevor Copp, Artistic Director and Founder of Tottering Biped Theatre (TBT). Students participated in the creative process of developing TBT’s new multimedia live-action play, Mr. Punch, adapted from a lesser-known Neil Gaiman graphic novel.

    “It was a brilliant week. In the end, what we really found was momentum and artistic excitement about this piece and its possibilities,” Copp said.

    Evalyn Parry, DART’s 2022-23 Walker Cultural Leader and award-winning queer performance-maker, theatrical innovator and artistic leader, led a workshop engaging with choral performance and text from their master’s research-creation thesis, “An Unsettled Account,” reflecting on queer arts leadership, decolonial futures and systems change.

    “Together with my longtime collaborator Karin Randoja (music director for the workshop), rich discoveries were made about how the choral arrangements — both sung and spoken — work on the page and translate into the bodies and voices of singers and actors,” Parry said.

    DART Instructor Mike Griffin, Faculty of Humanities’ 2023 Excellence in Teaching Award recipient, workshopped ideas for his DART winter mainstage production, The Mysterious Mind of Molly McGillicuddy. An original new work written and directed by Griffin, the play explores brain injury and related mental health issues.

    “This has been a great laboratory experience for the development of Molly. The show is primarily movement-based and so we have had a productive week of getting up on our feet and physically working through and testing ideas. A highlight was seeing how deeply connected to the work the students became after such a short period of time. It really speaks to the value of this kind of intensive work,” Griffin said.

    “A set of very strong projects with exciting futures emerged from the inaugural Summer Institute,” Roberts-Smith said. “DART students brought fresh and wise perspectives essential to the success of each project.”

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    Categories: Alumni, Announcements, Current Students, Events, Faculty & Instructors, Future students, News, Performance Season, Plays, Uncategorised

  • Dramatic Arts student to learn behind the scenes at Shaw Festival

    Thursday, May 25, 2023 | By

    Image Caption: Ava Robitaille, a fourth-year Dramatic Arts student, has been selected for an internship at the Shaw Festival for the 2023 season.

    Originally published THURSDAY, MAY 04, 2023 | by

    Like many fourth-year students, Ava Robitaille is excited to see what the future holds after graduation.

    Her vision will soon be a little clearer thanks to a valuable experiential learning opportunity in the world of professional theatre production.

    The Dramatic Arts (DART) student has been selected for an internship at the Shaw Festival for the 2023 season, which will allow her to dive deeper into directing and add to her growing list of skills.

    During the eight-week internship, which began May 2, Robitaille will learn how the Shaw season runs by working behind the scenes on a number of shows and performances.

    She is particularly excited about the opportunity to work with women directors.

    “The Shaw has a really wonderful set of female directors in this season, and I cannot express how important this is to me,” Robitaille says. “I really want to learn about the experiences of those women who have been involved in the industry for an extended period of time.”

    Having worked as a director and associate director in many DART productions, Robitaille is grateful for all the feedback from instructors throughout her time at Brock. She plans to take those remarks and hone in on developing her skills through this opportunity.

    “The biggest thing I want to focus on is learning how I use my directing voice in a room,” she says. “As I’ve been developing as a director through Brock and in DART, my No. 1 feedback has been ‘you’ve got it technically, but you need to bring yourself into the work.’”

    Robitaille recognizes the Shaw internship’s potential to impact her future in the industry. She says it’s a great opportunity for her to get to know some of the individuals involved in the profession, and provides her with a foot in the door with a local, but well-known, production company.

    “This really is the cherry on top of my whole experience with Brock,” she says while reflecting on her final days as a Brock student.

    Robitaille feels the confidence and skills she developed during her time at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts were crucial in preparing her for the internship.

    “What I learned at DART through my four years was incredible,” she says. “From not knowing where I was going in my first year to slowly figuring it out and being given opportunities like this, this is just everything I could have asked for.”

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    Categories: Current Students, News, Shaw Intern Blog, Uncategorised

  • Dramatic Arts students bring one-act visions to life

    Wednesday, May 24, 2023 | By

    Image caption: DART student Celine Zamidar in a dress rehearsal of the play Video by Yvette Nolan, directed by DART student Benoit St. Aubin as part of the One Acts Festival 2023.

    Eight Brock students will debut their directing skills this weekend as the Dramatic Arts (DART) One Acts Festival returns to the stage.

    The 2023 One Acts Festival entitled ‘where are we now?’ runs in two parts from Friday, May 26 until Sunday, May 28 at the Marilyn I. Walker Theatre at 15 Artists’ Common in downtown St. Catharines.

    The program features a collection of eight short plays presented in two parts. Each one-act play is directed by a third-year Dramatic Arts student. As part of Directing II (DART 3P54), students had the opportunity to work with a design and production team, and a company of student actors to bring their vision to life.

    The One Acts Festival provides Dramatic Arts students hands-on experience to explore their creative voice and develop skills as theatre artists. For many students, this is their first chance to direct a full play from preparation to production and performance.

    This is the first year the festival will be hosted in the spring. Admission is pay-what-you-can at the door. Full program details can be found below and on the DART Current Season page.

    Program details:

    Part A – Friday, May 26 at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, May at 2 p.m.

    Fifteen Minute Minimum by Roberto F. Ciccotelli, Directed by Hayley Bando

    Trial of a Ladies Man by Sally Clark, Directed by Meg Dobson

    The Yellow Wallpaper by Jeff G. Rach, Directed by Abby Malcolm

    Video by Yvette Nolan, Directed by Benoit St-Aubin

    Part B – Saturday, May 27 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday May 28 2 p.m.

    Hold the Phone by John Cook, Directed by Michael Naszados

    Excerpts from Daniel MacIvor’s ‘Here Lies Henry’ by Daniel MacIvor, Adapted/Directed by Zakk Milne

    Made for a Woman by Alan Ball, Directed by Laura Maieron

    Excerpts from Rosamund Small’s ‘Vitals’ by Rosamund Small, Adapted/Directed by Hayley King

     

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    Categories: Current Students, Events, Performance Season, Plays, Uncategorised

  • IBPOC Critics Lab introduced to diversify criticism industry

    Monday, April 10, 2023 | By

    A man in decorative costume with long braided hair with face paint, perfroms on stage with other cast members and stage setting with red lighting in the background.

    Jay Emmanuel as Shiva with the company of Why Not Theatre’s production of Mahabharata that played at the Shaw Festival in March. Photo by David Cooper.

    From the spectacular recent staging of the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata at the Shaw Festival, to upcoming productions of Indigenous playwright Frances Koncan’s Women of the Fur Trade at the Stratford Festival and the world premiere re-imagining of Scott Joplin’s lost opera Treemonisha in this summer’s Luminato Festival, work by artists of colour in the Canadian performing arts is thriving.

    Lacking on the scene, however, are critics from diverse backgrounds to respond to these and other productions.

    A new initiative co-organized by Dramatic Arts Adjunct Professor Karen Fricker intends to fill this gap. The IBPOC Critics Lab is an initiative of Intermission magazine, where Fricker is editorial advisor, and the Stratford Festival, in association with the Honduran theatre critic Jose Solís, who piloted this model of training in the US.

    The Critics Lab is a space for Indigenous, Black and People of Colour to explore and develop theatre criticism skills. Eight emerging critics will participate in the Lab, which includes six sessions on Zoom and a face-to-face residential session at the 2023 Stratford Festival. Solís is developing the curriculum and will teach alongside Canadian critics and editors of colour including Glenn Sumi and Joshua Chong.

    “Opening up criticism to those who might not have thought there was a place for them in the field is very important to me and others in the field. It’s very exciting to bring Jose Solís’s pioneering work in this area to Canada for the first time,” said Fricker, who is co-organizing the lab with the Stratford Festival’s publicity director Ann Swerdfager, a former journalist.

    The program is open to Canadian residents who have not yet written but wish to pursue theatre criticism or those who already have some experience in the field. Participants will have the opportunity to explore criticism through writing as well as less traditional methods such as social media, podcasts, and more.

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    Categories: Alumni, Announcements, Current Students, Events, Faculty & Instructors, Future students, In the Media, Media Releases, News, Performance Season, Plays, Shaw Intern Blog, Uncategorised, Visiting Artists

  • Vampires descending on downtown arts school for Brock’s mainstage production

    Thursday, March 02, 2023 | By

    The cast of A Vampire Story prepares the finals scenes of their upcoming performance, which premieres Friday, March 3.

    Originally published in The Brock News | TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2023 | by 

    The undead will make their debut next month in downtown St. Catharines.

    Moira Buffini’s A Vampire Story, the mainstage production from Brock University’s Department of Dramatic Arts, opens at the Marilyn I. Walker Theatre Friday, March 3.

    The show follows Ella, a vampire who is new to a small town that has been plagued by disappearing high school students and teachers.

    Seeking to become more human, she decides to stop drinking blood and to be honest about her undead state, her vampire mother and her horrific past.

    But Ella’s honesty isn’t well received by the community. Her life is upended as she is ostracized and hunted — all while falling in love and sorting out her priorities in a small town where the residents are as bizarre and insatiable as the vampires who live among them.

    Led by Director and Adjunct Professor Gyllian Raby, the adaptation of A Vampire’s Story finds a perfect balance between the play’s gothic and comedic nature.

    Raby’s success both as a professional director and Associate Professor comes from her extensive experience and her affinity for intelligent, culturally astute comedy. She has worked as a freelance director, dramaturge and playwright/adaptor across the world.

    Her productions of Bernard Shaw’s Passion, Poison and Petrifaction, the jazz/tap musical Fingers and Toes, Nicolai Erdman’s Russian farce The Suicide! and the international clown show hit Don’t Do It – Do It have been widely enjoyed by audiences in Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and Thailand.

    Raby said A Vampire Story is more relevant now than its debut performance in 2016, especially in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The loneliness and anxiety caused by the pandemic are common motivating factors for vampire and infection stories, she said.

    “We can all identify with characters who are intensely alone amid society. Of course, this explains the success of the vampire genre,” Raby said. “Moira Buffini’s smart, witty play taps into the pop culture genre, relating loss of soul to the need for activist awareness.”

    Assistant Director and fourth-year DART student Lucas Irving said the use of monsters within the show is instrumental.

    “The production offers a fantastic opportunity to explore who and what the monsters in society are and how the definition changes from one period to another,” he said. “Vampires often surface during times of change and we’re certainly in a time of great change.”

    A Vampire Story includes set design by Nigel Scott, costume design by Alexa Fraser and lighting design by Chris Malkowski, with music direction and live band leadership by Joe Lapinski. The production showcases the talents of Brock DART students Hayley King, Simone Cinapri, Maiya Irwin, Thea Van Loon, Alex De Cicco, Cal Webb Wilkinson, Hunter Brown, Nathan Faigundo, Emma van Barneveld, Tyra Hayward, Celine Zamidar, Michelle Shortt, Benoit St. Aubain, Kaitlyn Boyer, Isaiah Alton and Zakk Milne.

    A Vampire Story opens Friday, March 3 at 7:30 p.m. in the Marilyn I. Walker Theatre inside the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts. Tickets are available for $20 for general admission and $16 for students and seniors. Performances will also take place Saturday, March 4 at 7:30 p.m., Sunday, March 5 at 2 p.m., Friday, March 10 at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, March 11 at 7:30 p.m. To reserve tickets please visit the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre website.

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    Categories: Alumni, Announcements, Current Students, Events, Faculty & Instructors, Future students, In the Media, Media Releases, News, Performance Season, Plays, Shaw Intern Blog, Visiting Artists

  • Brock artists to draw inspiration from new bursary

    Monday, January 30, 2023 | By

    Paul Green and Ginny Medland-Green at Canada Games Park this past summer.

    Through a gift to Brock’s Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, Paul Green and Ginny Medland-Green are supporting students who’ve chosen to pursue a career in the arts.

    Originally published in The Brock News | FRIDAY, JANUARY 27, 2023 | by 

    When Ginny Medland-Green and Paul Green toured Brock’s Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts (MIWSFPA) early last year, they left impressed by the community that exists for young artists at the downtown school.

    The couple, who have a deep love and appreciation for the arts, moved to Niagara-on-the-Lake seven years ago and have been pleasantly surprised by the cultural richness of the region. Through a recent gift in support of the MIWSFPA, they hope to support the study of the arts for students and showcase the impact their work can and will have on communities such as Niagara.

    “It’s courageous to study fine and performing arts at university and set a goal to be a working artist,” Medland-Green said. “We hope our bursary will inspire students to set both imaginative and practical goals for their capstone project and assist financially in a way that energizes them as they work creatively and tirelessly in what is a very competitive environment.”

    Currently taking applications, the Medland and Green Inspiring Artists Bursary is open to all third-year Honours students enrolled in Dramatic Arts, Music and Visual Arts at the MIWSFPA. The bursary has been established to assist students pursuing a unique opportunity such as travel, an internship or training that will benefit their upcoming capstone project or production, taking place in the 2023-24 academic year.

    “The Greens’ gift is a true investment in the future of our students, our downtown campus and the arts in our community,” said Sonia Dupte, Executive Director, Development and Campaigns. “Through its endowment, it will impact generations of inspiring artists at Brock.”

    From the onset of conversations with Brock and the MIWSFPA about the gift, Medland-Green and Green emphasized the importance of the bursary supporting a learning activity that not only excites the student recipient, but also professionalizes and shapes their career path in the arts.

    Linda Carreiro, Associate Dean of Fine and Performing Arts, commended the uniqueness of the bursary and the opportunities it will support for students at the downtown arts school.

    “Students at the Marilyn School are lucky to have a variety of awards established to support them throughout their studies,” she said. “The Medland and Green Inspiring Artists Bursary is unique in the way that it really hones in on the learning and professional development that often happens outside of a classroom.

    “Financially supporting students to pursue an opportunity they’ve identified to advance their own learning will not only inspire them towards a career path, but will also instil confidence that their skills are important and they can in fact make a living by pursuing a career in the arts,” Carreiro said.

    Interested applicants are invited to submit a short proposal (up to 500 words) and budget for the event, project or opportunity for which they are requesting funding. The submission should also include how the funding will assist in the application of their final-year project or production.

    Comprehensive applications, which include the proposal and budget, can be submitted to Brock’s Awards and Bursaries web page and will be reviewed by an advisory committee. The deadline for submissions is Friday, Feb. 10 at 4 p.m.

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    Categories: Alumni, Announcements, Current Students, Faculty & Instructors, Future students, In the Media, News

  • Brock mainstage production puts human behaviour, climate crisis in spotlight

    Friday, November 11, 2022 | By

    Brock University Dramatic Arts students will explore a variety of complex topics in AnthropoScene, this year’s fall mainstage production.

    Originally published in The Brock News | FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2022 | by Charles Kim

    Brock University’s Department of Dramatic Arts (DART) is inviting the community to experience a journey through time and place in AnthropoScene.

    The fall mainstage production explores how the alienation that results from humans’ supremacist behaviour towards one another contributes to the climate crisis, as well as engages the ethics of theatricalizing the present climate emergency.

    AnthropoScene playfully mingles elements of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, real-life figures including Toussaint L’Ouverture and various youth climate justice activists, and fictional characters across multiple locations and time periods.

    The production, which debuts Friday, Oct. 28 and continues into the first week of November, involves one of the largest groups of students, faculty and staff in recent years. Twelve DART students will perform, as 30 others assist in creative and backstage roles. This original work is written and directed by David Fancy, designed by David Vivian, and choreographed by Trevor Copp and Colin Anthes, with live music performed by Devon Fornelli.

    “I’m so pleased at the skill and talent of the many students involved in creating this production, from actors to assistant designers, directors and sound designers — the list goes on,” says Fancy, a Brock DART Professor.

    Conveying so many complex elements within the production has been no easy task, but one the cast and crew have handled impressively, he says.

    “Our Dramatic Arts students have really shown courage and insight in dealing with the challenging materials that this play covers: self-harm, racism and environmental harm,” Fancy says. “They have also brought great verve and joy to the choreography, company dance numbers and comedic aspects of the project.”

    To help immerse audiences in multiple locations and time periods, the Marilyn I. Walker Theatre has taken on a new form.

    “I imagine the audience having an experience of poetry, drama, comedy, dance, beautiful design, light and sound that will transport them to different places and times,” Fancy says. “I’ve configured the theatre differently than it usually is in order to help the audience feel they are being brought somewhere else.”

    AnthropoScene opens Friday, Oct. 28 at 7:30 p.m., with additional performances on Oct. 29 and 30, and Nov. 4 and 5. All shows take place at the Marilyn I. Walker Theatre in Brock’s Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts in Downtown St. Catharines.

    A roundtable discussion, also open to the public, will take place on the production stage Wednesday, Nov. 2 at 6:30 p.m., with a panel of experts from Brock and other institutions discussing topics related to staging planetary evolution and destruction.

    Brock Professor of Art Education Fiona Blaikie will lead the discussion alongside Fancy; Vivian; Christine Daigle, Professor of Philosophy and Director of Brock’s Posthumanism Research Institute; Katrina Dunn, Assistant Professor in the University of Manitoba’s Department of English, Theatre, Film and Media; Lin Snelling, a dancer whose artistic practice brings the qualities of improvisation into dance, theatre, writing, visual art and somatic practice; and Priya Thomas, Assistant Professor of Dramatic Arts at Brock.

    Tickets for AnthropoScene are $20 for the general public and $16 for students and seniors. For a full schedule of performances or to purchase tickets, visit the Brock University Tickets website.

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