News

• DART graduate to receive the President’s Surgite Award

  Thursday, March 21, 2013 | By Brock University

  DART alumna Roxolana (Rox) Chwaluk was recently selected to receive the President’s Surgite Award at her Masters degree convocation in the autumn of 2013.

  The President’s Surgite Award recognizes those students who have been outstanding in one or more of the following areas:

  • Demonstrated exemplary leadership in a student club, organization, association or team.
  • Did something exceptional that helped to advance Brock’s academic reputation.
  • Made a significant contribution to student life at Brock.
  • Provided a valuable service to Brock or the broader community.

  Rox remarked that “the foundation that I had as a DART (Dramatic Arts) student was essential to my success. I have always been grateful for the opportunities I was provided to engage with my peers and the community. The professors who inspired me also grounded my work.”

  Rox graduated with a BA Honours in Dramatic Arts First-Class Standing in 2009, her Bachelor of Education Preservice Education – Intermediate Senior in 2010, and will graduate with her Master of Education (Social and Cultural Contexts of Education) in the autumn of 2013.

  congratulations to you, Rox!

  Tags: President's Surgite Award, Rox Chwaluk
  Categories: Alumni, News

• 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 [email protected]

  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.
  -30-

  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

• DART Professor at 2013 Congress in Victoria, British Columbia

  Friday, February 15, 2013 | By Brock University

  Associate Professor Natalie Alvarez will be serving on the Program Committee for the Canadian Association for Theatre Research’s (CATR) 2013 meeting at Congress 2013 of the Humanities and Social Sciences. In 2014 DART will be hosting the annual meeting of the CATR as part of the complete Congress event to be held at the St. Catharines campus.

  In addition to participating in a seminar on performance studies and sport, her two edited books on Latina/o Canadian theatre and performance will be launched during a conference lunch in Victoria.

  Tags: Canadian Association for Theatre Research, CATR, Natalie Alvarez
  Categories: Faculty & Instructors, News

• The Walker Cultural Leader Series: Daniel Levinson, leading movement and stage fighting expert to present a Movement and Stage Combat Intensive program

  Tuesday, February 12, 2013 | By mbalsom

  

  Daniel Levinson

  BROCK UNIVERSITY
  MEDIA RELEASE

  February 12, 2013
  Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts
  905.688.5550 x4765

  New Walker series opens doors for arts students and the public

  A major series of cultural events, workshops and performances being launched this fall by Brock University will provide new learning experiences for students, and in many cases will also be open to the public.

  The Walker Cultural Leader Series will see leading artists, performers and academics convene more than a dozen events in disciplines ranging from animation to classical music and theatrical performance. The events will take place on campus as well as in the community.

  Presented by Brock’s Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts (MIWSFPA), the series opens Oct. 16-19 with workshops, studio visits and performances by Sobey Award-winning performer and animator Daniel Barrow.

  The series will also feature presentations by Joan Watson, principal horn of the Canadian Opera Company; performer and author Stephen Nachmanovitch; acclaimed Canadian pianist Robert Silverman; and Daniel Levinson, an expert in movement and stage combat.

  The new series is being funded thanks to the Marilyn I. Walker Fund, an endowed fund created in 2008, when Marilyn Walker donated $15 million to Brock’s school of fine and performing arts.

  Derek Knight, director of the Walker School, said the main objective of the series is to engage students, but pointed out many sessions are open to the community.

  “The new series is committed to inviting varied and interesting guest speakers,” said Knight. “It will be engaging, lively and erudite. These sessions celebrate professional achievement, artistic endeavour and the indelible role of culture in our society.”

  Douglas Kneale, Dean of Humanities at the University, said the initiative is another step forward for Brock on the academic, cultural and community fronts.

  “Thanks to the generosity of Marilyn I. Walker, we are able to offer students unique interactions with creative leaders in the fine and performing arts, and also extend to the community educational and cultural opportunities that will be enormously enriching.”

  The Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts is comprised of the departments of Dramatic Arts, Music, Visual Arts, and the Centre for Studies in Arts & Culture.

  For more info and follow-up interviews: Marie Balsom, Communications, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, Brock University, 905-688-5550 x4765; [email protected]

  -30-

  Tags: Daniel Levinson, media release, movement, stage combat, stage fighting, Walker Cultural Leader Series
  Categories: Media Releases, News

• Dramatic arts prof interviewed on national radio

  Monday, January 21, 2013 | By Brock University

  

  Karen Fricker, assistant professor of Dramatic Arts, was inteviewed on CBC Radio’s Q Monday morning.

  (Source: The Brock News, Monday, January 21, 2013 | by Tiffany Mayer)

  A Brock University dramatic arts professor was interviewed on national radio about the current state of affairs of entertainment giant Cirque du Soleil.

  Karen Fricker was a guest Monday on CBC Radio’s Q, a daily arts and culture magazine. The assistant professor talked about the implications of Montreal-based Cirque du Soleil’s recent announcement that it was laying off 400 people.

  “This is significant because Cirque du Soleil is a very strong brand and usually the coverage around it is positive,” Fricker said.

  The segment of the show, hosted by Jian Ghomeshi, looked at whether the company was in crisis and if the layoffs meant the end of a Canadian success story made world famous for its performances that incorporate gravity-defying acrobatics and stunning choreography.

  From Fricker’s perspective, Cirque du Soleil isn’t going anywhere but it has grown at an unsustainable rate.

  The company has even admitted to not having appropriate control over its spending.

  “That’s an important admission,” Fricker said. “They’re making money but they’re spending too much and (cutting jobs) is a line in the sand, a signal their practices need to change .”

  Fricker was joined by J. Kelly Nestruck, a theatre critic for the Globe and Mail, on the show.

  The segment will air again Monday night on CBC Radio One at 10 p.m. and can be heard online or as a podcast.

  Tags: CBC Radio, CBC Radio Q, Cirque du Soleil, J. Kelly Nestruck, Karen Fricker, The Brock News
  Categories: Faculty & Instructors, News

• Brock actress scores top honour at Spanish international film festival

  Friday, October 05, 2012 | By Brock University

  

  Katie Coseni with her Silver Shell Award for best actress from the San Sebastián Film Festival in Spain

  (Source: The Brock News, Friday, October 5, 2012)

  It was a callback Katie Coseni won’t soon forget.

  The second-year dramatic arts student had just returned from six days at the San Sebastián International Film Festival in Spain, where the film in which she plays one of the lead roles, Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang, was given the red carpet treatment.

  It was her second stop on the international film festival circuit, after the film’s premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in early September.

  She was alone in her room when she got the call.

  “I looked at the number and it was from France,” says Coseni. “I was like that’s really weird, why is someone from France calling me?”

  It was one of the producers from the film on the other end of the line notifying her that the festival wanted her to come back so that she could accept her award.

  I was like, what award?” Coseni remembers.

  The award in question was the Silver Shell for Best Actress.

  “I made her repeat it six times because I thought she was joking,” says Coseni. “It was really incredible.”

  Coseni was given the honour along with Spanish actor Marcarena García for her turn in Blancanieves, a silent black-and-white reinterpretation of Snow White set in 1920s Spain.

  “It’s kind of like ‘did that actually happen?’” says Coseni about receiving the award. “I still can’t believe it.”

  “I see the box that the award came in on my desk and I forget what it is for a second, and then I remember ‘Oh yeah, I got this really awesome prestigious award,’” she says. “It’s just incredible.”

  Created in 1953, this year is the 60th anniversary of the San Sebastián International Film Festival, one of the most important cinema festivals in the world.

  “San Sebastien was just a whole otherworldly experience,” says Coseni. “It was all just a huge whirlwind.”

  “I would wake up in the morning and then I would go to hair and make-up and then I’d go to a photo shoot and then a press conference and then interviews and then I’d have an hour for lunch, and then I’d have to go get ready for the red carpet, and then I’d have to do this and this and this,” she says. “But it was really fun.”

  

  above, Katie Coseni in the film Foxfire

  When asked about her future in acting in light of her recent accolades, the first-time film actor is looking to take advantage of her recent success.

  “I’m taking steps now towards getting agents,” she says. “Hopefully that will lead to more auditions because I really do want to do this for as long as I can because I love it.”

  After a busy few months of publicizing Foxfire, Coseni is ready to switch gears and get back to her studies.

  “For right now, it’s just school and trying to get back to normal,” she says.

  

  A film still from the movie Foxfire featuring Brock-student Katie Coseni (right)

  But that all depends on what you consider normal. Coseni received her callback on a Friday morning, hopped on a plane later that night, arrived in Spain Saturday night one hour before she was to receive the Silver Shell at the awards gala, woke up Sunday morning to fly back home, arrived home Sunday night and was back in class Monday morning.

  “It feels like it happened so long ago, it’s really weird,” she says laughing. “It took like a day or so getting back to my regular sleeping pattern. It feels like I just got back from summer vacation.”

  Foxfire is slated for theatrical release in France in January 2013 and plans are in the works for a Canadian release in Spring 2013.

  Tags: Best Actress Award, Blancanieves, film acting, Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang, Katie Coseni, San Sebastián International Film Festival, Silver Shell, The Brock News
  Categories: Current Students, News

• Brock student hits the international red carpet 

  Wednesday, September 26, 2012 | By Brock University

  

  Coseni on the red carpet at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

  DART student Katie Coseni was recently featured in an article in The Brock News:

  “Katie Coseni’s first experience at the Toronto International Film Festival was not typical.

  Rather than chasing celebrities for autographs and crowding the edges of red carpets in hopes of catching a glimpse of movie stars, the second-year dramatic arts student found herself on the red carpet soaking up the limelight.

  Coseni plays one of the lead roles in the film Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang, which premiered at this year’s festival on Sept. 10.”

  The article continues: “. . . . Coseni’s long journey to the red carpet in Toronto all started when she responded to an open casting call in 2010.

  “A friend and I went to a drama camp when I was in middle school,” she says. “I guess we stayed on their mailing list and they sent out a flyer about this audition.”

  . . . Coseni credits her fellow students and professors in the dramatic arts program at Brock for being extremely supportive of her foray into film. Students would share their notes with her when she missed classes and professors were accommodating when it came to handing in assignments.

  “Because I was going to school for drama and I was missing school because of a movie, they understood,” she said. “It’s a very supportive and friendly environment.””

  From the article by Jeffrey Sinibaldi in the Brock News.  Read more of the article here.

  congratulations to Katie!

  Tags: Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang, Katie Coseni, The Brock News, TIFF, Toronto International Film Festival
  Categories: Current Students, News

• Design instructor in the Department of Dramatic Arts receives notice in the Globe and Mail 

  Wednesday, September 26, 2012 | By Brock University

  

  Christine Horne and Susan Coyne in Between The Sheets. (John Lauener, from the Globe and Mail, link to source adjacent)

  Kelly Wolf, sessional instructor for DART 1P97 Introduction to Stagecraft, Production and Design and DART 3F61 Design: Theatrical Design, recently designed the world premiere at Nightwood Theatre in Toronto, Between the Sheets. This “short, sharp new play” is noticed for its brilliant and heart-pounding performance.

  Nightwood describes the play: “What begins as an ordinary parent teacher interview unravels into a gripping and raw confrontation between two women on the brink of disaster. One woman is fighting to protect her family. The other is fighting for the family she always wanted. With razor sharp intensity, Mand has crafted a rollercoaster ride of high stakes drama.”

  Globe Critic Martin Morrow congratulates Kelly for “the perfect character-defining costumes and … the set, an exact replica of an elementary-school classroom.” Her design proposes a scenographic space that gives the feeling of a “boxing ring in director Kelly Thornton’s tightly coiled staging.”

  The Globe concludes their notice with “If you handed out report cards for shows, Between the Sheets would get straight As.”

  Congratulations to Kelly!

  for the full review please see the article in the Globe and Mail.

  information about the season at Nightwood Theatre may be found here.

  Tags: Between the Sheets, Kelly Wolf, Martin Morrow, Nightwood Theatre, production and design, The Globe and Mail
  Categories: Faculty & Instructors, News