Department of Dramatic Arts Performances in 2024-25

Scorched

Written by Wajdi Mouawad, directed by Soheil Parsa
Set and Costume Design by David Vivian

Dramatic Arts Fall 2024 Mainstage Production

Scorched, originally written in French in 2003 by Lebanese Canadian playwright Wajdi Mouawad, tells the story of Nawal, a woman who fled a country tormented by violence, and her twins, Jeanne and Simon, raised in Quebec. Following Nawal’s death, the twins receive two of her letters: one to be delivered to their father, believed dead, and the other to a brother they didn’t know they had. The twins must return to their mother’s war-torn country to carry out her last wishes – to find their father and brother. Thus begins a painful journey in a foreign land.

Scorched is both deeply political and philosophical. The author takes a lucid and disturbing look at the inconsistencies of the world, as the quest for identity is combined against a backdrop of war. In this beautifully written poetic piece, Mouawad explores contemporary barbarism, injustice, and inhumanity. The major themes in Scorched include human capacity for violence and destruction, social decay, dehumanization in the face of war, friendship, separation, fate and destiny, love and loss.

Both the original French language version and the English language version have had many notable productions and received multiple awards. The play was adapted for cinema (Incendies) by Denis Villeneuve in 2010 (director of Blade Runner 2049 and DUNE).

With the success of Scorched and his other plays, Mouawad has become “one of the world’s most-performed living French-language writers” (Nestruck, Globe and Mail, April 26, 2011).

Casting, Creatives and Production Team:

Nine actors from the Department of Dramatic Arts perform the play’s twenty roles: Simon Bell, Nav Brar, Leanne Brown, Simone Cinapri, Aeyanah Edmunds, Sarah Lazo de la Vega Sanchez, Victoria Marshall, Lennon Paul, and Scott Yoo. They are supported by the contributions of student assistant designer Ollie Webb Wilkinson, assistant stage managers Emma Marcy and Alyssa Codling, and alumni stage manager Laura Maieron. The play is directed by Soheil Parsa (Toronto, co-founder and former artistic director of Modern Times Stage Company) and designed by David Vivian (faculty, scenographer for AnthropoScene at MIWSFPA in 2022), with lighting design by Chris Malkowski (Toronto) and sound design by David Mesiha (Toronto and Vancouver).

Under the direction of the professional production staff of the Department of Dramatic Arts, eight students in year two stagecraft courses will build and technically produce these public performances.

This production will be of interest to students of the Arts (Drama, Integrated Arts, Exploring and Creating in the Arts), Canadian and World Studies (Civics, History), English, French as a Second Language (French Literature in Translation), Interdisciplinary Studies, Social Sciences and the Humanities (including Equity studies, Family Studies and World Religions).

Content Advisory:

This production contains mature content and is recommended for individuals 16 and up. The following are included in the production: strong language, acts of violence, depictions of war, and reference to sexual assault and torture.

Performance Dates and Location:

Nov. 1, 2, 8, 9 at 7:30 p.m.
Nov. 3 at 2 p.m.
Nov. 8 at 11 a.m.

Marilyn I. Walker Theatre, MIWSFPA
15 Artists’ Common, St. Catharines

Tickets can be reserved through Brock University Tickets.

Scorched: Mini Symposium 

This event has been rescheduled for Wednesday, November 13th from 6 to 7:30 p.m.

The Film House, First Ontario Performing Arts Centre
250 St. Paul St, St. Catharines
This event is free and open to the public. Reserve your seat on Brock University Tickets.

Join the lead creatives of the Dramatic Arts’ Mainstage production of Scorched and guest scholars for a free ranging conversation about the play Scorched and DART’s production.  With a focus on creative approaches to story-telling in performance and design, dramatic literature in translation, our shifting relationships with text and memory, and the experience of women of colour negotiating pain and invisibility, this will be followed by a Q&A.

Participating Artists: 

Soheil Parsa (Director)
David Vivian (Scenographer)
Dr. Nicholas Hauck (French Program, MLLC)
Nadia Ganesh , DART alumna and PhD candidate, Applied Health Sciences

AnthrApology: A Durational Performance Showcase

Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024, 11 a.m.-7 p.m.

MWS 251 & 256
MIWSFPA, 15 Artists’ Common, St. Catharines

Join the lead creatives of the 4THOT Collective as they engage in an exploration of the ways in which humans need to reconcile their relationship with more-than-human world (i.e. the planet), as well as acknowledge and work through the manifest expressions of supremacy that humans often demonstrate towards one another. Participating Artists: WL Altman (Musician and Composer); Colin Bruce Anthes (Performer); David Fancy (Playwright); Marley Liepert (Performer); Beverly Orser (Sage);
David Vivian (Scenographer).

Free event, open to the public. Seats are limited, please reserve your two hour seating on Brock University Tickets.

Metamorphoses

Written by Mary Zimmerman, directed by Gyllian Raby

Dramatic Arts Winter 2025 Mainstage Production

Brock University Department of Dramatic Arts will present Mary Zimmerman’s award-winning adaptation of Metamorphoses. Director Gyllian Raby (Dramatic Arts) collaborates with Dramaturge Adam Rappold (Classics and Archaeology), Scenographer Julia Kim, Lighting Designer Chris Malkowski, Composer Joe Lapinski, with a Cast and Production Crew from the Marilyn I. Walker School Dramatic Arts department.

For two thousand years, Ovid’s ‘mock-epic’ poem Metamorphoses (8 CE) has been interpreted as a meaningless work of clever poetry or within the Eurocentric classicism of empire. But contemporary artists and scholars have re-examined the rebelliousness of Ovid’s poem and rediscovered the full compassionate range of this exile’s vision.

Ovid’s poem speaks to us through its unflinching gaze at a world of constant change: constellations of power and madness, the enchantment of beautiful love mixed with horrible beauty, and ever-changing ecologies of divinity flowing seamlessly between rocks, trees, rivers, creatures, genders, music, air, waters, and the very words of stories.

The production is fueled by the conviction that Ovid’s vision of transformation speaks to our own contemporary moment amidst the accelerated change of modernity, climate catastrophe, and humanity’s need for fluidity. The adaptation shows how powerless people are empowered in Ovid’s stories– and we hope the hilarity and poignant drama will open similar transformations for audiences.

Feb. 28, March 1, 7 & 8 at 7:30 p.m.
March 2 at 2 p.m.
March 7 at 11:30 a.m.

Marilyn I. Walker Theatre, MIWSFPA
15 Artists’ Common, St. Catharines

Tickets can be reserved through Brock University Tickets. *Please check back soon.