August 2024 DEVI TRIPTYCH
Red Beti Theatre, Natasha Kathi-Chandra, Radha Menon, Judith Thompson, Abimanyu Acharya, Hemangi Shroff, Logan Raju Cracknell, Negar Nemati, Denzel Gordon, Devraji Patnaik, Ranil Sonnadara, Shilipa Mubi Kothakota, Ellora Patnaik, Lisa Scinnella, Suchiththa Wickremesooriya, Anand Rajaram, Shaharah Gaznabbi, Shreya Patel, Mirza Sarhan, Navtej Sandhu, Priya Thomas, Manikham Vongboutdy, Nav Brar, Hayley King, Zakk Milne, Emma Marcy, Heaven Lubocki, Abby Malcolm
Devi Triptych is a reclamation of Goddess Culture brought to audiences in a suite of devised plays premiering in Ontario in the fall of 2025 that has been in development since 2019. India has an unbroken tradition of the Devi (Mother Goddess culture for over 5000 years. While the Olympian gods dislodged the ancient Minoan earth goddess, the tradition of Devi, celebrated in many forms (Durga, Kali, Saraswati) remains intact. Patriarchal social framework invested men with superiority and voice but the maternal feminine identification remains the psychic bedrock of Indian society although it’s often not apparent on the surface. 400 years of British occupation changed the trajectory of India. This has culminated in the degradation of a rich, all-encompassing and tolerant Hindu culture. Motivated by prudish Victorian morality and rigid patriarchy, foreign norms were imposed in India through sweeping legislation that also stripped all agency and power from women, while reinforcing India’s own brand of patriarchy. This almost completely destroyed Devi culture.
July 2024 Mommy Shark: The Precipice of Change
Lumen and Jupiter Multi-Arts Co, Genevieve Jones, Amanda McDonnell
Mommy Shark is an ever- evolving show, blending feminist performance art with stand-up comedy. Pushing the boundaries of cabaret style form and scope, Mommy Shark takes new shapes and draws on fresh material from Genevieve’s real-life journey as a mother. The Precipice of Change focuses on the moment of resistance before one “lets go.” This incarnation’s purpose is to gather research for Genevieve’s overall capstone project in her doctoral study, which looks at shame resistance and auto-ethnographic storytelling through performance methodologies.
July 2024 Wife of Bath
Independent Auntie Productions, Evalyn Parry, Anna Chatterton, Feminist Think Tank (U of Waterloo), Jennifer Roberts-Smith, Makayla Finn, Bianca Taylor
A research creation project inspired by The Wife of Bath, Geoffrey Chaucer’s most popular and enduring character from The Canterbury Tales. Working with Brock staff and students, and alongside the Waterloo University’s Feminist Think Tank, this project to undertake a series of dialogue-based focus groups about their lived experience of contemporary feminisms. Using arts-based methods they are translating this research into storytelling and theatrical materials toward the development of a new script for an eventual student production at Brock.
June/July 2024 La Peau Sacrée
Carousel Players, Jean-Marie Alexandre, Monica Dufault, Joannie Hébert, Taylor Bogaert.
La Peau Sacrée tells the story of Quiche, an eternal teenager trapped in a suit-and-tie adult body, who flees the city and the anger that accompanies it to take refuge on the edge of the forest. Creator/performer Jean-Marie Alexandre questions the different facets of his Québéco-Haitian and male identity, in a creation halfway between storytelling and solo theatre, drawing on his extensive experience creating and performing physical theatre and clown. With strength and inventiveness, but in all humility, he hopes, through the main character, to bring a point of view that will shed light on some of the issues of racism and belonging that have become so delicate and sensitive today.
June 2024 ELSBETH
Mike Griffin and Jewels Krauss
Elsbeth is a physical theatre piece using the precision of puppeteering to give insight into the discombobulated internal experience of OCD. The piece explores the perception of and relationship to inanimate objects, puppeteered by an ensemble, for the protagonist Elsbeth, who has been suffering for most of her life from OCD. The play gives a glimpse into a world unnoticed by most of us, a world in which inanimate objects are waiting to attack Elsbeth at any given moment.
July 2023 THE LAST OF THE RHINESTONE COWBOYS
Priya Thomas, Bianca Taylor, Hayley King, Laura Maieron
The Last of the Rhinestone Cowboys: A two-day adventurous, experimental opportunity to hypothesize, compose, suppose, depict, scheme, creatively express, and collaboratively re-imagine a series of vignettes related to the so-called wild west, and its primary protagonist, the cowboy. Working with a partial playtext, archival materials, and found footage, participants will be invited to experiment with their own unique, specialized abilities as actors, choreographers, dancers, projection designers, writers, and musicians, to devise a new interdisciplinary theatrical work within a relaxed and supportive collaborative-creation environment.
July 2023 AN UNSETTLED ACCOUNT
Evalyn Parry, Anna Chatterton, The Feminist Think Tank of U of Waterloo, Jennifer Roberts-Smith, Bianca Taylor, Hayley King, Laura Maieron, Kristina Miler, Bre Mark
An Unsettled Account: a choral performance of songs and text from Evalyn Parry’s MA research-creation thesis reflecting on queer arts leadership, decolonial futures and systems change.
June 2023 THE MYSTERIOUS MIND OF MOLLY MCGILLICUDDY
Mike Griffin, Jewels Krauss, Maiya Irwin, Jamie Elliott, Zakk Milne, Abby Greenwell, Sarah Rowe, Megan Dobson, Kelsey Flower, Sierra Pellizzarri, Genevieve Batista, Hayley King, Hayley Bando, Marianne Vongboutdy, Michael Cicchini, Bianca Taylor, Sydney Alexander, Benoit St-Aubin, Danielle Wellen, Kosar Dakhilian, Nathan Fagundo, Abby Malcolm
This workshop for the DART 2023-24 Winter Mainstage explored The Mysterious Mind of Molly McGillicuddy, a play that explores brain injury and related mental health issues. Students interested in using physical theatre and full mask to open the doors into a world of imagination, heightening the everyday, embracing the expressionistic, and exploring the whimsical, should apply.
June 2023 THE MONKEY MAN
Radha Menon, Jennifer Roberts-Smith
The Monkey Man: A play development workshop directed by Jennifer Roberts-Smith of a new Greek Tragedy play by Radha S. Menon, Artistic Director of Red Beti Theatre.
June 2023 PACKING A PUNCH
Trevor Copp and Tottering Biped Theatre, Benoit St-Aubin)
Mr. Punch is a multi-media live action play for adults based on the graphic novel The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch, text by Neil Gaiman and illustrations by Dave McKean. The play draws attention to the history of misogyny embedded in Western culture through the tradition of puppets. Examination of the content of the Punch and Judy show occurs as part of the play’s narrative, noting all its extraordinary violence and murder juxtaposed with 400 years of young audiences laughing and calling for more. How is this possible? What is dark humour all about?
May/June 2023 ANTHR-APOLOGY
David Fancy, David Vivian, Colin Bruce Anthes, Genevieve Batista, Ezri Fenton
AnthrApology: is a 12 (Possibly 24!) hour installation performance. It is based on the idea that the world needs a truth a reconciliation commission for all humans and their relationship with one another, as well as their individual and collective relationships with the planet. These are apologies, faux-pologies, cris-de-coeur, misguided apologies, desperate calls for forgiveness, refusals to apologize, simple settling of scores, deathbed confessions. Imagined apologies. Oblique and veiled apologies. Fantasy apologies. This work will involve exploring performance and scenographic possibilities in found spaces and using diverse methods and technologies in preparation for a full production of this text.