Articles tagged with: alumni

  • DART alumna to co-host session at the SHIFT Professional Development Conference

    ARTS AND CULTURE: CAREER CONVERSATIONS

    Date/Time: April 28, 2017, 3 pm – 4:15 pm
    Location: Plaza Rm. 410, Brock University

    DART alumna Victoria Mountain will feature at the SHIFT Professional Development Conference for graduate students alongside VISA alumna Shauna Daley with their session, “ARTS AND CULTURE: CAREER CONVERSATIONS”. From the conference website: “A modern cultural worker can thrive in variety of careers in education, media and the arts. The reach and satisfaction of creative practice can be the cusp of personal freedom and a condition for seeking satisfying work. How do we negotiate and harness creative energies within professions that embrace those creative forces? Join our conversation!”

     

    Victoria is a writer, performer, researcher and cultural manager residing in Toronto, Ontario. In addition to her Honours Bachelor of Arts in Theatre from Brock University, she also holds a Master of Arts in Drama from the University of Toronto, and an Erasmus Mundus Master of International Performance Research from the Universities of Warwick, United Kingdom and Helsinki, Finland. Victoria currently works for the City of Brampton as the Manager of Culture with the Economic Development and Culture Division, leading the City through its first cultural master planning process.

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    Categories: Alumni, Announcements, News

  • Brock Dramatic Arts alumni nominated for St. Catharines Arts Awards

    The Department of Dramatic Arts is proud to announce that several DART graduates and one of our DART professors have been nominated for the Emerging Artist award at this year’s St. Catharines Arts Awards!

    More information can be found at this news entry on the main MIWSFPA website. Congratulations, and good luck!

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    Categories: Alumni, Announcements, Faculty & Instructors, In the Media, News

  • On Cultural Power: The August Wilson/Robert Brustein Discussion, Re-enacted!

    Experience the famous and controversial 1997 debate that took New York by storm: “The intellectual equivalent of extreme fighting” – Frank Rich

    March 15, 2017 at 6 pm

    Marilyn I. Walker Theatre, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, 15 Artists’ Common, St. Catharines

    To reserve your tickets for this free community event, visit this link: http://bit.ly/2k8CbnP

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    Categories: Events, Plays

  • Brock alumni showcase talents in The Bacchae

    (Source: The Brock News, Thursday, January 19, 2017 | by . Photo: “The Bacchae, a Twitches & Itches Theatre production, is hitting the stage at FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre from Jan. 19 to 21. (Photo by David Vivian)”)

    The worlds of ancient Athens and modern Niagara have come together in a theatrical production led in part by Brock alumni.

    The Bacchae, a modern adaptation of a play originally performed in 405 BCE, is hitting the stage at FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre from Jan. 19 to 21.

    The Twitches & Itches Theatre production challenges ideas of identity and explores what happens when extreme left- and right-wing politics collide.

    When the ensemble began working on the play in February 2015, they had no idea how timely it would be when presented on the eve of the presidential inauguration of 2017.

    “We had no idea Brexit and Donald Trump’s rise to power were just around the corner,” said director Colin Bruce Anthes (BA ’14, MA ’16).

    “The play was miles ahead of us. Many of the play’s original themes are shockingly reflected in our present society.”

    The play engages with current social issues, as Dionysus, an androgynous foreigner, arrives in St. Cadmus and starts changing the entrenched norms. The conservative rule of King Pentheus is challenged by this new god of wine, theatre and ritual madness and the women who abandon the city core to follow him.

    “Some of the dialogue looks like headlines stolen from today’s newspapers,” Anthes said.

    “In our production, the priest of a new religion arrives as a David Bowie-esque glam-rock star, bursting through a city’s eternalized film-noir surface.”

    Issues of identity are central to this play, as xenophobia, transphobia and intolerance of different body types are all challenged.

    Brock student Iain Lidstone found playing the role of Dionysus both rewarding and exhausting.

    “I am a trans man playing a gender-fluid character,” he said.

    “On the one hand, I find utter relief and excitement that as a queer artist I get the opportunity to give a voice to queer identities on the stage.”

    Lidstone’s own experiences informed the development of his character.

    “My character’s gender-fluidity and effeminate nature means I am constantly challenging my own internalized transphobia and trans-masculine identity in order to authentically portray our ‘queerified’ image of Dionysus.”

    Hayley Malouin (BA ’15) plays the role of Agave, mother to King Pentheus.

    “As a fat actor I’ve seen my inordinately unfair share of motherly characters,” she said, while adding that her most recent role has been different.

    “(Agave) is a person before she is a mother and this production pays particular attention to her journey as an intelligent, politically savvy, but ultimately oppressed agent.”

    General manager Marcus Tuttle (BA ’15) describes the production as a play that “makes sense for St. Catharines.”

    Niagara issues are woven throughout the play: the disappearing manufacturing economy and the experiences of migrant workers, as well as challenges faced by the LGBTQIA community.

    Twitches & Itches Theatre is committed to developing local acting talent.

    The group was founded by Anthes and Tom DiMartino in 2009 and moved to St. Catharines in 2013.

    They have gradually built up a core ensemble of nine performers, eight of whom trained at Brock’s Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts.

    This is the group’s sixth full production and their first independent production at the Performing Arts Centre.

    Tickets are available on the FirstOntario Performing Art Centre’s website.

    Brock students/alumni included in the production: Iain Lidstone, Hayley Malouin, Sean Rintoul, Kaitlin Race, Sean Aileen McClelland, Chelsea Wilson, Marcus Tuttle, Colin Bruce Anthes.


    Media:

    TVCogeco’s feature on The Bacchae:

     

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    Categories: Alumni, In the Media, News

  • Dramatic Arts alumna feature documentary to be broadcast July 09

    (Source: The Brock NewsWednesday, June 15, 2016 | by )

    It was the people and their stories that captivated Nicolina Lanni. What they lost. What they found. How they connected.

    In her first feature documentary film Lost & Found, the Brock University grad shares the stories of Japanese people who survived a devastating tsunami and the beachcombers half a world away who helped pick up the pieces.

    “It’s about people and very personal, human stories,” says Lanni (BA ’05). “It was so clearly such a beautiful story and once it was in front of us, there was no way we were not going to tell it.”

    An estimated 25-million tonnes of wreckage from Japan’s 2011 earthquake and tsunami is drifting across the Pacific Ocean, often washing up on North America’s shores. Filming took Lanni and her creative partner John Choi to Alaska, Washington, British Columbia and Japan.

    Lanni says the debris is more than just trash, it’s remnants of the lives of the 20,000 people lost to the waves and the loved ones they left behind.

    The film follows the stories of beachcombers, scientists and government officials coming together to collect all that was lost, and reunite the items with their rightful owners in Japan.

    “We didn’t really focus on the disaster or the aftermath,” Lanni says. “Our film really focuses on the specific stories of friendship and these really unlikely relationships forged in the aftermath.”

    One of the friendships the film explores is between Alaskans David and Yumi Baxter and a woman they met in Japan after finding a yellow buoy wash up in Alaska. Sakiko Miura lost everything in the tsunami including the restaurant she ran with her late husband Keigo.

    The Baxters reunited Miura with a buoy with the character for Kei (short for Keigo) painted on it, which used to hang outside of her restaurant in a coastal town called Minamisanriku.

    “The fact that the Kei buoy came back makes me think that my husband’s soul is in it,” Miura says in the documentary.

    The meaning of objects and our connection to them is explored throughout Lost & Found.

    The filmmakers made links that will last a lifetime, Choi says.

    “The people in our film are all incredibly close to us still. It’s a family,” he says. “Lost & Found is really about taking that leap of faith and the unlikeliness of people coming together from around the world and connecting.”

    Lanni says the work she did while making the film is drawn from her experiences at Brock, where she studied theatre and women’s studies.

    It was at Brock that she started interviewing people and storytelling as part of a form of verbatim theatre called Collective Creation – when a group comes together, writes, collaborates and performs. She did it in Africa after graduation.

    “We would go into a town, talk to people and create a show and perform it for the community,” she says.

    After working in journalism for a time, Lanni switched to filmmaking and works as a director and producer in film and broadcast television including programming for The History Channel, Discovery Channel and Shaw Media.

    Lost & Found was commissioned by Shaw Communications alongside NHK Enterprises in Japan and SBS in Australia.

    Lanni says they also received the Hot Docs Shaw Completion Fund and the film had its theatrical premier at the Hot Docs Bloor Cinema in March for the fifth anniversary of the tsunami.

    For more information on the film and where to see it visit www.lostandfoundthefilm.ca. Global is showing the movie July 9 at 9 p.m.

    Lanni and Choi, who have a company called Frank Films, are currently working on a documentary about sinkholes.

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    Categories: Alumni, In the Media, News

  • Dramatic Arts graduating student writes about her experiences at Brock University

    goodnight-desdemona60ed07-1600x900crHello future DART students (and those still deciding):

    My name is Elizabeth and I am a graduating student from the Dramatic Arts program at Brock University.  I know you are all facing the important decision of where to go for school next year and wanted to write you all and let you know a bit about why I chose Brock, and the amazing opportunities I’ve had as a result.

    After my invitational experience at Brock I knew it was the place for me.  I left the invitational convinced that this would be a program in which I would be valued and appreciated for what I had to offer as an individual.  I also got the feeling that this would be a program focused on building community rather than competition.  I was right; DART is filled with some of the most supportive people I have ever worked with — professors and peers alike.

    The ability to get a truly well-rounded theatrical education was one of the most important factors in my decision.  Although I was in the performance concentration and therefore had plenty of studio classes and performance opportunities, I benefitted the most from being exposed to all aspects of theatrical production and study.  Crew courses gave me an appreciation for those who work backstage, as well as valuable skills that performers may need when starting their own small companies; critical theory and theatre history courses gave me a strong foundation of theatrical knowledge that I continuously draw on; directing and devising courses allowed my to develop who I want to be as an artist; and a theatre criticism course with Prof. Karen Fricker — who is also the Toronto Star’s new theatre critic — allowed me to discover a passion I was able to further as a writer and editor for dartcritcs.com.  That passion for theatre criticism began my interests in writing and dramaturgy, interests that I am now pursuing in graduate studies at Harvard University and the American Repertory Theater Institute — indicative, I believe, of the quality of education and scope of opportunities DART offers its students.

    If you have a theatre-related interest you want to explore, Brock is the place to do it.  In my time here I have acted in numerous MainStage and student-run productions, directed a one act play and assistant directed last year’s Fall MainStage, coordinated five seasons of the GimmeTwo short scene festival, attended classes at the Stratford and Shaw festivals, learned technical skills ranging from designing lighting plots to building sets, been employed by the university as a stage hand and as a theatre critic, and am currently working as a summer intern at the Shaw Festival. (I write a blog for DART students about this experience which you can find at shawandtell.wordpress.com).  I believe that this program offers students the support and resources to achieve and experience anything they desire.

    DART is a program that allows you to pursue your interests with instructors who not only are some of the best in the business, but who respect and build lasting friendships with their students.  This is a program to explore and gain confidence in new interests in a safe and encouraging environment.  Even better, that environment is now gorgeous and better equipped than ever thanks to the recent move to the brand new arts building.

    I hope that you seriously consider the Dramatic Arts program at Brock.  This program made all the difference in allowing me to become a confident and competent artist, and I know that my future is brighter because of the decision I made when I was in your place.  Please feel free to email me with any questions you may have about the program, I will be so happy to hear from you and will help in any way I can.  Hope to see you on (or behind) the DART stage in the coming years!

    Best of luck,

    Elizabeth Amos
    DART Class of 2016

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    Categories: Alumni, Current Students, Future students, News

  • Brock grad attending prestigious Soulpepper Academy

    (Source: The Brock NewsWednesday, May 18, 2016 | by )

    When Marcel Stewart studied drama at Brock University, he learned more than how to portray a character on stage.

    He learned to write, direct and produce. He learned confidence in his craft.

    “Brock taught me a lot about just being an artist in general,” said the 30-year-old Toronto man. By his third year in the dramatic arts program, Stewart (BA ’07) was completely immersed in all aspects of the theatre.

    “I’m most grateful for the understanding that arts is a community,” he said, noting he appreciated the spirit of collaboration and support at Brock.

    Stewart was recently accepted as one of 17 artists in the prestigious and competitive Soulpepper Academy, a paid two-year training program for theatre artists. More than 1,100 people applied in the nationwide audition.

    Stewart said the six-month audition process was intense but taught him a lot about himself.

    “To be selected as a member of the Soulpepper Academy can be a career-changing appointment,” said Professor David Vivian, chair of Brock’s Department of Dramatic Arts. “We teach our theatre artists to excel across a wide spectrum of skills.”

    Soulpepper Academy has specialized training streams in acting, playwriting, directing, designing and producing.

    Stewart, who for a number of years has been exploring the relationship between Shakespearean language and hip-hop music, is developing a hip-hop adaptation of Macbeth.

    He has also been successful on the stage in the Toronto area and said taking a break from his burgeoning acting career is daunting. But to him, it’s worth the risk.

    “What I’m looking forward to is better preparing myself to become a man on stage,” he said, noting he’s looking to transition from roles for young men into a broader range. “I’m most excited about challenging myself.”

    Vivian said Stewart’s teachers at Brock are proud of his accomplishments since graduating.

    “This is a significant achievement for one of our graduates and it couldn’t have happened to a more generous spirit and talented artist,” said Danielle Wilson, Brock lecturer and director of Mainstage Productions in the Department of Dramatic Arts. “As a student, he was extremely motivated to do quality work that pushed the boundaries of his abilities. I have followed his career over the years and am very impressed by the quality of the projects he has been involved in as a young and developing artist.” Stewart starts at Soulpepper Academy in August.

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    Categories: Alumni, In the Media, News

  • Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine & Performing Arts Alumni Homecoming

    Event date: September 18, 2015, 5 pm – 11 pm

    ***PLEASE SEE THIS NEWS UPDATE ABOUT PARKING ON SEPTEMBER 18TH***

    Alumni of the Arts and Culture, Dramatic Arts, Music and Visual Arts programs and our friends and guests from the Niagara Region and GTA are cordially invited to the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts Alumni Homecoming and Grand Opening!

    Please join us for an evening of captivating artwork, exciting performances and beautiful music. Grab a glass of wine, take yourself on a tour of the incredible new MIWSFPA facility and spend some time reconnecting with classmates, professors and friends from the Departments of Dramatic Arts, Music, and Visual Arts, and our Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture.

    Official opening ceremonies begin at 3:00; Open house begins at 5:00 pm; VISA Art Gallery Alumni exhibition opens at 5:00 pm; VISA Alumni Dinner, 6:30 – 8 pm at Gord’s Place, 84 James Street; MUSI programming across the evening in multiple venues at 15 Artists’ Common; Cabaret in the DART Theatre at 7:30 pm.

    Affiliated events also include:

    Tale of a Town St. Catharines
    Addressing the Void

    and

    Confluence Field Trip #1, a fifteen minute walk from Rodman Hall to MWSFPA along the Merritt Trail and McGuire St.. for more information see: confluencefieldtrips.ca

    Hope to see you there!

    See the Facebook event by clicking here.

    GET YOUR TICKETS HERE to reserve a seat at the VISA Alumni dinner!

    GET YOUR TICKETS HERE for the DART theatre CABARET!

    For more information about the Homecoming Weekend program at Brock University, to register for events and to learn about shuttle bus service to the region be sure to visit
    https://brocku.ca/alumni/celebrate-homecoming-2
    ***Please note this event will take place at our new address at 15 Artists’ Common, also known as the former Canada Haircloth Building, in downtown St. Catharines. ***not at 500 Glenridge Avenue ***

    Here is a link to a Google street view from June, when our address was known to be IceDogs Way, and here is a Google map for directions to the facilities.

    Please see the Brock University Campus Map here: https://brocku.ca/blogs/campus-map/miwsfpa/

    We are adjacent to the First Ontario Performing Arts Centre and the Meridian Centre.

    ***PLEASE SEE THIS NEWS UPDATE ABOUT PARKING ON SEPTEMBER 18TH***

    *****

    Hear ye! Hear ye! the excellent program for our event on September 18th!

    VISA Painting Studio 
    location: MW 416
    4:00-9:00 pm
    Open house Exhibition
    and
    Musical performances in the VISA Painting Studio by:
    Brock Jazz Band
    Carly Manley
    Danny Lamb Trio
    Grace Notes String Ensemble
    Brock Beatles Band

    VISA Drawing Studio 
    location: MW 406
    4:00 – 9:00 pm
    Open house Exhibition
    and
    Musical performances in the VISA Drawing Studio by:
    Sabrina Xin Liu, piano
    Leanne Vida, piano/vocal
    Andrea Nolan, piano/vocal
    Neva Tesolin, piano/vocal
    Leland, piano/vocal
    Melissa-Marie Shriner, piano/vocal
    H. Campbell, piano/vocal

    VISA Gallery
    First floor at the Main Entrance, 15 Artists’ Common
    MW 159
    5:00-7:00 pm
    Opening Reception for the Alumni exhibition
    and
    Musical performances in the VISA Gallery by:
    Grace Snippe, cello
    Brody Smith, guitar
    Allison Scholtens, violin
    Tyler Merza, guitar

    Classical Recital in the MUSI Vocal Studio 
    location: MW 104
    6:00 – 9:00 pm
    Christina Lerose, piano
    Leanne Vida, soprano
    Jorgo Kalo, piano
    Victoria Hoshowsky, soprano
    Negin Rezaei Asl, piano
    Caroline Nicole Corkum, soprano and Alexandre Soulodre, piano
    Serena Atallah, piano
    Erika Versluis, soprano and Tyler Versluis, piano
    Sabrina Xin Liu, piano
    Leanne Vida, soprano and Jorgo Kalo, piano

    DART Theatre Cabaret!  
    Location: DART Theatre
    MW 262
    7:30 pm – 11:00 pm
    Hosted by Cass Van Wyck and Rox Chwaluk
    Guests are welcome to come and go.
    In order of performance:

    Arms Up Comedy: Caitlin English, Jacqueline Costa, Eric Frank, Chris Boyle
    Attic Window Theatre, In Real Life: Collin Glavac, Colin B. Anthes, Eduardo DiMartino, Nicola Franco, Hayley Rose Malouin
    Piano and Vocal: Lee Stewart
    Brock Improv Alumni: Richard Varty, Rox Chwaluk, Brandon Pachan, Alana Perri.
    Piano and Vocal: Melissa-Marie Shriner and Grace Snippe
    One Four One Collective, Stuck in Horse- Send Help! : Evan Mulrooney and Kevin Chew
    Piano and Vocal: Neva Tesolin
    MOVE! : Alex Kazam, Adrien Hurst, Jerry Prom, Mitchell Peebles, Caleb Fast, Mikey Henley
    Music by Alejandro Del Pino
    The Labour of Forrest Nympho: A Drag Birthing: Geoffrey Heaney
    Piano and Vocal: Andrea Nolan
    Empty Box Theatre, Waiting for Alonzo:  Hayley Rose Malouin, Victoria Cutler, Sean Rintoul
    Piano and Vocal: Holly Campbell
    Garden City Improv: Collin Glavac, Ross Mosher, Jamie Roboz, David Bernard, Hayley Malouin, Jonas McLean
    Guitar and Vocal: Aaron Berger
    Open Mic!
    FOX TRAIL: Iain Lidstone, Marcus Schwan, Brent Cairns, Adam Wood, Alannah Garrett
    ~the end~

    Special events not to be missed!:

    New Work in Progress: Addressing the Void 
    by Maggie Hunter and performed by Abby Rollo, Gemma Bordonaro and Jacqui Noel. (DART)
    location: Studio D MW 256.
    6:00 pm, 6:30 pm and 7:00 pm

    Special Installation of Tale of a Town St. Catharines. Listening Booths by FIXT POINT and Suitcase in Point Theatre Company.
    Various locations in the MIWSFPA.

    Confluence Field Trip #1, a fifteen minute walk from Rodman Hall to the MIWSFPA along the Merritt Trail and McGuire St.
    Artist: Elizabeth Chitty. Participants are invited to participate in this self-guided tour of a section of the Twelve Mile Creek valley. For more information see: http://confluencefieldtrips.ca/

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    Categories: Alumni, Announcements, Current Students, Events, Faculty & Instructors, Future students, News

  • Students and Alumni representing Dramatic Arts at Fringe Festivals around Ontario

    NOTE: this article does not refer to the Fringe Festivals of 2015.

     

    Promotional poster for Super

    Students and alumni of the Department of Dramatic Arts are engaged in creating, performing and producing new and innovative theatrical productions In three out of the four Fringe Festivals in Ontario. Canada enjoys more Fringe festivals than any other country in the world with 16 individual festivals. Originating with the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland in 1947, these shows create an opportunity for affordable and accessible theatre where artists and audiences can take risks in an unjuried, uncensored, lottery programmed festival of the performing arts. The festivals are united under the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals.

    The London Fringe Festival closed on June 16th and featured two shows developed and performed by DART students and graduates. 

    Promotional poster for Trailers, Credits, Prologues & Epitaphs

    James Lowe (class of 2013) wrote and directed the production Super. A comedic farce on the Superhero genre, Super showcased the trials and tribulations of seven mismatched and dysfunctional Superheroes with unfortunately awful powers. Performing in the show were 8 students/grads of the program, Brent Cairns, Rachelle Lauzon, Kendra Kneaves, Brianne Lidstone, Cassandra Van Wyck, Matt Da Costa, Nicholas Leno, and Emma Strong. All of these performers have been featured in main stage productions at Brock. In a review published in theatreinlondon.ca  Erika Faust said “The eight members of the cast work well together as they help each person tell the story of how they discovered their powers. Super is definitely about the journey, not the destination.”

    Current DART student Evan Bawtinheimer wrote the edgy piece Trailers, Credits, Prologues & Epitaphs also produced at London Fringe this year. In theis new play a runaway teen, a husband with severe memory loss, and a nurse with a guilty conscience are victims of a movie theatre shooting. Each of them seeks redemption and recognition in this memory play exploring family, honour, and love.

    The cast of A Young Lady’s Guide to Vivisection posing with portraits of their historical counterparts

    Toronto Fringe, running July 3rd to 14th, has many DART students and graduates among the participating creators and theatre makers. 

    Empty Box Theatre is producing the new show A Young Lady’s Guide to Vivisection. This “gruesome dramedy” follows the Queen’s University medical class of 1884 as they adjust to the arrival of the first female students, new scientific ideas, and the marvellously mad world of Victorian medicine. Artistic director and DART student Keavy Lynch has cast performers from both the Brock and Queens theatre communities including DART grad Jonathan Philips (class of 2012).

    In her review in Toronto Now Magazine, Kathleen Smith wrote “In a series of well written vignettes by director Keavy Lynch and the company, the struggles of women and men wanting to become doctors in mid-nineteenth century Ontario are explored, with both silly and macabre humour.”

    Promotional poster for Spoon

    Spencer Smith (class of 2011) is presenting his show Spoon in the Toronto Fringe Festival. This play premiered at Brock University as a part of his Honours thesis project. Spencer recently spoke to gathered future students at the May DART Invitational and imparted some words of wisdom about studying theatre.

    Mooney on Theatre, a Toronto-based theatre website run by Megan Mooney, reviewed Spoon saying “The mention of a play in this year’s Fringe that explores queer theory through the lives of a gay couple trying to make sense of gender stereotypes caught my interest. Happily, this play more than delivers on its promise.” The full review can be found here.

    Christian Baines wrote in The Charlebois Post: “Spoon swings happily from the disturbingly violent to the perversely erotic. But more than just titillating, writer and actor Spencer Charles Smith has created a work that attacks our preconceived notions of gender within the scope of a budding relationship […] It’s great to find a work that’s willing to go there with such vulnerability and intelligence.”

    Another DART grad, Trevor Ketcheson (class of 2012) is also performing in the Toronto Fringe in The Retirement Plan, a comedic cautionary tale that examines one family’s priorities and the trade-offs they make in attempts to control their future. Mooney on Theatre also reviewed this production calling it “a charming play” and “while the play was a satire I left thinking about my own plans for the future.” The Retirement Plan was chosen as one of the Patron’s Picks. Selection is based on a combination of cash ticket sales after the first four shows coupled with media reception and overall ‘buzz’ of the production. The chosen shows receive an additional performance slot on the final day of the Festival.

    promotional poster for Here playing in the Toronto Fringe Festival

    Graduate Evan Mulrooney (class of 2013), general manager of the company Fulcrum Theatre, is producing the show Here. This multimedia dance-theatre piece examines the notions of being stuck and learning when to say goodbye to something you love. Another grad, Erica Charles (class of 2013), performs the role of Ester in the production Here. Erica was recently awarded the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship (Master’s) for her work “The voice in phenomenology and semiotic theory” as part of her Honours Thesis. Here is also being produced for the Hamilton Fringe Festival running July 18th-28th.

    Mooney On Theatre also reviewed the production saying “Here has all the ingredients of a great play. It has the drama, the dance, the romance, the betrayal, the flashbacks and so much more.”

    Production poster for Nobody’s Idol

    Alexandra Lean (class of 2007) is producing her show, Nobody’s Idolalso in the Toronto Fringe. This is an edgy musical parody where misfits and wannabes dual with their voices for a grand prize of a “lifetime supply of fame” at the world’s most popular televised competition.

    In her graduating year Alexandra was awarded the F. Janet Dolman Prize for Playwritting. We asked her about her experience during the six years since graduating from the Department of Dramatic Arts. Alexandra commented “This award, which came out of the experience I gathered at Brock, really gave me the confidence to go out into the world and say I’m a playwright. I found my experience in courses like Directing (DART 3P53) and Advanced Studies in Theatre (DART 4F56) gave me the hands on experience I needed to take on the task of putting on my first professional production. Even though my Fringe show is a musical I have taken all that academic talk about theatricality and such into this experience” Alexandra continued. She also spoke of her experience running the Brock Improv club. “This was my first real leadership role and it has informed my work as both a writer and producer.”

    Also playing in the Hamilton Fringe Festival (July 18th-28th) is Nocturne, where you will see Michael Pearson (BA 2011, BEd 2012) as a young aspiring (albeit incompetent) magician thrown into the depths of the second world war. See their Facebook page here.

    The Department of Dramatic Arts is proud to have such talented, creative students and alumni in some of the largest Fringe Festivals in North America. Break a leg!

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    Categories: Alumni, Current Students, News

  • DART graduate produces film about the Japanese Tsunami of 2011

    nicolinaThe work of Dramatic Arts graduate Nicolina Lanni (2005) was featured at the conclusion of CBC’s The Current on March 11, 2014.  She recently began the documentary film “Lost & Found” with colleague John Choi about the continuing impact on the lives forever changed by the Japanese Tsunami that occurred on this day three years ago.

     

    From the film’s website:

    Imagine losing everything. Your home, your business, all your worldly possessions. Gone forever… or are they?

    Right now an epic endeavor is underway involving 2 continents, 3 countries and the largest body of water on earth. Join us as we go on a journey to discover the stories of those whose lives were stolen by the sea.

    Nicolina’s project is made possible by HotDocs and the Doc Ignite crowd-funding platform.  “We feel so lucky to have been given the opportunity through Hot Docs and Doc Ignite to share our film with you and to work towards reaching our goal of raising $30,000 to help make this film and tell the amazing stories behind the artifacts that have washed ashore,” she exclaims on the film’s website.

    Learn more about Nicolina’s film at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival website and the project website www.lostandfoundthefilm.ca.

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    Categories: Alumni, News