Articles tagged with: Monica Dufault

• Community collaboration leads to a new play by Brock prof

  Wednesday, February 14, 2018 | By dtemprile

  

  (Source: The Brock News | Monday, February 12, 2018 by Alison Innes)

  It was a simple, yet powerful statement.

  “We need to pay attention to the lives of Niagara’s migrant agricultural workers,” René Lopez, a worker advocate, said to Brock University Associate Professor David Fancy in 2010.

  That conversation began a journey of community collaboration that lead to the production of Our Lady of Delicias by the Essential Collective Theatre, which runs from Friday, Feb. 23 until Sunday, March 4 at the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre.

  Fancy, a professor with the Dramatic Arts program, collaborated with dozens of migrant workers and Dramatic Arts students for two years to develop the play. The story features the character of Rangel, a Mexican migrant worker who has been travelling to Canada for years to work in the vineyards and greenhouses of Niagara.

  “I’m excited by this new script,” says Essential Collective Theatres’ Monica Dufault, a long-term Brock instructor who is directing the production. “It explores migrant worker issues in considerable depth with a real artistry that I’m keen to share with audiences.”

  “Having lived in Niagara for more than a dozen years now, I still feel that this is a reality that is consciously ignored: the lives of people who are our neighbours,” says Fancy.

  The cast of four, including Carla Melo, Juan Carlos Velis, Camila Diaz-Varela and Josée Young, features an exceptional range of Canadian acting talent with extensive stage and screen credits. Brock Dramatic Arts graduates James McCoy and Jo Pacinda are creating the design and costume design for the production.

  What: Our Lady of Delicias, performed by the Essential Collective Theatre

  When: Friday, Feb. 23 to Sunday, March 4

  Where: Robertson Theatre, FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre

  SPECIAL OFFER: Present your ECT show program or ticket stub to receive a 20% discount on tickets for Top Girls presented by the Department of Dramatic Arts!

  Tags: Applied Theatre, David Fancy, drama in education, Dramatic Arts, FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre, FOPAC, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, Monica Dufault, plays
  Categories: Events, Faculty & Instructors, In the Media, News, Plays

• POOR

  Sunday, January 17, 2016 | By Nikki Prudden

  By Essential Collective Theatre

  Co-presented by FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre with production assistance by the Department of Dramatic Arts

  Showtimes: February 18 – 28, 2016: Tuesdays – Saturdays at 8 pm; Sundays at 2pm

  Tickets are available at firstontariopac.ca

  Location: Robertson Theatre, FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre, 250 St. Paul Street, St. Catharines

  A new one-woman play by Vancouver playwright Suzanne Ristic, this darkly comic piece was first produced in 2014 at the Vancouver Fringe Festival. ECT’s production will be performed by DART part-time faculty member Monica Dufault and will be directed by Kim Selody, Artistic Director of Presentation HouseTheatre.

  The play centres on an ultra rich Canadian woman, Shelly Cormorant, who pretends to be homeless in order to better understand the plight of the 99%. A contemporary Marie-Antoinette in her ignorance, Shelly unwittingly offends everyone she meets in her attempt to empathize with the “poor”, all the while taking advice from a vision of Scarlett O’Hara. She has sex with a homeless man, and is titillated by the prospect of continuing the liaison in the filth of this man’s squat. The man sees through her façade and seizes the opportunity to profit from their relationship. Ultimately, Shelly loses her status and power, and makes a desperate attempt to affect real change through an act of terrorism.

  This script explores current socio-economic disparity through the character of a woman of extreme privilege and her oblivious attitude toward the rest of the world. Shelly is at once detestable and hilarious, outrageous and pitiable. She recognizes that her status as a “trophy wife” (as the character self identifies) is embedded in her physical appearance,  and that this currency is quickly diminishing as she ages. Her rebellion against the valuation of women based on their looks is tied up with her drive to play at being impoverished.

  Tags: Essential Collective Theatre, FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre, Kim Selody, Monica Dufault, POOR, Presentation HouseTheatre, Suzanne Ristic
  Categories: Events, Plays

• Brock community event looks at theatre criticism in the digital age

  Monday, February 10, 2014 | By Brock University

  

  (Source: The Brock News, Monday, February 10, 2014)

  An upcoming series of community discussions at Brock University later this month will debate the question: is everyone a critic?

  Media professionals, theatre experts, scholars and students will assemble in Sankey Chamber at Brock Feb. 21 and Feb. 22 to take part in the colloquium, The Changing Face of Theatre Criticism in the Digital Age, hosted by the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts.

  “The rise of blogging and Twitter, combined with the decline of print journalism, is raising important questions about what counts as legitimate, professional criticism,” says Karen Fricker, event co-ordinator and a professor of dramatic arts. “Our discussions will focus on the current critical scene in Niagara, as well as imagining possible futures for the arts in our community.”

  Panel members include two of Toronto’s most influential theatre critics: J. Kelly Nestruck of The Globe and Mail and Richard Ouzounian of the Toronto Star. Others include local figures like Jackie Maxwell, artistic director of the Shaw Festival, and Steve Solski, director of the St. Catharines Centre for the Performing Arts.

  The colloquium will also feature international critics: Jill Dolan, Princeton University professor and noted theatre blogger (thefeministspectator.com); Maddy Costa, a London, England blogger and journalist; and Andy Horwitz, founder of New York arts blog culturebot.net

  Dolan is visiting Brock as part of the Walker Cultural Leaders series. While here, she will deliver a public lecture, “Moving the Body Politic: How Feminism and Theatre Inspire Social Re-imaginings.” Her lecture, co-sponsored by the Department of Dramatic Arts and Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies at Brock, takes place Friday, Feb. 21, from 10 a.m. to 12 noon, also in Sankey Chamber.

  All of these events are free and open to the public.

  Funding for these events is provided by the Walker Cultural Leaders Series, the Brock Humanities Research Institute and the SSHRC Institutional Grant scheme, and the St. Catharines Performing Arts Centre.

  All events will be live-streamed.  [Click on “live video”]

  —

  SCHEDULE: The Changing Face of Theatre Criticism in the Digital Age

  All events take place in Sankey Chamber at Brock University

  FRIDAY, FEB. 21:

  * 2 – 2:30 p.m.: Welcome
  Presentation by Brock dramatic arts students from the third-year class, Studies in Praxis – Theatre Criticism

  * 2:30 – 4 p.m.: Panel discussion “Critics and the arts in Niagara”

  • Jill Dolan (respondent)
  • Monica Dufault, artistic director, Essential Collective Theatre
  • David Fancy, associate professor of Dramatic Arts, Brock University, co-artistic director, neXt Company Theatre (chair)
  • John Law, arts and entertainment writer, Sun Media
  • Sara Palmieri, co-founder, In the Soil Festival
  • Stephen Remus, minister of energy, minds, and resources, Niagara Arts Centre
  • Steve Solski, director, St. Catharines Centre for the Performing Arts
  • Candice Turner-Smith, managing director, Niagara Symphony Orchestra

  * 4:15 – 5:45 p.m.: Panel discussion “Embedded criticism: a new way forward, or criticism-as-PR?”

  • Maddy Costa, critic and blogger
  • Karen Fricker
  • Andy Horwitz, founder, culturebot.org
  • Jackie Maxwell, artistic director, Shaw Festival
  • Jacob Gallagher-Ross, assistant professor of theatre, University of Buffalo (respondent)
  • Lawrence Switzky, assistant professor of Drama, University of Toronto at Mississauga (chair)

  SATURDAY, FEB. 22:

  * 10 – 10:30 a.m.: Welcome
  Presentation by Brock dramatic arts students from the third-year class, Studies in Praxis – Theatre Criticism

  * 10:30 a.m. – 12 noon: Panel discussion “Bloggers, critics, and cultural legitimation”

  • Jill Dolan
  • Karen Fricker (chair)
  • Andy Horwitz (respondent)
  • J. Kelly Nestruck, lead theatre critic, The Globe and Mail
  • Richard Ouzounian, lead theatre critic, Toronto Star
  • Holger Syme, chair, Department of English and Drama, University of Toronto at Mississauga, and blogger (disposito.net)
  • Odette Yazbeck, director of public relations, Shaw Festival

  * 12:15 – 1 p.m.: Colloquium wrap-up

  • Maddy Costa; Jill Dolan; Karen Fricker (chair); Rosemary Drage Hale, director of the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Brock University; and Andy Horwitz

  Tags: Andy Horwitz, art criticism, Candice Turner-Smith, colloquium, DARTcritics, David Fancy, Holger Syme, J. Kelly Nestruck, Jackie Maxwell, Jacob Gallagher-Ross, Jill Dolan, John Law, Karen Fricker, Lawrence Switzky, Maddy Costa, Monica Dufault, Odette Yazbeck, Richard Ouzounian, Rosemary Drage Hale, Sara Palmieri, Stephen Remus, Steve Solski, The Brock News, theatre criticism, visiting artists, Walker Cultural Leader Series
  Categories: Announcements, Events, In the Media, News