8.27.2013

Play Readings


Several evenings during the month of October will be dedicated to public readings of previously unproduced, newly revised and/or unpublished playscripts.

The plays will be at various stages of development. Be part on one of the first audiences to experience the newest plays and works-in-progress, then stay to contribute your thoughts in a post-reading discussion with the writers and actors.

Reservations strongly advised. Admission: $10 suggested donation.
Doors open at  7:00 pm.

THE PLAYS:


Details firming up - under construction

Wednesday, October 2, 7:30 pm
Honey & Jupiter by Meghan Hubley (Halifax, NS)
“Honey&Jupiter” is a musing on how personal problems/addictions are egged on and agitated by the stigma that surround them. In this case, how the innate fear of inadequacy instilled in a young woman manifests as a passionate kinship with her own (personified) anorexia. The show’s goal is to act as a new and grounded voice for people whose voices are skewed or silenced by their suffering -- a feast of language, movement, and the bare-bones exposure of what it feels like to BE the illness, and to live with the sickness. The foundation is rooted in the unglamorous, the emotional, the private. 


Meghan Hubley
MEGHAN HUBLEY is a founding member of Once Upon a Theatre Collective, (writer: Honey&Jupiter, collaborator/performer:11:11, Waltz of the Fae, Some Sunny Day [Fringe Hit 2012]) and was crowned a Fringe Hit Queen performing as one-half of Tomato & Tomato. Meghan has worked for The Theatre Department, CanStage, Factory Theatre’s Lab Cab, LITF, Sarasvati, Forerunner Playwright’s Theatre and spent two seasons at Theatre Passe Muraille with The National Theatre of the World's Impromptu Splendor. She has studied playwrighting with Josh MacDonald, Jackie Torrens, Colleen MacDonald and Brian Quirt. Meghan is a graduate of Neptune Theatre’s PPTP, and is oh-so-slowly earning her specialization in literature & classical studies at U of Toronto.

Monday, October 7, 7:30 pm   Short Play TRIPLE BILL

Hothouse by Annie Valentina (Halifax, NS)
A reading of this new work-in-progress.
Annie Valentina

Annie Valentina is a Halifax-based theatre artist and producer. She came to Canada from Norway in 2000, got a BA from Dal Theatre four years later, and has only rarely looked back since. In 2010, she co-founded local company The Doppler Effect to pursue staging provocative new works of drama - her own and others'. The company has since then mounted six productions, the latest of which - 'Heartwood' by Laura Burke, directed by Annie Valentina - is touring to Ontario this month and getting a Halifax remount in the new year. As an actor and playwright, Annie is fresh off her autobiographical one-woman show 'Alien', which debuted in the 2013 Atlantic Fringe and received the festival award for Best Female Performer. She also wrote and starred in 'Touch', a Doppler Effect production for Queer Acts 2012; and co-wrote and starred in 'CU2morrow', a 2011 play which has been adapted to a feature film and will go to camera in 2014 under the title 'Lure'. Other notable acting credits include 'Bone Boy' (Frankie Productions, 2012) and 'Pluto's Playthings' (Plutonium Playhouse 2012), as well as appearances in locally filmed TV series Sex & Violence (2013) and Haven (2012). Annie is thrilled to be involved in the Live-In this year, having last kicked it with DaPoPo in 2009 as part of the creative team/touring company of 'Four Actors in Search
of a Nation' and 'Apocalypse'. Annie's also a member of the very wonderful Playwright's Atlantic Resource Centre, and has recently turned out to be married to her partner in life and art, Michael McPhee.

Vanishing Woman by Trevor Poole (Halifax, NS)
A reading of this new work-in-progress.

This Little Ditty written and performed by Brock Hessel & Paul Bellini
A performance by the writers of a new script version via video.


Brock Hessel
This Little Ditty
Brock Hessel is a part-time maid, part-time poet, and part-time student at the University of Toronto, studying English Literature and Sexual Diversity Studies. He is on of the facilitators for U of T's Queer Writes. he has performaed at the Poetrix 2012 and Making a Scene as well as Pussy Basket at Videofag. His poetry has appeared in TOZ (OutWrites’ monthly zine) and their 10-year anniversary anthology, Zhush Redux. He is a regular contributor to NEST Magazine, through the Gutterbird Collective. He also does stand up comedy with a mental health awareness comedy group called Laughing Like Crazy and has performed at Mad Pride 2012 and 2013. 
David Rimmington

Wednesday, October 9, 7:30 pm
Fighting for Peace by David Rimmington (Halifax, NS)
A young Christian man joins the army to become a peacekeeper, then discovers that he must fight in a war.  His personal stand-off with the army involves questions about the moral implications of war.  The play moves like a bullet through a battleground of ideas.  This is a dark comedy with bizarre twists.

David Rimmington: Several of his short audio plays have been broadcast on CKDU Radio.
In 2002, his show "Dialogues for Maniacs," was performed at The Atlantic Fringe Festival.  Three of his one act plays were produced in Annapolis Royal at their Kings' Shorts Festival:  in 2007, 2009 and 2011, respectively.  In 2012, DaPoPo Theatre, during their Live-In Festival, staged a reading of his two-act play "All About Nothing."



Friday, October 11 , 7:30 pm
Hackerlove by Sky Gilbert (Toronto, ON)
Sky Gilbert will be Livin'-In with us this year. Come hear him read excerpts from his newest work, Hackerlove, a play  about Bradley Manning and Adrian Lamo (to be produced at Buddies in spring 2014) and his latest novel Come Back as well as some recent unpublished poetry. 


Sky Gilbert
SKY GILBERT is a writer, director, teacher, and drag queen extraordinaire. He was co-founder and artistic director of Toronto’s Buddies in Bad Times Theatre  for 17 years. He has had nearly 40 plays produced, and has written 6 critically acclaimed novels, and three award winning poetry collections. He has received three Dora Mavor Moore Awards (including one for his recent play THE SITUATIONISTS) and the Pauline McGibbon Award for theatre directing. He was also the recipient of The Margo Bindhardt Award (from the Toronto Arts Foundation), The Silver Ticket Award (from the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts), and the ReLit Award (for his fourth novel AN ENGLISH GENTLEMAN, 2004). Dr. Gilbert is an Associate Professor and holds a University Research Chair in Creative Writing and Theatre Studies at The School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph. His 6th novel COME BACK published last year by ECW Press, and his new poetry collection THE MOMMIAD was published last year by Playwrights Canada Press. His play about growing up gay in the country, ST. FRANCIS OF MILLBROOK will be published soon, also by Playwrights Canada Press.

Wednesday, October 16, 7:30 pm
The Celestina by Adam Nashman
Adam Nashman

Celestina is a contemporary piece set over three days in Inquisition ravaged Spain during the dawn of the Renaissance.  Celestina is an ancient woman, the sole survivor of an ancient ‘witchcraft’ religion.  Her brothel flourished when conquistador gold flowed, but now lives in an age of terror – until the lure of gold drags her back to her old ways. This new adaptation based on “The Tragic Comedy of Calisto and Melibea”, written by Fernando Rojas in 1502,  uses vaudeville language and action to power its story. The reading will be introduced by Roberta Barker
Adam Nashman:  Co-Founder of Toronto-based companies ‘Bald Ego Theatre’, ‘3° Dance Theatre’, and several other collective theatrical groups; Adam has also worked independently as a director and writer across Europe and North America on over 35 original Canadian works, and numerous classics.  Proudly these include 3 productions as writer and assistant director for Robert Lepage.  His work at home ranges from the Stratford Festival to touring Fringe shows to various regional and international festivals, with several of his shows still touring the world.    He has received acclaim from national and international press and has won several prestigious awards for his writing and directing.   If in a used bookstore he would start at science, move to cooking and end with literature.  

Gillian Clark
Monday, October 21, 7:30 pm  Double Bill
Understudy by Gillian Clark (Halifax, NS)
Fresh from the completion of her training with the Dalhousie Acting Programme, Clark explores a new method of storytelling with her first original play. Understudy focuses on Dylan, a nine-year-old boy who is struggling with bullying, questions of identity and his clear miscastin as Sheep #11/Wiseman #1 Understuday in his school's Christmas pageant. Taking cues from his actor mother, Dylan uses performance as a safe wy to explore his most difficult feelings (while also putting on a hilarious spectacle). The show features Shakespeare, sequins and Shakira.

Gillian is a Halifax based actor/ playwright/ theatre enthusiast.  She also really likes crisp blue skies in the morning (especially in the Rockies where she is originally from), a good burrito, and flowers that grow in sidewalk cracks.  Clark is a recent graduate of the Dalhousie Acting Programme and she is absolutely thrilled to be taking part in the Live-In this year! Past credits include Dylan in Understudy at The Atlantic Fringe, Lucy in Keep Good (Theatre) Company’s Mr. Marmalade and Willy in DalTheatre’s The Ends of the Earth.  Come have a chat if you see her around! She loves new friends.  

You Play Beautifully by Thomas Morgan Jones (Toronto, ON)



THOMAS MORGAN JONES is a Toronto-based director, playwright, dramaturg, instructor, and movement coach.  His productions have received six Dora Mavor Moore Awards and three nominations, he received the 2011 Dora Mavor Moore Guthrie (Stratford Festival), and has been nominated twice for the John Hirsch Award (2008 & 2011) and for the Pauline McGibbon Award.  He has collaborated with companies including:  Theatre Direct, Stratford, Theatre Passe Muraille, Cahoots, Buddies, Theatre Jones Roy, The CULTCH, The Charlottetown Festival, and many others.  He holds a B.A. from the University of Guelph, an M.A. from the University of Toronto, and recently trained with SITI Company in NYC, Madrid, and Paris.  He is currently developing new plays with Cahoots Theatre, Carousel Players, Cia Envieza (Brazil), Theatre Direct, and is playwright-in-residence at Shakespeare in Action and artist-educator in residence at Young People’s Theatre.


Monday, October 28, 7:30 pm
Jesus is a Faggot by Garry Williams (Halifax, NS)
Jesus Is A Faggot is a work-in-progress. Developed at the PARC Colony with dramaturgical assistance by Sara Tilley, the play wrestles with a personal desire for sex and salvation, and makes a political plea case for a gay Jesus. During the Live-In, the play will be workshopped and developed with the generous support of Arts Nova Scotia. 
GaRRy Williams

Garry Williams is the Artistic Director of DaPoPo Theatre. Personal: he studied Theatre and Music, and holds a special love for Musical Theatre (especially of the darker variety). For the last decade, he has been based in Halifax making a living as a performer, teacher, director and writer. He has Christian leanings, and too often flirts with missionaries. Political: he has practiced Theatre of the Oppressed techniques, and has come to be identified, among other things, as a queer theatre artist. Personal/Political: he supports wild urban gardening; refuses to get a driver's license, or accept plastic bags at grocery stores; is working on a semi-autobiographical play called Jesus Is A Faggot; and combines two of his loves by stewarding Sing-Along-Show Tunez at Menz & Mollyz every Saturday night

Tuesday, October 29, 7:30 pm
The Girl With the Golden Ear by Ryan Van Horne
Music is a tremendous ambassador and Rosalie Trombley recognized its universal appeal and had an ear for music that could touch the soul of someone regardless of class, gender, or race. She went from humble beginnings to become the music director for CKLW, a radio station in Windsor, Ont., and wielded incredible influence over the North American music scene in the 1960s and 70s. She earned the nickname “The Girl With the Golden Ear” because of her ability to pick hit songs. More noteworthy, she was instrumental in advancing the concept of the crossover hit and helped bring black and white together during a period of racial strife. Despite the success -- and admirable claim to fame -- CKLW succumbed to an unlikely and unbeatable foe. 
Ryan Van Horne

Ryan Van Horne is a Halifax-based freelance journalist and writer who recently fell in love with theatre and writing plays. He wrote his first play, Department of Common Sense, about his experiences working for the Nova Scotia government. Department of Common Sense was first performed at the Theatre Arts Guild's inaugural Playwrights' Festival in March 2013 and won Fringe Hit at the 2013 Atlantic Fringe Festival.




Wednesday, October 30, 7:30 pm  DOUBLE BILL
Reaching Beyond Ourselves – Leading A Spiritual, Peaceful and Diverse World by Topaz Ruby
Topaz Ruby
A journey through Topaz Ruby's three languages: Russian, Hebrew and English, this book is a collection of her poetry and art as well as the art of prominent Nova Scotian artists, such as: Tom Forrestall, David Silverberg and Natan Nevo.

Topaz Ruby was born in Ukraine, lived in Israel for 20 years and now lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She has started writing poetry in 2012 and has been reading her poetry in public events ever since.  Topaz Ruby is a young, fresh writer of poetry which brings communities together. Her ability to love the unique unites all walks of life. She is writer winner of the June 2013 ArtAscent magazine (Art & Literature Journal) international writing competition. The book is available at the offices of the Atlantic Jewish Council – 5670 Spring Garden Road, Halifax Nova Scotia, phone:(902) 422-7491; or on the website: www.topazruby.ca


Keelin Jack

MacBeth by William Shakespeare
adapted by Keelin Jack
A play about three witches, and the men that encounter them on a haunted heath. 








No comments:

Post a Comment