Big Ideas 2013, May 8-12 : the casts & synopses

Starting  on Wednesday May 8, the Studio at Alumnae Theatre will be a hotbed of activity. If you are interested in seeing a play from its first reading, and giving feedback to the writers, this is for you.  Admission is FREE!

Big Ideas is a series of staged reading:  works-in-progress from the award-winning writers of Alumnae Theatre’s New Play Development group.  There will be short plays as well as full-length plays; check the lineup for schedule & synopses.

The scripts will be read by actors who have had only a few rehearsals with a director.  For many writers, this will be the first time they’ve heard the script aloud.

The Lineup:

(Wed May 8 @ 8pm) I AM MARGUERITE by Shirley Barrie, directed by Molly Thom.

1542: Marguerite de Roberval is abandoned by her brother on a deserted island in the Strait of Belle Isle for daring to choose love over duty. Two and a half years later, haunted by the phantoms of those who have abandoned her, half-starved and half-mad, she sees a ship anchoring off the island. Rescue is possible, but…. is the prospect of returning to France more terrifying than another cold winter alone in the New World?

CAST: Paul Babiak, Dorothy Kelleher, Carys Lewis, Wendy Springate, Laura Vincent, Mike Vitorovich.

(Thu May 9 @ 8pm) FORGIVENESS by Mairy Beam, directed by Victoria Shepherd.

Lara struggles with a deep-seated anger towards her mother who suffers from schizophrenia. When she returns home, armed with a PhD in Biomedical Science, she disrupts the carefully orchestrated life her sister Chelsea and her mother have built together. The sisters have very different ideas of how best to help their mother, and each other. Their mother has her own ideas. Forgiveness and anger strive for the upper hand.

CAST: Lionel Boodlal, Andrea Brown, Tina McCulloch, Cathy McKim, Carol McLennan, Jeff Orchard.

(Fri May 10 @ 8pm) YOU HAVE TO EARN IT  by Ramona Baillie, directed by Jane Carnwath.

Will Betty ever earn her long overdue promotion? Her reach for the top is frustrated by a philandering boss, a scheming new employee, a wacky mail room clerk and a friend with a hidden agenda—a madcap roller-coaster of a play paying homage to the screwball comedies of the 1930s.
CAST: Matt Brioux, Andrea Brown, Chantale Groulx, Seema Lakhani, Joshua Mott, Lara Mrkoci, Derek Perks, Laura Vincent, Mike Vitorovich.

(Sat May 11 @ 2pm) IN A TIME OF WAR by Anne MacMillan, directed by Marianne Fedunkiw.

World War II. The bombing raids up the Clyde have begun. A Glasgow family manages to live their lives after a near hit with a bomb and dreadful loss of life nearby. Amidst the darkness of war, two young girls find much to occupy them, making secret spy plans with Grandpa. The realities of war intrude.

CAST: Scott Dermody, Karina Rammell, Olivia Reid, Frank Robinow, Marisa Ship,Tara Wosik.

(Sat May 11 @ 2pm) WAITING FOR KATRINA by Donna Langevin, directed by Pat McCarthy.

New Orleans August 2005. Hurricane Katrina is gathering strength and threatens to engulf the city. To stay or to go? Charlotte is determined to remain in her home at all costs while Dora, her estranged daughter from Toronto, has a crucial agenda of her own. Time is running out as the battle of wills escalates.

CAST: Kwaku Adu-Poku, Elisabeth Feltaous, Kerri Henman, Aileen Taylor-Smith.

(Sat May 11 @ 2pm) BROCKFEST by Joan Burrows, directed by Maria Popoff.

All Kitty wants to do is not be an American anymore! But her July 4th celebration is hampered by a sword- wielding husband dressed as Isaac Brock, her annoying younger brother and his partner who just happen to drop by, and the arrival of her sister, a cloistered nun who has taken a vow of silence. Who knew patriotism could cause such havoc?

CAST: Liz Best, Daryn Dewalt, Chris Irving, Mary Joseph, Brandon Moore.

(Sun May 12 @ 2pm) THE YEAR MY FATHER BECAME A SAINT by Linda McCready, directed by Brenda Darling.
Bernie is an alcoholic who has embarked on a journey to become a better man. When he opens a butcher shop in the mid-1970s at a time of high inflation, he hires his two teenage children to work in the store. Customers come and sometimes go, as Bernie struggles to connect with his children, make a go of the shop, and slay his own particular demons.

CAST: Paul Babiak, Jamieson Child, Scott Clarkson, Marianne Fedunkiw, Roselyn Kelada-Sedra, Lisa Polivka, Michael Sherman, David Suszek.

May 8 – 12, 2013 • Alumnae Theatre, 3rd floor Studio • FREE admission

For more information visit our website

www.alumnaetheatre.com/npd.html

Alumnae Theatre's Big Ideas 2013 coming May 8 - 12

Reblogged from life with more cowbell:

Alumnae Theatre Company's annual Big Ideas festival of works in progress – organized and programmed by the company's New Play Development (NPD) group – is coming up, running May 8 - 12 up in the studio. Big Ideas features readings of full-length plays, as well as scenes from plays, and this year's line-up includes:

I AM MARGUERITE by Shirley Barrie, directed by Molly Thom…

Read more… 177 more words

Looking forward to it!

David Ferry to speak at James Reaney memorial lecture

Playwright James Reaney’s namesake son sent me a note that:

 The fourth James Reaney memorial lecture is set for Oct. 20, 2013 at 3 p.m. at the Stratford Public Library, 19 St. Andrew Street, Stratford. The speaker will be David Ferry, actor/director/impresario/educator; a friend and ally of dad’s for many decades. Please visit www.jamesreaney.com for information about the lecture, other Jamie Reaney news and reflections.

 

He mentions that “the library is right across the street from the Stratford jail, likely the inspiration for the jail scenes in The Killdeer, and near the Perth County courthouse where Madam Fay holds sway until Dr. Ballad finally saves us all.”, and sends a final “congratulations to everyone involved in [Alumnae Theatre’s production of] The Killdeer.”

 Stratford Public Library’s website is www.stratford.library.on.ca.  David Ferry has just returned from directing James Reaney’s Sticks and Stones at Bishop’s University in Sherbrooke, QC. www.ubishops.ca/academic-programs/humanities/drama/guest-artists.html

Other upcoming Reaney events:

Adam Holowitz is starring as Kenneth in James Reaney’s The Easter Egg running in London May 24 – June 1 at The ARTS Project Theatre, 203 Dundas Street .   519-642-2767. http://alvegoroot.wetpaint.com/

Speakers are already lined up for the next two Reaney memorial lectures: in October 2014, Tim Inkster of the Porcupine’s Quill will deliver the 5th Reaney lecture, and in October 2015, Thomas Gerry, who has just written an excellent book about James Reaney’s Emblem poems, will be the 6th speaker.

And of course, there are two more chances to catch what Reaney’s daughter-in-law Susan Wallace praises as “Barbara Larose‘s wonderful production of The Killdeer” at Alumnae Theatre, Toronto – tonight and tomorrow night, Sat April 27. http://www.alumnaetheatre.com/1213season.html.

 

 

 

 

“The Killdeer” Sunday matinee: oh, what a day it was

Yesterday’s Sunday matinee of The Killdeer was followed by an audience Talkback – will post about that later.  But first, a look into dressing room and other shenanigans, because people like hearing about those, right?

Well, the first thing that happened was that co-producer Lynne Patterson, who was serving as Bar Wench that day, reported that there was only enough coffee to make about 6 cups pre-show.  A search in the storage cupboards turned up no backup supply, so one of the Box Office volunteers was dispatched to No Frills to purchase a big can of coffee.  And some milk, and some cream, and ….

No sooner was that problem solved – about 40 minutes to showtime – than stage manager Margot Devlin sidled up to me and whispered, “I have no sound operator.”  We had e-mail addresses for the two sound ops, but I had not entered their phone numbers on my contact sheet.  Lynne had their phone numbers, but not with her.  Just as we were conferring how to solve the problem, Margot spotted sound op Daniel Salij strolling towards the theatre, hoodie up, headphones on, half an hour late.  Phew.

When Margot came down to the dressing room to give the cast their half-hour call, actor Matt Brioux (childlike Eli Fay) was also M.I.A., but rushed in shortly after, having come straight from work.  “Is the wedding still on?” he asked.  (See “She said yes!” in April 19 post).  Actor Anne Shepherd (Mrs. Gardner), perhaps sensing Margot’s stress level – Anne is a psychotherapist in real life – soothed her with a chocolate bar!

The show started smoothly, and Scene 1 between Mrs. Gardner and Madam Fay (Tricia Brioux) was almost over.  The young hero Harry Gardner (played by Paul Hardy) makes his first entrance in Scene 2. I happened to be backstage, watching Scene 1 on the monitor, when Marie Gleason (Mrs. Budge), who was waiting behind the door at stage right for her entrance in Scene 3, popped her head around the flat and hissed, “Where’s Harry?”  I realized that Paul was not in position for his entrance, and assistant stage manager Anna Plugina had not yet noticed, because she was busy with a prop handoff to Anne.  As I reached the stairs down to the basement dressing room, Paul came steaming up, just in the nick of time.  It turned out he’d been in the midst of a deep discussion of Tolkein’s Lord of The Rings books with Blythe Haynes (Harry’s true love Rebecca) and almost missed his cue.

During the second half of the play, Mike Vitorovich (hangman Mr. Manatee; Judge Crane) introduced those of us in remaining the dressing room WITHOUT imminent entrances to British comedian Eddie Izzard’s hilarious voiceover to a Lego-staged piece called “Death Star Canteen”.  Imagine Darth Vader patronizing the cafeteria on the Death Star, where everything is made of Lego.  Mike, Naomi Vondell (Mrs. Soper the jailer’s wife), Blythe, Rob Candy (brutal farmhand Clifford) and I watched it on Naomi’s iPad, and practically bust a gut at the sly Brit interpretation of Star Wars geekery.

 

A report on the post-show Talkback to be posted later.  I leave you with Eddie Izzard:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv5iEK-IEzw

 

Overheard in “The Killdeer” dressing room

There’s a segment I’ve heard on a morning radio show called “Random Out-of-Context Theatre”, which replays snippets of the DJs’ dialogue throughout that day.  In that spirit, here are a few things overheard in The Killdeer dressing room recently:

- “I’m farting a lot.”
- ACTOR, entering arm-in-arm with STAGE MANAGER: “She said yes!”
- MALE ACTOR to well-padded FEMALE ACTOR: “Boooobs!”
- ACTOR at intermission: “I’m not putting my clothes on.” [to be clear, she actually was clothed; she meant that she wasn't changing her costume!]
- “It still smells like fart in here.” [at least half an hour after the incident]

THE KILLDEER: Tipsy on elderblossom wine, Harry’s mother Mrs. Gardner (Anne Shepherd – L) and her friend Mrs. Budge (Marie Carrière Gleason) dance with paper cutouts of Eli and Clifford. • Photo by Dahlia Katz

Catch The Killdeer – the audience-ready version! – until April 27.  http://www.alumnaetheatre.com/1213killdeer.html

Magic & mayhem in a small town – Alumnae Theatre's The Killdeer

Reblogged from life with more cowbell:

A rural kitchen with lavender walls, wallpapered below the chair railing on one side and paneled with different cuts of wood on the other. An open doorway reveals a pantry, shelves full of mason jars of colourful preserves. Up centre, a tree sprouts, covered in all manner of porcelain knick-knacks – a tea pot, glass animals – instead of leaves. Through the window, a portion of it cut away, vines enter from the outside world, and we get the stage right view of white birches, giant bull rushes and the beginning of a glittering green swamp.

Read more… 681 more words

LifeWithMoreCowbell's review! Check it out - PWYC matinee on Sundays at 2pm; 2-for-1 Wed at 8pm; Thu - Sat $20 until April 27. http://www.alumnaetheatre.com/tickets.html

Hye’s Musings: “The Killdeer” director interview

Blogger Heidy M. interviews The Killdeer director Barbara Larose about her vision for the play, including depicting the magic/fairy tale elements that are juxtaposed with the realism in James Reaney‘s script.  Read the interview here:

http://hyemusings.blogspot.ca/2013/04/alumnae-theatres-retrospective-choice.html

The show opens tomorrow night at Alumnae Theatre.  http://www.alumnaetheatre.com/1213killdeer.html

“Rebecca and me…”

Pssst – the delightful Blythe Haynes, who plays soulful country girl Rebecca in The Killdeer, is afraid of birds!  She doesn’t like bacon, either, but that’s a whole different topic.  The character of Rebecca in the play is a bird-lover; in fact, she tells Harry (Paul Hardy) that she considers the wild killdeer her own bird, and “I like it as well as I like you.”.

Having confessed her bird phobia to the rest of the cast, Blythe’s now in for some teasing.    Today Tricia Brioux, who plays Rebecca’s nemesis Madam Fay, e-mailed Blythe a photo with the headline “Rebecca and me, Rebecca and me” (that’s a taunting line said by Clifford, played by Rob Candy).  This is the photo:

“Rebecca and me, Rebecca and me!”

To which Blythe responded:   “AHHHHH! Tricia – trying to give me a heart attack!?  Ha  – yikes. I threw my phone when that picture came up!”

Not be outdone, jokester Rob Candy then sent everyone a photo of a killdeer faking a broken wing (as they do), with the headline “The Killdeer ! The Killdeer!” – that’s Madam Fay’s freakout line.

To get in on the joke, come see the play – it opens Friday April 12.

“The Killdeer” opens on Friday! Interesting facts…

Last night’s rehearsal changed from what was supposed to be an on-our-feet Italian run with props (yikes!) to a regular sit-down Italian – phew.  While lighting designer  Ed Rosing tweaked the lighting plot and conferred  with stage manager Margot Devlin about programming the new cues, the cast gathered in the theatre lobby with director Barbara Larose and assistant director Ellen Green to do an Italian run of the play.  In theatre lingo, that means to speakquicklyandwithoutpauses.

It was an interesting exercise, especially for a play like The Killdeer, with such a convoluted plot.   Listening to lines spoken this way really brought home such things as the sequence of events;  who knew what and when; who was lying and who was telling the truth.  The acid test will be to see if the audience can understand it on their first (only) viewing!

DID YOU KNOW?

In 1960, Alumnae Theatre’s Pamela Terry (1926-2006) directed the first play written by esteemed Canadian poet James Reaney (1926-2008) – The Killdeer. She continued to direct several other of Reaney’s plays, including One-man Masque, Night Blooming Cereus, and The Easter Egg.  In recent years Terry promoted Alumnae Theatre’s participation in cultural festivals such as Doors Open Toronto, and took charge of the company’s participation in Toronto’s first Nuit Blanche in 2006.

Mr. Manatee the hangman (played by Mike Vitorovich) spouts some unusual words – here are some:
BURDOCK:  coarse herb with globular flower heads and prickly bracts.
CAMPION:  plant of the pink family. Herb with white flowers.
FREEMARTIN:  sexually imperfect, usually sterile female calf, twinborn with a male.
SHRIKE: thrush; grey or brownish bird with strong notched bill hooked at the tip. Feeds chiefly on insects which it impales on its bill.

From the website www.jamesreaney.com/:
Pamela Terry … and her husband, composer John Beckwith, were friends of James Reaney’s, and she encouraged him to write The Killdeer and persuaded the Alumnae Theatre to produce it. John Beckwith put together a background score for The Killdeer, and in his book, Unheard Of: Memoirs of a Canadian Composer, he describes how he composed the score: “… following Pamela’s directorial suggestions, I improvised musical cues at the piano, as she and I devised various muting devices after the model of John Cage’s ‘prepared piano’…”

 I checked with current sound designer Rick Jones, who tells me that ‘prepared piano’ is a term for effects created on the piano, other than by the normal use  of the keyboard – striking the strings inside, for example.  This was “something that musicians were “playing around with” in the 50’s and 60’s but has since fallen out of vogue.   Rick also pointed out an interesting coincidence:  in both the original and current productions of The Killdeer, the sound designer and director were husband and wife!

 Playwright James Reaney’s son has blogged about our upcoming production: http://blogs.canoe.ca/brandnewblog/general/the-killdeer-flies-back-to-alumnae-theatre/

 

The show opens on Friday April 12 and runs to April 27.  Tickets can be purchased online at http://www.alumnaetheatre.com/tickets.html, or you can reserve seats by phone (416-364-4170, box 1), then pay in cash (sorry, no credit or debit cards accepted at Box Office) on arrival.

“The Killdeer” opens April 12 – check out production photos!

Alumnae Theatre Company’s remount of James Reaney’s The Killdeer (which premiered here in 1960) opens next week Friday, April 12 and runs to April 27.    For a sneak peek at the actors and set (designed by Marysia Bucholc; built by Mike Peck), check out Dahlia Katz’s production photos at

http://www.alumnaetheatre.com/1213killdeer.html

Got your tickets yet?  You can reserve seats by phone (416-364-4170, box 1), then pay in cash (sorry, no credit or debit cards accepted at Box Office) on arrival.  Or you can purchase online (for Wed – Sat performances only) at http://www.alumnaetheatre.com/tickets.html

Tickets for Sunday matinees are available for in-person cash only sales at Box Office.  Box Office opens one hour before performances.

PERFORMANCES:  Wed – Sat at 8pm; Sundays at 2pm.  A Talkback with director & cast follows the April 21 matinee.

TICKET PRICES: Wednesday 2-for-1; Thursday/ Friday/Saturday $20; Sunday PWYC.