ONstage Openings for the week of October 31

This week’s openings on Ontario’s stages

In Central Ontario

Nov. 4, Twelfth Night at Northumberland Players (Cobourg)

Nov. 4, Eclipsed at Peterborough Theatre Guild

ONstage Opening in Eastern Ontario
The Last Wife at GCTC (Ottawa)
Celine Stubel, Oliver Becker
Photo by Emily Cooper

In Eastern Ontario

Nov. 3, The Last Wife at Great Canadian Theatre Company (Ottawa), with previews from Nov. 1

Nov. 3, The Real Inspector Hound / Coffee House at Studio Theatre Perth

In Northeastern Ontario

Nov. 3, The Bold, The Young, and The Murdered at Take Two Theatre (Timmins)

Nov. 4, Rearview at Sudbury Theatre Centre, with a preview on Nov. 3

In Northwestern Ontario

Nov. 3, Disgraced at Magnus Theatre (Thunder Bay), with previews from Oct. 31

In South Central Ontario

Nov. 3, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at Marquee Theatrical Productions (Newmarket)

Nov. 4, The Black Bonspiel of Wullie MacCrimmon at Georgetown Little Theatre

Nov. 4, Wyrd Sisters at Durham Shoestring Performers (Oshawa)

In Southwestern Ontario

Nov. 3, Ten Times Two at Theatre Tillsonburg

Nov. 4, Buying the Moose at Elmira Theatre Company

Nov. 4, It’s a Wonderful Life at Elora Community Theatre

In Toronto

Nov. 1, A Brimful of Asha at Soulpepper Theatre

Nov. 1, UnCovered: Queen & Bowie at Acting Up Stage Theatre Company

Nov. 3, acquiesce at fu-GEN Theatre Company, currently in previews

ONstage Now Playing in Southwestern Ontario
The Nether at Theatre Aquarius (Hamilton)
Andrea Runge, Nigel Shawn Williams
Photo by Banko Media

Nov. 3, The Swan Song, a Study in Terror at NAGs Players

Nov. 4, The Music Man at Scarborough Music Theatre, with a preview on Nov. 3

Nov. 4, Much Ado About Nothing at Hart House Theatre

Nov. 4, A Party to Murder at The Village Players, Bloor West Village

Nov. 5, The Enchanted Loom at Cahoots Theatre Company, in previews

ICYMI: Check out last week’s openings

For all the theatre playing across Ontario, visit Theatre Ontario’s ONstage theatre listings on our website

Ontario Off Stage

by Brandon Moore, Community Theatre and Communications Manager

Conversation Starters

• Steve Fisher wrote in Now Magazine about Tonia Sina’s “Intimacy for the Stage” workshop and "the ins and outs of intimacy on stage"—we’re hosting the workshop on November 12 and 13 in Toronto.
• Equity in Theatre invites fellow advocates to check out the infographics and resources available to help improve the status of women and other marginalized groups in your community and arts practice.
• Damien Atkins writes on Intermission about how vocal masque is “a perfect nexus” of acting and writing, and learning how to make "something out of nothing."

Behind the Scenes at Ontario’s Theatres

• Welcome to the new SpiderWebShow Performance, Canada’s first National digital performance company.
• Port Stanley Festival Theatre has announced their 2017 summer season.

Migrations

• Mike Douglas is the new Executive Director of the Mississauga Arts Council.

TO Toasts

• ... to Colleen Murphy, winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award in Drama (English) for Pig Girl.

In Case You Missed It

• Stories from our Youth Theatre Training Program, featuring Community Arts Guild.
• Play Date—the second event from our Youth Advisory Committee.
• ONstage Openings this week in Toronto, Tottenham, Newmarket, Hamilton, London, St. Marys.
• Browsing Our Bulletin Board—Workshops, the PGC Tom Hendry Awards, grant deadlines, and more.

Stories from the Youth Theatre Training Program: Community Arts Guild

By Christine Rankin, Education Assistant 

Our Youth Theatre Training Program (YTTP) offers financial support to programs that deliver accessible training to young people (age 14 to 21), led by professional artists in skills such as technical production and design; theatre administration and producing; and performance skills and play creation. 

Community Arts Guild was supported for their program IN COMMON GROUND that took place in the communities of Scarborough and Nipissing First Nation during April-June 2015. 

The Community Arts Guild uses the collective quality of group creation to build and strengthen the sense of community between artists. Upon designing a project to focus on youth entitled IN COMMON GROUND, they sought funding from Theatre Ontario under our Youth Theatre Training Program. From April to June in 2015, IN COMMON GROUND united the youth communities of Scarborough and Nipissing First nation through art-making.  Realizing that their youth groups paralleled each other, Community Arts Guild and Aanmitaagzi decided to collaborate on this project.

“The opportunity to collaborate with Aanmitaagzi in this training program was an inspiring and enriching experience. It was wonderful to spend time in Nipissing and collaborate with them…they are extraordinary artists and Community Arts Guild is proud to have developed a deeper relationship with them.”

It included six workshops and two intensive weekends that were split between each location. IN COMMON GROUND additionally occurred in tandem with Jumblies Theatre’s Train of Thought events: a touring community arts project that used various art media to explore the histories of relationships between first nations, other communities, and indigenous land. With the added support of Jumblies Theatre, the youths in the IN COMMON GROUND program likewise explored themes of land throughout their workshops, focusing on the need to respect the earth and the awareness that humans are its guests.

The workshops involved creative training in the fields of theatre, music and dance. The participants explored the role of movement in storytelling and the range of forms that movement can take. They engaged with mask work, improvisation, choreography, and even some puppetry. The participants also explored an auditory plane of art through voice work, soundscapes and drumming. Needless to say, the participants’ creative minds were kept extremely busy! These sessions not only promoted the development of artistic skills for future artists and creators but also for everyday life! Participants gained valuable insights toward creative problem solving, expression, self-confidence, and critical thinking. The participants had fantastic things to say about their learning experience:

“Best thing learned – being sociable with others making new friends, respecting others. It helped me to keep active. It’s been a great and wonderful experience.”

“It was a very adventurous experience for me, and my first time outside of the city of Toronto…chatting with others [was] very awesome.”

The workshops and intensive weekend in each location were geared towards the goal of creating a final piece that celebrated all of the above arts and that was presented in their communities.  The show, Beneath Us, was both scripted and improvised and derived from an oral story from the West Coast belonging to Salish people. In Nipissing, the youths performed Beneath Us at the Capitol Centre in North Bay in the Dream Big Conference. It re-adapted for outdoor performance and presented at Cedar Ridge Creative Centre in Scarborough as well as Art of the Americas and Train of Thought Toronto. Community Arts Guild and Aanmitaagzi truly made a difference in the lives of youths through this project: 

“Many of our youth expressed an interest in taking a more active role in our workshops and art making in the community, some even saying that they see a career for themselves in the arts.”

IN COMMON GROUND provided a landscape for the creation of art through the sharing of culture and experiences between participants of different communities. Without this program, these youths would not have had a chance to connect with each other. The developing of these new relationships was repeatedly noted as a point of excitement for the young artists. Participants from Scarborough were thrilled to learn in-person about indigenous culture from indigenous people. It was great to see the enrichment of art that arises from diversity of those involved in the process.

People of different cultures, nationalities, and generations came together through the process of art-making. Intergenerational creation was used to unite youth with established Community Arts Guild and Aaanmitaagzi artists. Additionally, the program’s reach extended beyond geographical barriers and included participants who were new to Canada and whose first experiences of the country became the open space for free creation established by the Community Arts Guild and Aanmitaagzi. 

Theatre Ontario’s YTTP is proud to have supported this initiative and was delighted to see so many creators come together…IN COMMON GROUND!

The next application deadline for the Youth Theatre Training Program is March 15, 2017.

Learn more about Theatre Ontario's Youth Theatre Training Program

 

Theatre Ontario’s Youth Theatre Training Program is funded by the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario. 

Browsing Our Bulletin Board

Coming Up from Theatre Ontario

Launching Your Career workshop at Theatre Ontario

• Running away from a blank page? Learn how to get past writer’s block. Join us at our free PGC Writer’s Block webinar with Marcia Johnson in partnership with Playwrights Guild of Canada on November 3 in Toronto.
• Keep your team safe and your show running smoothly—join us at our Health and Safety for Independent and Community Theatres workshop with Janet Sellery on November 5 in Toronto.
• Learn the techniques and the language to stage human sexuality in a way that is professional, dynamic and focused on storytelling at our Intimacy for the Stage weekend intensive with Tonia Sina in partnership with Burning Mountain on November 12 and 13 in Toronto.
• Build and maintain a solid career that industry professionals and audiences will trust in our Building Your Brand as an Artist workshop with Edward Power on November 14 in Toronto.
• Answers to your FAQ’s about the business of acting! Join us at our Launching Your Career workshop with Rachel Kennedy and guest Claire Armstrong, in partnership with Artscape Launchpad on November 22 in Toronto. 
• Preparing an OAC application? Get the inside scoop at our Grant Writing Information pre-recorded webinar, with Pat Bradley of the Ontario Arts Council, available on November 22.
• Want to know the secrets to a successful voice acting career? Join us at our Voice Over workshop with Elley-Ray on November 26 in Toronto.
• Members save 50% on E-learning courses from WorkInCulture. One of the six courses available is Marketing—Find and grow your audience! How do you make the leap from "Sounds like a great show" to "Two tickets, please"? This course will take you through that process, developing and enhancing your marketing skills along the way.

Check out all of our upcoming Career Stream and Creator Stream workshops.

Upcoming on The Bulletin Board

• SPARC – the Symposium for Performing Arts in Rural Communities opens October 27 in Haliburton.
• The Playwright’s Guild of Canada’s Tom Hendry Awards are October 30 in Toronto.
• Deadline to apply for Canada Council’s “New Chapter: Arts Program to Mark the 150th Anniversary of Confederation” grants is October 31.
• Deadline to apply for Ontario Arts Council’s Theatre Organizations—Summer Theatre and Compass grants is November 1.

New on The Bulletin Board

• Theatre InspiraTO is hosting a workshop on writing engaging ten-minute plays on November 26 in Toronto.
• The MT Space invites applications for their Ontario Arts Council Theatre Creators Reserve. Funding priorities include collectives and work on non-script-based physical forms. The application deadline is December 9.
• Nominations are now open for Gina’s Prize, the Gina Wilkinson Prize which recognized an experienced female theatre artist transitioning from one theatre discipline to the discipline of theatre direction.  The nomination deadline is December 15.
• The Singing Studio of Douglas Rice is hosting a “Stage Deportment, Poise and Performance Enhancement” workshop on January 15 in Toronto.

Check out these items, and other postings from our members.

• Grants
• Calls for Submission and Nominations
• Volunteer and Non-Paying Positions
• Community Events and Conferences
• Workshops at Ontario Theatres and Other Arts Service Organizations
• Adult Continuing Education Programs
• Youth Training Programs

Theatre Ontario individual members can also access Auditions, Job Postings and Discount Ticket Offers on our Theatre Ontario Individual Member Resources on our website

The YAC's 2nd Event of 2016: Play Date!

We at the YAC were so excited to see so many new and eager faces out at our May event "Now What: An Emerging Artist's Guide to the Theatre Universe" that we couldn't wait to follow it up! "Now What" was all about helping young theatre artists navigate a professional community that was new to them. We had lots of recent and soon-to-be theatre school grads in attendance, many from our event venue, the Randolph Academy. We started thinking about what that first September out of school was like for each of us. The answer? Hard; but made so much easier by keeping busy. "Play Date" was born out of the desire to help emerging artists feel situated in their larger theatre community even as they no longer have a school program to anchor them.

Networking is a word that gets thrown around a lot across all fields, and for many people (myself included, I'll admit) it's a scary word that connotes strategic conversations, studying names ahead of time, and something of an agenda. In other words: cold and calculating. But networking is what happens when your friend introduces you to someone they went to school with and you realize you both saw the same show at Fringe; it doesn't have to be scary at all. With "Play Date," we wanted to demystify networking, make it seem less intimating, and encourage young theatre lovers and creators to think beyond meeting, say, the artistic director of their dream company; we feel that it is equally valuable to get to know one another: your peers are your future collaborators, cast-mates, and—not the least—friends, even if they look just as uncomfortable in an unfamiliar room as you do. We didn't want to create a "networking for the sake of networking" atmosphere, rather we hoped to demonstrate that meeting new people and forging connections is something that can happen (perhaps inadvertently) while you're having fun! "Play Date" was structured around that thing that we all love so dearly in the theatre: the play. After all, what's easier to talk about than your favourite play?

On Monday, September 12th, our guests started arriving at our venue, the Central in Toronto's annex, at 8 PM. They wrote the name of their favourite play (a challenge for many, we were told - who has just one?) on name tags and received their copy of Human Bingo, an activity we loved as an icebreaker at Paprika's Intersection in March and adapted to go with our play theme. Everyone had to find someone to match a description in each box, with examples including "Has read Judith Thompson's The Crackwalker," "Saw a show at Summerworks," and "Has seen Kinky Boots more than once."

Toronto photographer Philip Zave was on hand to snap photos for us and mingled right along with everyone else. Philip excepted, our 20+ guests were exclusively female! This was unexpected but ultimately, we felt, helped create an instant sense of community. Everyone was kind and open and spent lots of time talking to new people. Many guests were one year out of theatre school or identified this as their very first September without a school to go back to. We also met several people who had just moved to Toronto—some from as far away as Wales and as recently as three weeks ago!

Our play exchange proved a great success—a large number of people brought plays to contribute to the exchange, and the plays that we had ready upon arrival, supplied by Theatre Ontario and our own libraries, were great conversation starters as people milled about and found them set out on patio tables. We were pretty excited about the main game of the night: it was a mix of Balderdash and Apples to Apples but it was all about PLAYS, so how could we not be? The way it worked was we split into two groups and everyone took turns reading the title and author of a play from a piece of paper and each person had to invent a two-sentence synopsis for the play, even if they recognized it. The best (or wildest) synopsis won each round, and then everyone got to hear the actual summary of the play! Many of these plays were there to be exchanged, and hearing what they were about helped spark interest in them and ensured they were scooped up by the end of the night. Mission: expose people to new plays, accomplished. This game brought out the best in our incredibly innovative (and hilarious) guests. As our photographer Philip put it, "there is so much creativity in this room!" I, for one, would definitely read a version of Ibsen's The Wild Duck featuring "Paul," who "has an identity crisis and is convinced that he is a duck; attempts to exist solely on crackers." We loved the way everyone dove into this game, and we had so much fun! (Play lovers, feel free to snag this idea—you won't regret it.)

In what felt like no time at all, our fruit and veggie platters (generously provided by Sobeys on DuPont and Shaw) dwindled and the cheesy aromas of Panago Pizza wafted in from the other room. We were so lucky to have "Play Date" fuelled by Panago's #RandomActsOfPizza, and we can assure you that none of it went to waste! Guests mingled over slices and we announced the raffle winners of a brand new copy of Caryl Churchill's Cloud 9 and a free Theatre Ontario workshop: Building Your Brand As An Artist with Edward Power, coming up in November. We had thought the night would end there, but no! Our lovely and effusive Play Daters stayed chatting for another hour and a half! On their way out the door there were many calls of "Don't forget to email me" and "Thanks for the Life Chats!" Needless to say, our hearts were warmed. We love connecting people and helping them feel welcome in the theatre community—and based on the feedback we got from our guests, we accomplished just that! 

Stay up to date with the YAC by liking our Facebook page! As always, we welcome questions and feedback at youth@theatreontario.org. We also invite you to learn more about "Now What: The Care Package" on the Theatre Ontario website. 

The 2016 Youth Advisory Committee is Annie MacKay and Jocelyn MacNeil. For this event we had tremendous help from volunteer (and recent Randolph grad) Sarah Bransfield. We would also like to acknowledge the support of Claudia, Brandon, and Bruce at Theatre Ontario, our photographer Philip Zave, Brittany Townsend at Snapd Toronto, Sobeys at DuPont and Shaw, Panago Pizza for fueling this event, and the Central for generously offering a free space! We truly appreciate everyone who came out to "Play Date" and we are so grateful for their pay-what-you-can donations, which help us continue to create these opportunities for Ontario youth involved in theatre.