Hello theatre creators, educators, scholars and everything in between! I hope you’re having a productive-yet-restful summer. Ever wonder what it’s like to work at the second-largest theatre company in North America? Well, I am happy to report to you as the 2022 DART Intern at the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake,…
“The magic of theatre” – a common descriptor of productions and a personal favourite explanation as to why I love the arts. Theatre has an ability to compel with such a force that the result is sometimes unexplainable. Whether it be the lights, the performers, or the set, when a world onstage is created that presents m…
For nearly two years, theatre lovers have felt entrapped in their own little purgatories. Artists have been unable to perform on stages, and audiences been left peering through screens to get their dose of magic. Although online theatre has made strides and offered new dimensions to theatrical experiences, there’s not…
Frances Johnson graduated from the Department of Dramatic Arts in 2020 and was about to begin an internship at the Shaw Festival when the Covid-19 pandemic halted live theatrical activity. Her internship in stage management is now happening this spring and early summer, as the Shaw Festival continues to navigate pandem…
The Brock Dramatic Arts department’s fourth year students have been working hard on their final production of this academic year. Ouroboros is a piece of pre-recorded devised theatre that will be streamed April 17-18, with a matinee and an evening show on each day. Tickets are free (here’s a link) with a recommended do…
What’s the best way to describe Sheila Callaghan’s play Fever/Dream? Simply put by actor Joanna Tran: “like a fever dream.” Director Gyllian Raby expands on this, describing the show as a combination of “humour and the surreal, in a cocktail of magic realism.” Staging this buoyant, complex play online in the midst of t…
Rick Roberts’ Orestes, directed by Richard Rose, confronts the progressively blurring lines between real life and virtual life in a heightened version of the bloodthirsty frenzy of online existence — an experience amplified by quarantines and self isolation. Running from February 3-14 at Tarragon Theatre, it satirized…
The fourth-year Brock Dramatic Arts course DART 4F56 involves an ensemble of students, led by a faculty director, staging two fully-produced shows in the course of the academic year. In this time like no other, DART 4F56 expertly pivoted in Fall 2020 to stage Jordan Tannahill’s play Concord Floral completely online (th…
Every year the University of Windsor School of Dramatic Art produces multiple plays featuring its fourth-year students. This year, under the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, the department had to adapt. In collaboration with the Toronto theatre company Outside the March, the school commissioned playwrights and d…
How do we keep theatre alive during a global pandemic? This question arose nearly a year ago, motivating theatremakers to develop Zoom theatre. Whether it be live or pre-recorded performances, it’s being done over Zoom. Since this exploration began, my work inside some such productions and my viewing of others has prom…
