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…
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…
It’s been a few weeks since the final performance of Brock University Department of Dramatic Arts’ Fall Mainstage, Scenes from an Execution. Closing off their embedded criticism adventure on the show, DARTcritics Holly Hebert and Asenia Lyall met to talk about how it all went.
Here’s Holly Hebert’s final solo vlog from behind the scenes of the Fall 2020 DART Mainstage, Scenes from an Execution. She and Asenia will round off this coverage with a conversational vlog to be posted soon. (Pictured above: Holly with Neo Moore on the set of the production; photo by Sammie Marett). …
Scenes from an Execution has opened, and even as someone working on it I was floored by how well the ambitious design turned out and how far the actors have come since the first rehearsal. As the dramaturg I have been watching the production night after night from the comfort of my living room. Though some performers a…
In the week before Scenes from an Execution opens, everyone I talked to has wanted to know how it works. We are staging the production online, a convention in theatre that has become necessary in the COVID-19 pandemic. There is no precedent for how to rehearse and perform theatre live online; the team has been adapting…
As the first online Mainstage, Scenes from an Execution has the whole team live-streaming in from their homes. There is one cast member who is bridging an exceptional distance through his participation in the Mainstage: Diego Blanco (pictured above) is performing and rehearsing from Querétaro, Mexico. Diego’s experienc…
Holly and Asenia serve up some basic information about what the DART Mainstage production is, and about the play Scenes from an Execution by Howard Barker.
Rehearsals for Scenes from an Execution are underway and the show is beginning to take shape. This process is not without its speed bumps, from actors with older computers to internet issues to loud roommates. The list goes on. Already the creative and production teams are devising strategies to handle online rehearsal…
It is another school year, but a school year like no other. DART is online, the Mainstage is online, and there are new DARTcritics. The Mainstage is a play produced by the department in the fall and winter each year, typically in the main theatre space. DARTcritics is a website for Brock students to get hands-on experi…