Season’s Greetings from Rosemary Thompson at the NAC
Thank-you to the NAC!!
Nous vous remercions tous!!
The CCC – Les critiques du CCC!!
Seasons Greetings from La Nouvelle Scène: Meilleurs voeux à toute l’équipe du CCC
Merci à La Nouvelle scène…et tous nos voeux de réussite pour la nouvelle année dans votre nouvelle maison!
Les critiques du CCC!!
Project: Humanity’s verbatim theatre piece examining homophobia and racism—and the ways they intersect— steps boldly outside the format’s usual bounds.
This article by Steve Fisher appearing in the Journal Torontoist, won the prize for best small article in the CTCA competition for the Nathan Cohen award.
By Steve Fisher
The cast of Small Axe. Photo by Dahlia Katz.
Small Axe at The Theatre Centre (1115 Queen Street West ) Runs until February 1
Last week saw issues of racism and representation discussed and hotly debated in the Canadian media. MacLeans published an incendiary article labelling Winnipeg “Canada’s most racist city” and an op-ed entitled “Canada’s Race Problem? It’s Even Worse Than America’s.” Around the same time, Maclean‘s also published an op-ed defending the recent use of blackface on stage in Montreal, and so, too, did the Globe and Mail.
Both of these op-eds were written from positions of privilege: the outlets that published them are established and prestigious, and both writers are white and male. Patrick Lagace, who authored the Globe piece, attempted to circumscribe the discussion even more: he focused on fellow Globe writer Kelly Nestruck, who had condemned the blackface practice in an earlier column, saying Nestruck was “the only commentator of note” to give him a “cross-check to the face,” and setting Nestruck up as a “francophobic” straw man attacking Quebec’s “different culture.” He made no mention of the fact that Quebecois people of colour had already raised issues about the performance in a variety of online posts. Most disturbingly, the theatre that staged the offensive sketch, Rideau Vert, has responded not with an apology or a commitment to use actors of colour in the future, but with the announcement that they will no longer feature sketches involving anyone of colour.
On the disappearing art of Theatre Criticism
After the decision by the Ottawa Citizen to remove its theatre critic, ( following the removal , in 2011, of the local theatre critic by CBC), we decided to publish this most timely article by our colleague Stephen Hunt.
Guest critic STEPHEN HUNT . CALGARY — Special to The Globe and Mail. Hunt was the theatre critic at the Calgary Herald for 10 years. Published Friday, Oct. 14, 2016 7:16PM EDT
The Canadian cultural critical landscape – outside of Toronto – looks bleaker. In Calgary, there are many signs of the demise of an important industry: The Calgary Theatre Critics’ Awards, locally known as The Critters, recently threw in the towel. I was let go back in January, part of massive Postmedia layoffs, leaving just one Calgary critic who appears in print media.
Our 73-year-old Louis Hobson, whose reviews run in both the Sun and the Herald, is Calgary’s last theatre critic standing – and after suffering a heart attack a year ago, even Mr. Hobson say he needs to cut back. (There are still two young, emerging Calgary theatre bloggers: Jenna Shummoogum and Rodrigo Flores, who find the enthusiasm to review 80 shows a year, featuring over a dozen professional companies, for little or no money – futile for a realistic career opportunity.)
It’s hardly a Calgary thing – or a Canadian thing, or a Postmedia thing, either. It’s happening everywhere.
Laurie Steven wins OAC Chalmers Arts Fellowship! Odyssey Theatre’s Artistic Director to Smash Stereotypes
photo: Laurie Stevan
OTTAWA, ON, Dec. 8, 2016—Odyssey Theatre is proud to announce that Artistic Director Laurie Steven is a recipient of the prestigious Chalmers Arts Fellowship.
Awarded by the Ontario Arts Council, this grant provides significant funding for senior professional artists to take time from their usual creative pursuits to investigate, explore and experiment with style, technique, method, content or an issue in their arts practice. Instead of supporting specific projects, the program allows artists to dedicate themselves to their art form and further develop their careers. …
Cantata Singers of Ottawa’s Christmas concert Dec. 8 presents a varied programme – fun for the entire family.
The Cantata Singers of Ottawa’s Christmas concert, “Family Christmas Spectacular”, takes place on December 18 at 3 pm in St. Joseph’s Church, 174 Wilbrod Street.
Artistic Director, Andrew McAnerney has designed a programme to put everyone in a Christmas mood for the week before Christmas. And audience participation will be encouraged! The programme is designed to appeal to people of all ages, children, seniors and family groups. It’s a perfect opportunity for grandparents, aunts, uncles to have that pre-Christmas outing with their grandchildren, nieces or nephews. (FYI: Children under 12 are free.)
The CSO season brochure describes it as “Favourite Christmas music old and new – including sing-alongs, fanfares, descants and more!” The concert programme will deliver on this promise.
Those attending will be hearing glorious Christmas music performed by the CSO and their guest artists: Ottawa Children’s Choir; harpist (and JUNO Award nominee) Caroline Léonardelli and the Cathedral Brass.
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Capital Critics Circle announces seventeenth annual theatre awards (2015-16 season)
Seventeenth Annual Awards offered bya the Capital Critics circle 2015-16
The winners are:
Best professional production: Belles Soeurs: The Musical, based on the play by Michel Tremblay, book, lyrics and direction by René Richard Cyr, music by Daniel Bélanger, English book adapted by Brian Hill, English lyrics, musical adaptation and additional music by Neil Bartram, a Copa de Oro Productions Ltd. (Montreal) and the Segal Centre for Performing Arts (Montreal) production.
Best community theatre production: Love! Valour! Compassion! by Terrence McNally, directed by Chantale Plante, with musical direction by Paul Legault and choreography by Jasmine Lee, TotoToo Theatre.
Best student production: Pool (No Water) by Mark Ravenhill, directed by Pamela Feghali, University of Ottawa, Department of Theatre
Playwriting contest winners to appear in highly regarded reading series, The Pipeline
Mark The Pipeline 2016 in your late fall calendar
Friday, December 2 – Sunday, December 4, 2016
Every year Infinithéâtre looks for innovative, challenging and exciting new works by dedicated Québec playwrights. Plays developed by Infinithéâtre have been performed all over the island of Montréal and beyond, in Stratford Ontario, Toronto, British Columbia, in Ottawa at the NAC, New York, Tokyo, Cairo and Edinburgh.
For the past eight years, Infinithéâtre’s annual Write-on-Q! Québec playwriting competition has been the major source of original plays for its seasons’ repertoire, including recent successes Battered by Arthur Holden; Michael Milech’s Honesty Rents by the Hour; Progress! and Trench Patterns by Alyson Grant; and Oren Safdie’s Unseamly. This year’s jury, chaired by Kent Stetson, with Gerry Lipnowski and Anana Rydvald, is excited to announce the 2016 winners, whose plays will be read in early December’s The Pipeline. Infinithéâtre offers the biggest English literary prize in Québec.
Write-On-Q! First Place, Pam Dunn Prize, $3000: The Nutritional Value of Anger by Michael Milech
From the Jury, “An accomplished and excellent play with characters that are grounded in reality; whose dialogue and interaction feel genuine and compelling. A chance encounter between a profoundly damaged homeless girl, a hard-working depaneur owner and a privileged millennial spotlights people that are overlooked and deemed insignificant in our society. Written with wit, compassion and an unwavering eye for the truth, The Nutritional Value of Anger is contemporary theatre at its best.” …
Temporada de Teatro Latinoamericano y Caribeño Mayo Teatral 2016
Marco Vidal en Mendoza (Los Colochos de Mexico). Vivian Martinez y los colegas de la Casa de las Americas
Patricia Ariza de la Candelaria, Colombia. (Camilo). Photos: Alvina Ruprecht.
Ce Mayo teatral (2016) fut à la fois l’ouverture, par le théâtre, vers une nouvelle vision des Amériques et un voyage vers le passé. C’était avec beaucoup d’émotion que j’ai revu Roberto Fernandez Retamar, Président de la Casa des las Americas, monter sur la tribune, accueillir le public alors que dans les années 1970, nous avons reçu Dr. Retamar à Ottawa en tant qu’invité de l’Association canadienne de Littérature comparée à l’Université Carleton. (Ottawa). Maintenant, revoir ce vénérable monsieur sur la scène chez lui m’a fait un coup de nostalgie très forte.
Cirque du Soleil coming to Ottawa!! Performance inspired by Avatar- watch for it….
Inspired by James Cameron’s Oscar-winning film, Avatar, TORUK – The First Flight is a live action multimedia spectacle that jumps from the movie screen to bring the visually stunning world of Pandora to life through cutting-edge video technology (using 40 projectors) and large-scale puppetry mixed with Cirque’s stunning performers. TORUK follows the adventurous quest of two young Na’vi men as they encounter strange creatures and characters in ever-changing landscapes including a virtual flood cascading from waterfalls across the arena floor.
TORUK – The First Flight, at the Canadian Tire Centre from June 29 to July 3, 2016. Since its world premiere in December 2015, TORUK has been performing to sold out audiences as part of its world tour.