ON THE VERGE goes East in 2006! Join us in St. John's during the Magnetic North Theatre Festival this summer for readings of seven exciting new works. This year the festival features plays by great writers from the Atlantic provinces. Don't miss the chance to see these remarkable plays about remarkable people from a remarkable land.
All readings take place on
the Main Stage of the St. John's Arts and Culture Centre.
THE LINE-UP FOR ON THE VERGE 2006 IS:
> THE MORNING BIRD
by Colleen Wagner (The village of Gagetown, NB)
Directed by Bill Lane
Tuesday, July 4 at 3 p.m.
The Cast
Doreen..... Jenny Munday
John..... Robbie O’Neill
Beth..... Tracey Ferencz
Jake..... Christian Murray
The Play
Doreen, a mentally unstable homeless person, steals a beautiful designer jacket from a hospital waiting room. The jacket belongs to Beth, a 30 something pregnant, urban professional for whom the jacket has a disproportionate value. Doreen begins to imagine the events surrounding the actual purchase of the coat. She conjures an image of its owner with uncanny accuracy. The coat begins to awaken in her old memories of a life in the suburbs with her husband and children…. life before the … accident. Meanwhile, Beth blames her husband, Jake, for the loss of the coat and all that it stands for. She pressures him to “do something.” When Beth actually encounters Doreen wearing the now stained and dirty jacket, she feels violated and angry, and imagines that Doreen is stalking her. She fears for the safety of her unborn child and her home and wishes Doreen would just disappear.
In an era of ramped up concern for social security, terrorism and increasing fear of the “other”, the line between reality and fantasy, fear and fact, prejudice and humanity blurs. In the end the characters must face their darker sides in order to discover the light of The Morning Bird.
The Morning Bird premiered at NotaBle Acts, Fredericton, NB, July 2005, directed by Bill Lane.
The Playwright
Colleen Wagner’s first play, Sand was selected for final short list for best international play at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, England, 1989. She has also written Eclipsed, and The Monument, which won the 1996 Governor General’s award, and was nominated for a Dora Award for its Toronto premiere at Canadian Stage Co. It has been translated into five languages and continues to be performed internationally. It had its American premiere at The Alliance Theatre, Washington, DC in May. She is currently working on a new play in two parts – Home -- as well as a number of film projects, including an adaptation of The Monument. She directed her first dramatic short film Remembrance Day in 2003. She co-founded the NotaBle Acts Summer Theatre in Fredericton, New Brunswick, and teaches screenwriting at York University, Toronto, Ontario. She divides her time between Toronto and the Village of Gagetown, New Brunswick.
> THE (IN)COMPLETE HERSTORY OF WOMEN IN NEWFOUNDLAND (AND LABRADOR)
by Sara Tilley (St. John’s, NL)
Directed by Leah Cherniak
Wednesday July 5 at 3 p.m.
The Cast
Herr – The Director..... Martha Ross
Prima – The Star Actress..... Mary-Lynn Bernard
Squirrel – The Stage Manager..... Susan Kent
Noseworthy – The Lighting Operator..... Anthony Black
Janice..... Amy House
The Play
Three clowns take on the momentous task of creating a piece of theatre about the history – sorry, herstory – of women in Newfoundland and Labrador. Partway through the first dance number, everything goes horribly wrong. The stage manager, Squirrel, is forced to become an actor, and the director, Herr, suffers from both periodic panic attacks and pangs of love for her lead actress, Prima. Despite injury, stage fright, infighting, haunting, and technical difficulty, the EstroCollective barrels ahead into hilarious territory as they present their much-mangled versions of female pirates, artists, Beothucks, bullfighters, suffragists and nuns. Nothing is sacred, safe or certain in this world of dirty laundry, feminist collective theatre, clowns, puppets, music, fish guts and blood. Intelligent and sharp, The (In)complete Herstory of Women in Newfoundland (and Labrador!) is a quasi-educational extravaganza of a three-washtub circus such as the herstory of the world has never seen.
The Playwright
Sara Tilley is a writer, theatre maker and clown who lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Since graduating from the York University BFA Acting program in 2001, Sara has worked as an actor for RCA Theatre, Artistic Fraud, Rising Tide and She Said Yes!, of which she is artistic director. She has studied clown with Ian Wallace and Sue Morrison, and has co-created four clown pieces to date, including RCA Theatre’s Mr. Invisible with Robert Chafe and Pat Dempsey in 2005. Sara has written and performed three solo shows: Signifying Nothing (RCA Theatre SOS, directed by Jill Keiley), The Jailer’s Daughter and Other Mad Fools Cracking Their Livers to Pieces for Love (RCA Theatre SOS/She Said Yes!, directed by Danielle Irvine) and Nosebleed – a clown show for adults (She Said Yes!, directed by Pat Dempsey). She won the 2004 Newfoundland and Labrador Percy Janes First Novel Award for her as-yet-unpublished manuscript, Snowflake-Young, and was one of twelve national finalists in CBC Radio’s Poetry Faceoff in 2003. This April She Said Yes! and White Rooster Productions presented the premiere of Lulu, directed and adapted by Sara from the plays by German Expressionist playwright Frank Wedekind. She’s working on a second novel, Duke.
> L'INTIMITE
by Emma Hache (Lameque, New Brunswick)
Translated by Arthur Milner,
Directed by Lois Brown
In association with the Centre des auteurs dramatiques
Thursday July 6 at 10 a.m.
The Cast
Frauke..... Gay Hauser
Alex..... John Koensgen
The Politician, The General, The Psychologist,
The Doctor, The Undertaker..... Robert Chafe
The Play
A caustic portrait of how a couple, Frauke and Alex, met in Nazi Germany. Based on a true story, this sharp satire of the “responsible society” delivers a tale of two people who feel most alive when they are inches from death. In this context, illness becomes the best way to protect oneself… but also to reveal oneself.
Frauke and Alex meet in wartime Germany. He is a Canadian soldier deeply traumatized by a conflict he cannot comprehend; she is a young woman hanging on as best she can in a country torn to ruins. Drawn together by their shared pain and fear, they conceive a child. Back in Canada, Alex waits for the ship carrying the pregnant Frauke, and the political machine seizes this chance to hook the reunion into a promotional campaign for a leading brand of cigarettes. Thus the beginning of a long confrontation between two souls made sick by a society founded on shifting, often ludicrous values.
The Playwright
A native of Acadia, Emma Haché studied theatre at the University of Moncton and trained in Montreal with Omnibus and the École de Mime corporel. She is currently honing her playwriting skills at the Centre de création scénique (Montreal). In October 2002 she received the Antonine-Maillet–Acadie Vie literary award for her first play, Lave tes mains, based on accounts of an epidemic of leprosy that ravaged Acadia two centuries ago. For her second play, L’Intimité, she won the 2003 Fonds Gratien-Gélinas Prime à la Création bursary (and the accompanying Louise-Lahaye bursary) awarded annually by Montreal’s Centre des Auteurs Dramatiques (CEAD), and the 2004 Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama.
The Translator
Arthur Milner was resident playwright (1982-1991) and artistic director (1991-1995) at Ottawa’s Great Canadian Theatre Company. His most recent plays include Facts (Who Knows Theatre, Winnipeg, 2005), and Joan Henry (with Allen Cole and Estelle Shook, Caravan Farm Theatre, Armstrong, B.C., 2003). Published plays include Crusader of the World (in Prepare to Embark, Playwrights Canada Press), Masada (Modern Jewish Plays, Playwrights Canada Press), Zero Hour (The CTR Anthology, University of Toronto Press), and Learning to Live with Personal Growth (New Canadian Drama 5, Borealis Press).
> BEYOND THE BEADED CURTAIN
Written and directed by Bryden MacDonald (Glace Bay, NS)
Thursday July 6 at 3 p.m.
The Cast
Bernie..... Peter Smith
Willy..... Allan Hawco
Float...... Philip Goodridge
Esta..... Sarah Carlsen
Camilla..... Julie Stewart
Ricotta..... Danette MacKay
The Play
Beyond the Beaded Curtain is about Willy, a troubled but charismatic gay kid who flees Cape Breton Island for Montreal with hopes of forgetting a newly broken heart. He finds momentary comfort with the denizens of the city’s red light district but soon goes missing without a trace. Willy, in one way or another, has had a profound effect on the lives of the other characters. His presence lingers. And as rumors fly, secrets explode and reality blurs with fantasy, Willy is both remembered and reinvented.
The Playwright
Bryden MacDonald is a director, playwright, dramaturge and teacher originally from Cape Breton Island, currently residing in Montreal. His work has been produced across Canada, in the United States and Europe. His published plays (talonbooks) are Whale Riding Weather, The Weekend Healer, and Divinity Bash/nine lives. He is the creator of theatrical interpretations of the words and music of Leonard Cohen (Sincerely, A Friend), Carole Pope/Rough Trade (Shaking the Foundations), and Joni Mitchell (When all the Slaves are Free).
> THE WAY OF THE SEA
by Kent Stetson (Marshland, PE)
Directed by Donna Butt and Kent Stetson
Friday July 7 at 10 a.m.
The Cast
Norman Duncan..... Brad Hodder
Leonora Manuel..... Ruth Lawrence,
Solomon Manuel..... Dennis Fitzgerald
Bess Manuel..... Melanie Brooks
Daniel Manuel..... Mike Burton
The Play
Norman Duncan's collection of short stories The Way of the Sea, illuminates in exquisitely wrought detail a way of life and an era in Newfoundland history which would have been lost to us had Duncan completed his intended journey in the summer of 1901. A debilitating bout of sea sickness changed Duncan's fate. The Manuel family of Exploits, Notre Dame Bay, Newfoundland, took the green-at-the-gills journalist and travel writer into their home, and their hearts, changed his life, and secured his reputation as one of Canada's great writers. Four stories from this extraordinary and largely forgotten collection form the core of this adaptation, Rising Tide Theatre's new work for the stage, The Way of the Sea: Norman Duncan in Newfoundland.
The Playwright
The Way of the Sea is Kent’s fourth show with Rising Tide Theatre. He first collaborated with Donna Butt in the early 1980s as company dramaturg. In 1996, Donna commissioned The Harps of God, a tragedy in three acts for twelve men. Winner of the 2001 Governor General’s Award, and the 2001 Canadian Author’s Association’s inaugural Carol Bolt Award, Harps represented Canada in the 2002 Canada/France exchange, and now exists as La mer de cristal, by Parisienne translator Isabelle Famchon. Kent just returned from Paris and Normandy where his new one-man show Horse High, Bull Strong, Pig Tight, translated by Mme. Famchon, received a public reading at Théâtre Ephéméride. Production at Ephéméride, then a tour, is projected for the fall.
About Rising Tide Theatre
Since its founding as a professional theatre company in 1978, Rising Tide has explored current and controversial issues, rejuvenated and modernized classics, and created plays which seek to portray the culture and character of Newfoundland and Labrador.
In 1993, Rising Tide gave its first performance of The New Founde Lande Trinity Pageant, an original work by Donna Butt and Rick Boland. In 1994 the Company opened the Summer in the Bight Theatre Festival as a companion event to the Pageant.
Since then Rising Tide has developed the Seasons in the Bight Theatre Festival in Trinity. Every year from mid June to Thanksgiving Artistic Director Donna Butt and the Rising Tide company provide an inspiring collection of the stories that make this province unique. The Festival has become a thriving cottage industry, attracting 20,000 visitors to the area each season.
> RELATIVELY HARMLESS
by Jenny Munday (Halifax, NS)
Directed by Leah Cherniak
Friday July 7 at 3 p.m.
The Cast
Zoe..... Tracey Ferencz
Donald, The General..... Lee Campbell
Lilith..... Martha Ross
Ben..... Anthony Black
Stage Directions read by Susan Kent
The Play
A Tragic Farce, Relatively Harmless, is a darkly funny, touching play about life, death, and the way in which a father's stroke paralyzes an entire family.
This is the riveting story of the Nightshade family whose patriarch, known as “the General,” has suffered a stroke. It is an unforgettable piece of theatre which portrays the challenges of a man who is an invalid, through both his eyes and the eyes of his family of caregivers. His illness reveals fissures in the family, past and present.
The writing unfolds in a variety of tones and styles, including slapstick comedy, documentary “kitchen-sink” realism, and surreal plunges into a kind of schizophrenic view point, giving the audience a multifaceted look at a single crisis.
Relatively Harmless brings us to life in the raw. It focuses our intellectual and emotional beings on the ‘endless night’ of an individual and a family in crisis - the ‘there but for the grace of God’ epiphany, illustrating the struggle between life as mundane and life as weird.
Relatively Harmless was developed by Live Bait Theatre of Sackville, New Brunswick and premiered there in the Fall of 2005.
The Playwright
Jenny Munday is a dramaturge, playwright, arts administrator and actor. She has been based in Dorts Cove in Guysborough County, Nova Scotia for the past 8 years, while working with Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre (PARC) as Executive Director and Dramaturgical Consultant. A former Artistic Director of Mulgrave Road Theatre, Writer in Residence/Artistic Associate at Theatre New Brunswick, Co-Artistic Director of The Comedy Asylum and Artist in Residence with Live Bait Theatre, her 25 year career has been dedicated to the development of new Canadian work for the stage.
> BONE BOY
by Christian Murray (Halifax, NS)
Directed by Linda Moore
Saturday July 8 at 3 p.m.
The Cast
Anthony..... Christian Murray
Ma..... Mary-Colin Chisholm
Pa..... John Koensgen
Tooth fairy/Skin2..... Kathryn MacLellan
Skin 1/ Disembodied Voice..... Allan Hawco
The Play
An experimental, metaphysical, science fiction play / comedy.
In 1974 Anthony was killed. His parents keep a picture of the seven-year old above the mantel of their fireplace. The mother has kept a lock of her son’s hair, and thirty years later, through a process which science has given the people of planet earth, the child is brought back to life…grown from the DNA of the hair she kept as a memento.
He returns to them at 37 years of age, the age he would have been today.
As family history, expectation, terror and rejoicing unfold, the family rollercoasters through a learning curve of clown-esque scenes…including the construction by Anthony of a puppet made up of his “own” childhood bones - the eponymous ‘Bone Boy’, and we wonder, “what is the spark of life?”
The Playwright
Christian Murray is an actor, writer physical comedian and stage and film director based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He is a founding member of Jest In Time Theatre, and a protégé of the late, great Tony Montanaro.
He has traveled throughout the world for the past 20 years, performing Jest’s original style of physical comedy. Highlights include a 2002 tour of Japan, performances at the Sydney opera house, Hong Kong Arts Centre, the Just for Laughs Festival in Montréal, Order of Canada performance at the Royal Alex in Toronto, and a performance for Queen Elizabeth in Nova Scotia. Jest ‘s production of trip won the Merrit award in 2002 for best Nova Scotia production, and in 2004 Jest received a Merrit for lifetime achievement.
In 2001 Christian won a Gemini award for his writing work on This Hour Has 22 Minutes. He was shortlisted for the 2006 CBC Literary Awards for his short story Frost, and is a co-writer, along with Mary Walsh and Ray Guy, of the feature film comedy Young Triffie, which will be released this summer.
Summer of 2006 Christian toured New Zealand to rave reviews with Mulgrave Road Theatre’s award winning production of Lauchie, Liza And Rory.
Christian is a co director of Frankie Productions along with Mary Colin Chisholm and Mary Ellen MacLean. Frankie runs the space a theatrical creation centre in Halifax, in association with Daniel McIvor.
Admission is pay-what-you-can at the door with all proceeds donated to the Actors' Fund of Canada.
For more information about ON THE VERGE 2006, please contact Jennifer Brewin at jbrewin@nac-cna.ca
Special thanks to The Cyril and Dorothy, Joel and Jill Reitman Foundation for helping to make this possible.
