Stage Door News
Stage Door News
From February 5 – 17th, GCTC proudly presents the 2013 undercurrents: theatre below the mainstream.
“This year’s Festival showcases creators who are taking risks and challenging the medium,” says Festival Director Patrick Gauthier. “All tell great stories and tell them in innovative ways.”
There are two world premieres from local artists, two hits from the Fringe Festival circuit, a glimpse into the lives of a public servant, and a conversation between estranged friends you listen to on headphones – plus a fresh baked surprise.
"Something to make February bearable,” Gauthier likes to say.
GCTC created the festival in 2011 to give independent theatre companies and emerging artists in Ottawa an opportunity to develop and present their work. GCTC is committed to promoting Ottawa and national artists not only by presenting their work in its intimate Studio Theatre but also by providing mentorship in production management, grant writing, dramaturgy and touring.
SKIN – A World Premiere
What if you don’t feel comfortable in your own skin? Your professional, domestic, ancestral, or your next of kin skin? Inspired by the Selkie legend (seals that shed their skins to become humans on land), SKIN explores the desire to shed one’s role and what gets left behind. Fiercely funny, dramatic and explosively physical, SKIN incorporates singing and live original music.*
*Composer Nick Carpenter created the music by using the constellations of freckles, moles and scars of each performer.
A Deluxe Hot Sauce (Ottawa, ON) production. Written & Created by: Nick Carpenter, Sarah Finn, Chantal Hayman, Anne Janelle, Annie Lefebvre, Kelly Rigole, Martha Ross, Alix Sideris, Doreen Taylor-Claxton, Kristina Watt. Directed by Martha Ross.
Hip Hop Shakespeare: Live Music Videos!
Setting the works of rappers like Jay-Z, Tupac, Notorious B.I.G. and Kanye West to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo & Juliet and more, this 50-minute live show perfectly encapsulates 21st century mash-up culture. This is the ultimate celebration of the power of rhythmic language in a remixed world.
“Even if you are not a hip hop fan, you will be astounded…” Capital Critics Circle
Winner – Outstanding Concept – Ottawa Fringe Festival (2012)
A 411 Dramaturgy Co. (Ottawa, ON) production. Created and Performed by: Melanie Karin and David Benedict Brown.
Ladies of the Lake – A World Premiere
A physically devised piece that blends evocative movement, original music, and text to create the imagined story of the Lady of the Lake from the Arthurian legend. This premiere culminates Skeleton Key Theatre’s term as GCTC’s Theatre Company in Residence.**
**With access to GCTC resources and mentorship, Skelton Key created and developed Ladies of the Lake during its residency.
A Skeleton Key Theatre (Ottawa, ON) production. Created by Kate Smith, Catriona Leger and John Doucet. Directed by Catriona Leger.
The Public Servant
A tragic-comic theatrical portrait of the women who manage the affairs of the country, The Public Servant offers a glimpse into the working life of a federal employee. The material for this play was mined from the events and practices of the different generations of Canadian civil servants going back to the 1930’s.**
**Four of the six creators are children of Public Servants.
A Theatre Columbus (Toronto, ON) production. Created by Jennifer Brewin, Haley McGee, Sarah McVie and Amie Rutherford. Directed by Jennifer Brewin.
Little Orange Man
Meet Kitt, a high-octane Danish girl, whose greatest delight comes from re-enacting her grandfather’s grisly folk tales to young neighbourhood children.**
**Kitt invites the audience to play and connect by inventive object puppetry and by firing up some homemade technology to extract and re-enact the audience’s dreams.
Outstanding Overall Production – Ottawa Fringe (2012)
Pick-of-the-Fringe – Vancouver Fringe (2011), Victoria Fringe (2011)
Vancouver Playhouse Award – Vancouver Fringe (2011)
A Snafu Dance Theatre (Victoria, BC) production. Co-created and Directed by Kathleen Greenfield, co-created and performed by Ingrid Hansen.
Little Iliad
Two childhood friends reconnect on Skype. One is a Canadian soldier on his way to Afghanistan; the other is a writer who wants them to create a performance together based on a little-known fragment from the Trojan War. Little Iliad is a disarmingly simple and intimate performance, part reading, part film, part poignant biographical content.**
**One performer is live and the other is a projection on a small, blank, clay figurine, with the audience listening in on headphones.
“A profound and poignant synthesis of art and war.” Irish Theatre Magazine
An Evan Webber & Frank Cox-O’Connell and Harbourfront Centre (Toronto, ON) production, in association with Cork Midsummer Festival and the Banff Centre. Created and performed by Evan Webber and Frank Cox-O’Connell.
BREAD
Here’s your chance to make some theatre and eat it too! This interactive interstitial performance runs approximately 20 minutes and takes place in the Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre lobby before and in between Festival performances. Bread is an audience participation project built around the making and baking of bread. Seth and Ruby are leaving the neighbourhood, forever and have invited 10 of their best friends over to teach them how to make bread. Ten friends are invited into the “kitchen” to mix and knead dough as Seth and Ruby deal with the impending change in their lives.**
**Each audience member becomes a friend and will make a single loaf, which will rise and bake as they go off and enjoy other productions at the undercurrents festival. At the end of the evening they will get to take home their very own loaf of fresh baked bread.
Created and Performed by Karen Balcome and Geoff McBride. Concept developed in collaboration with Kevin Orr and Theatre 4.669
GCTC’s undercurrents: theatre below the mainstream runs from February 5 – 17, 2013.
Show times:
Each of the 6 productions run approximately one hour and is presented 5 times throughout the 12 day festival. During the week there are two performances a night - at 7:00 and 9:00 PM. On Saturday and Sunday show times are 1:00, 3:00, 7:00 and 9:00 PM. Bread runs approximately 20 minutes and is presented 15 times throughout the festival at 12:30, 2:30, 6:30, and 8:30 PM. Please check the festival schedule for dates.
For the full festival schedule visit: http://www.gctc.ca/whats/undercurrents
Tickets are on sale now!
Single tickets - $15,
3-show Flexpass - $40,
6-show Flexpass - $60
NOTE: Reservations to participate in Bread (10 places per show) need to be booked through the GCTC Box Office. Ticket price is ‘pay what you can.’
By Phone: GCTC Box Office at 613-236-5196. In Person: GCTC Box Office at 1233 Wellington Street West, at the corner of Holland Avenue. Online: http://www.gctc.ca/box-office/buy-tickets
undercurrents 2013 Festival Schedule
Tuesday, February 5
7:00 pm SKIN
8:30 pm Bread
9:00 pm Public Servant
Wednesday, February 6
7:00 pm Ladies of the Lake
9:00 pm Hip Hop Shakespeare
Thursday, February 7
6:30 pm Bread
7:00 pm Little Orange Man
8:30 pm Bread
9:00 pm SKIN
Friday, February 8
6:30 pm Bread
7:00 pm Little Iliad
7:45 pm Little Iliad
8:30 pm Bread
9:00 pm Little Orange Man
Saturday, February 9
1:00 pm Little Iliad
1:45 pm Little Iliad
2:30 pm Bread
3:00 pm Ladies of the Lake
7:00 pm SKIN
8:30 pm Bread
9:00 pm Public Servant
Sunday, February 10
1:00 pm Hip Hop Shakespeare
2:30 pm Bread
3:00 pm Little Iliad
3:45 pm Little Iliad
7:00 pm Ladies of the Lake
9:00 pm Little Orange Man
Tuesday, February 12
7:00 pm Little Orange Man
9:00 pm Little Iliad
9:45 pm Little Iliad
Wednesday, February 13
7:00 pm Little Iliad
7:45 pm Little Iliad
9:00 pm Public Servant
Thursday, February 14
6:30 pm Bread
7:00 pm Hip Hop Shakespeare
8:30 pm Bread
9:00 pm Little Orange Man
Friday, February 15
6:30 pm Bread
7:00 pm Ladies of the Lake
8:30 pm Bread
9:00 pm SKIN
Saturday, February 16
12:30 pm Bread
1:00 pm SKIN
3:00 pm Public Servant
7:00 pm Ladies of the Lake
8:30 pm Bread
9:00 pm Hip Hop Shakespeare
Sunday, February 17
12:30 pm Bread
1:00 pm Hip Hop Shakespeare
3:00 pm Public Servant
undercurrents at the Fritzi
The GCTC's annual undercurrents theatre festival and the Fritzi Gallery have invited visual artists from across the National Capital Region to interpret and respond to a slate of new Canadian plays. Melancholic, humourous, and contemplative, these works engage in a thought-provoking dialogue with the festival's creative line-up. Featuring works by Eric Chan (eepmon), Kristy Gordon, Karina Kraenzle, Zoe Hussey, Tony Clark, and Betty Liang
Please join us for a vernissage Thursday, February 7, 2013 from 6:00-9:00pm at the Lorraine Fritzi Yale Gallery, 1233 Wellington St. West (second floor of the Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre).
Photo: Geoff McBride and Karen Balcome in BREAD. ©2013 GCTC.
2013-01-29
Ottawa: GCTC presents the 2013 edition of “undercurrents” February 5-17