Stage Door News
Stage Door News
Hamilton, Ontario (Monday, August 19, 2013) For Immediate Release –After an incredible response and successful run Sky Gilbert’s NAKED HAMILTON is moving from stage to screen. The creative team of NAKED HAMILTON reunites to make a short film with Director of Photography, Gregory Bennett, in Fall 2013. Help the NAKED HAMILTON team put Hamilton on the silver screen via NAKED HAMILTON’s crowd source fundraising campaign. The NAKED HAMILTON Indiegogo Campaign is aiming to raise four thousand dollar ($4000) towards the production of the film, which will be shot in locations throughout Hamilton and Toronto. Visit http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/naked-hamilton to make your financial contribution to the project.
“I think that working class culture has value and that people shouldn't be locked out of their own neighbourhoods. But unfortunately it's happening. I live in Hamilton, and I have witnessed firsthand the displacement caused by the gentrification of the downtown core,” says NAKED HAMILTON writer Sky Gilbert. “It's an important story to tell. NAKED HAMILTON is also a damn funny film. If you don’t love Tom and Tee . . . well, I just dare you not to love them! We’d appreciate any support you can give us to get our project underway.
NAKED HAMILTON was the seventh Sky Gilbert work presented by Hammertheatre to have its World Premiere in Hamilton, Ontario. Gilbert’s one-act play starred Elley-Ray and Scott McCord and was presented at the Artword Artbar, located at 15 Colbourne Street, in Hamilton, Ontario, from November 15-25, 2012.
The performances in Naked Hamilton are thrilling. Elley-Ray and Scott McCord, as Tee and Tom, are brilliant at inhabiting the sad hearts and tiny minds of a past-her-sell-date hooker and a loud-mouthed slob. Sky Gilbert has created hard to erase images. His characters haunt you after you leave the theatre.
– Gary Smith, The Hamilton Spectator
Naked Hamilton entertains, engages and provokes, and it does it in fine style, with terrific, believable acting and witty, acerbic dialogue. And it’s about us; what more could we ask?
– Tony Kilgannon, Ontario Arts Review
THE FILM: Naked Hamilton is a film about working class people, everywhere, and about cities, everywhere, cities that put massive corporate profits above quality of human life. Tom (Scott McCord) has been out of work for a while and Tee (Elley-Ray) is a sex trade worker. Both drink. A lot. Now divorced, they have a child together which keeps them entwined in one another’s lives. When we meet them, they are defending their favorite bar from the “evil” forces of gentrification. Will they get kicked out, or not? If you've ever been in love, you know the course doesn't run smooth. And if you've ever had a drink or two then you might find you have something in common with loose talking, hard drinking, Tom and Tee. They are the victims of a new economy in Hamilton, an economy that is seeing increasing unemployment. An economy that is displacing people.
THE THEATRE COMPANY: Hammertheatre is devoted to plays written by Sky Gilbert, which deal with sexuality and/or the realities of city living in Hamilton Ontario's downtown core. NAKED HAMILTON (2012) is no exception. Previous critically acclaimed Hammertheatre productions by Sky Gilbert include CRACK (2007), LADYLIKE (2007), STEVEN AND CHRIS DESIGN YOUR MIND (2009), WHY WE TORTURED HIM (2009), HAMILTON BUS STOP (2010), and BACKSTAGE (2011).
Photo: Scott McCord and Elley-Ray Hennessey. ©2012 James A. Chambers.
2013-08-20
Hamilton: Sky Gilbert’s “Naked Hamilton” launches crowdsourcing campaign to become a film