Stage Door News
Stage Door News
Off the Wall Stratford Artists Alliance is celebrating its 10th anniversary in style.
The successful theatre-arts training school will play host to a concert featuring local band Sloppy Joe & the Dust Bunnies next Friday, Feb. 13, at Factory163 in Stratford.
"It's going to be the dance party of the year," said Off the Wall founding artist Sue Starkweather.
"Great music, good times."
In addition to marking the successful first 10 years of Off the Wall, the concert will help raise scholarship funds for summer students, she noted.
In the past decade, Off the Wall has grown from a small artists' co-operative running weekend workshops to a respected training school offering innovative programs to the theatre community in Stratford and beyond, Starkweather said.
"Our world-class instructors provide amazing opportunities for students to learn theatrical production from the practical, inside perspective," she said.
This season, for example, 10 courses are being offered at Factory163 from July 6 to Aug. 21, led by artists from the Stratford Festival and regional theatres. Courses range from millinery to artistic welding.
Eight one-week courses will run alongside a six-week Theatre Production Arts program and a two-week Setting the Scene workshop.
Students in the Theatre Production Arts course will build sets, props, puppets and masks for a production of Shipwrecked by American playwright Donald Margulies being staged by Stratford's Alternative Theatre Works.
Previous work by Off the Wall students has been featured in Alternative Theatre Works' productions of A Wind in the Willows Christmas and Brian Friel's Three Plays After.
“This is our fourth partnership with a local theatre company,” said Starkweather.
“It’s one of the most valuable features of our program. Students work with professional actors, directors and designers to gain an understanding of the collaborative process essential to the world of theatre.”
The students in Theatre Arts Production also get backstage and warehouse tours of the Festival, and tickets to many productions.
Accomplishments of previous students are many and varied. A release by Off the Wall said one student is apprenticing in the props department of the Festival, while others have been employed in smaller professional theatres. Some have gone on to study in degree programs at university, with two from last season earning two credits each in dramatic arts degree programs for their experience at Off the Wall.
Tickets for the 10th anniversary party are $25 each and available at Revel Caffe and at the door. Actors from Alternative Theatre Works, along with musician George Meanwell and writer and actor Roy Lewis, are on the program, as well.
For more information on Off the Wall workshops and courses, visit www.stratfordoffthewall.com.
By Scott Wishart for www.stratfordbeaconherald.com.
Photo: Fotini Paraschos and Derek Kelly in an artistic welding workshop. ©2013 Mike Beitz.
2015-02-03
Stratford: Off the Wall Stratford Artists Alliance celebrates its 10th anniversary February 13