Stage Door News
Stage Door News
Award-winning Public Recordings is delighted to stage the Toronto premiere of Other Jesus, a new play written by Associate Artist, Evan Webber. Directed by Frank Cox O’Connell, Other Jesus runs from May 6 to 14 2017 in the century-old sanctuary of St. Matthew’s United Church.
Evan began the process by trying to write an adaptation of the Gospel - but what he ended up writing was a very personal text about trying to believe in something and belong to something when you feel like you’re living at the end of the world. I loved it. I found it strange and fun and ambitious and heartbreaking. I've been working with Evan for almost 15 years - this is his strongest work. – Frank Cox O’Connell, Director
Other Jesus is the product of an attempt to write a dramatic adaptation of the gospels, using an old and widely known story to ask contemporary questions about leadership, responsibility and making the world a better place. Created through the physical constraint of time and resources during Webber’s residency at the Tarragon Theatre’s Playwrights Unit in 2013-14, Other Jesus is a play about creative labour, an unnervingly funny and affecting dialogue about the effort it takes to believe in oneself, one’s vocation and one’s community.
In this production, Evan Webber and Frank Cox-O’Connell resume their collaboration (Ajax and Little Iliad) within the framework of Public Recordings’ experimental performance practice with an impressive list of Dora-award-winning collaborators including visual artist Sherri Hay, lighting designer Ken MacKenzie, choreographer Ame Henderson, and composers and musicians Christopher Willes and Thom Gill. A prodigious group of Toronto cultural workers round out the project including performers Ishan Davé, William Ellis, Liz Peterson, sandra Henderson and Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster.
With community at the centre of the story of Other Jesus, an unusual and exciting group of organizations have combined forces to support the work. Producer Public Recordings is a Toronto based live performance art company, run by artists Ame Henderson, sandra Henderson, Jeremy McCormick and Evan Webber. Other Jesus is co-produced by EW & FCO (Toronto) and Festival TransAmériques (Montréal), and created with the support of Tarragon Theatre’s Workspace, Jordan Tannahill and William Ellis’ Videofag and St. Matthew’s United Church.
It is a performance on the risk and reward of believing and belonging.
OTHER JESUS
MAY 6 – 14, 2017, 8PM
St. Matthew’s United Church
729 St Clair Avenue West, Toronto
Tickets $20-25
Book 416-531-1827 or online
Written by: Evan Webber
Director: Frank Cox-O’Connell
Performed by: Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster, Ishan Davé, William
Ellis, Thom Gill, Ame Henderson and Liz
Peterson
Scenography & Costumes: Sherri Hay
Music & Sound Design: Christopher Willes
Lighting Design: Ken MacKenzie
Production Management: sandra Henderson
ABOUT PUBLIC RECORDINGS
Public Recordings develops and presents projects that test hypotheses about group work through performance, education, publishing and other collective gestures. With the goal of providing a readable index of problems and solutions in and through experiential practice, we use the structural and administrative framework of a dance company to question the meanings and possibilities of shared space.
Based in Toronto, Public Recordings has staged projects in Calgary, Cardiff, Chalon-sur-Saône, Edmonton, Ghent, Guelph, Halifax, Kingston, Kitchener, Leuven, Ljubljana, London, Montreal, North Bay, Nottingham, Ottawa, Paris, Pula, Terni, Toronto, St. John’s, Vancouver, Vienna, Yokohama and Zagreb.
2017-03-23
Toronto: Public Recordings premieres the play "Other Jesus" May 6-14