Need more information about productions featured in the Theatre Alberta Playbill? Scroll through to see show details from theatres producing work in Alberta!
Playwrights Guild of Canada (PGC) presents a new play reading series Craft Bites to be streamed online beginning on Monday, January 25, 2021.
Craft Bites is an online reading series, exploring the talents of Canadian playwrights and theatre artists. Each of the live events in the series features a cooperative session wherein two playwrights meet through a Zoom meeting to each perform a short reading of their work for an audience. Following the readings, the playwrights engage in a conversation about their written work and theatre practice. The web series highlights Canada-wide talent, featuring playwrights Lucia Frangione, Frances Koncan, Beau Dixon, and many more. Craft Bites connects interested and creative individuals from varied backgrounds in a collaborative and interactive play reading experience.
This web series builds on the success of previous projects presented by Playwrights Guild of Canada such as the Playwright to Playwright series, A Pinch of Creativity, and several International Webinars. Funding for Craft Bites is provided by the Canada Council for the Arts through the PlayConnect Program.
Craft Bites will be streamed over Zoom for free. Visit www.playwrightsguild.ca/craftbites for details and the links to register as a viewer.
Script Reading of Maybe A Live Virtual Performance presented by WOEZO AFRICAN MUSICS & DANCE THEATRE INC. Based on the story IRREPLACEABLE by JAY SANNI
FEBRUARY 27th at 6pm Live from the Beddington Theatre Arts Centre Tickets are just $10 to support this incredible company of artists!
Premiering on February 27th, 2020 is the 2021 UNGANISHA Script Reading of MAYBE. The live virtual performance features a script written by Misha Maseka based on the short story Irreplaceable written by the winner of our 2020 UNGANISHA Story Writing Competition, Jay Sanni and directed by Omatta Udalor.
Northern Light Theatre Presents The Look by Alexa Wyatt
Directed by Trevor Schmidt Featuring Linda Grass NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE Streaming Online Only Friday, January 22 – Sunday, January 24, 2021 Thursday, January 28 – Sunday, January 31, 2021
A training session for Estelle Cosmetics that threatens to go off the rails…
Marilyn was once a celebrity, the original “Estelle Girl” of the Estelle Cosmetics line. Today she is an aged-out supermodel, giving lectures on cosmetics and demonstrating the various “Looks” and fantasy images that she inhabited as the “Estelle Girl”. Over the course of the lecture Marilyn is forced to confront her real self. But can she cope with this new found awareness?
The Look is a North American premiere by Australian playwright Alexa Wyatt. She is a story consultant, script editor, script writer, and script producer. Her plays have garnered productions at the Adelaide Fringe Festival, Stables Theatre, Melbourne Writer’s Festival, Bridewell Theatre, London, and Northern Light Theatre.
Along with Direction, Set & Costume Designs by Trevor Schmidt, the creative team includes Assistant to the Director Bethany Hughes, Original Composition & Sound Design by Darrin Hagen; Lighting Design by Rae Dunn McCallum; Projections & Multi-Media Design by Ian Jackson; Make-up for Multi-Media Design by Kendra Humphrey; Stage Management by Elizabeth Allison; Production Management by Chris Hicks.
Given the rise of COVID-19 cases in Alberta, Northern Light Theatre and the Board of Directors decided the upcoming productions of The Look by Alexa Wyatt and Something Unspoken by Tennessee Williams will stream digitally.
Presenting online allows NLT to keep artists employed while continuing to celebrate the intimacy of their productions with their audience. NLT asked for and received special permission from the province to rehearse and film The Look. All AHS safety protocols are in place for the rehearsal process.
NLT has shifted their performance dates to accommodate filming and editing, and setting up the performance at specific times for viewing through Vimeo.
Booking a ticket to see the streaming presentation of The Look is the same as booking for a live presentation. The ticket buyer chooses the date and time to see the show and NLT sends a link with password to view the performance.
The link for the performance will last 24 hours. If a ticket buyer is unable to watch the play on the date/time chosen NLT will alter the ticket date and time. Cancellations must be made 24 hours in advance of the performance start time to change a ticket.
The next Script Salon event is on Sunday, January 10, 2021. It features readings by BIPOC playwrights from across the province, supported by PlayConnect at the Playwrights Guild of Canada.
To receive a Zoom link for the event please send a request to [email protected].
We’d like to thank the Playwrights Guild of Canada for making these readings possible and warmly welcome the following playwrights to our Script Salon online stage:
Makram Ayache
Makram Ayache is a community-engaged theatre artist and educator who splits his time between Edmonton and Toronto. His playwriting explores meaningful representations of queer Arab voices. He often endeavours to bridge complex and interlocking political struggles to the very intimate and real experiences of the people impacted by them.
Ayache has been nominated for four Elizabeth Sterling Haynes Awards for his plays Harun (2018) and The Green Line (2019). Most recently, Harun won the Playwrights’ Guild of Canada’s annual Tom Hendry Award in the RBC Emerging Playwright Category. In 2020, Ayache completed Factory Theatre’s Mechanicals Actors’ Enhancement Training in Toronto and co-created and performed in Azimuth Theatre’s All That Binds Us in Edmonton.
Currently, his play The Hooves Belonged to the Deer, is commissioned by the Alberta Queer Calendar Project which will be workshopped and recorded for online public viewing, directed by Peter Hinton. In 2021, he will spend his time at the Citadel Theatre developing his skills as a director and he is a participant of Generator’s Artist Producer Training program. He is also excited to join the Musical Stage Company and Prime Mover’s NoteWorthy program to explore musical theatre creation this winter!
Lady Vanessa Cordoba
Lady Vanessa y yo soy Caleña, Colombiana is a visitor here on Treaty 6 Territory, Amiswachiwaskahegan: “I am committed to honouring the treaty by learning tunderstand it, observing the ways in which we are not honouring it at the moment and listening to the original people of this land on how to protect and take care of this home. I offer my hands and my heart to Turtle Island, Madre Tierra, Abaya Yala, The Caribbean and Namibia (the land that birthed and embraced the poet in me). I am a multi-disciplinary artist choosing to learn from as many mediums to get my messages across. I offer tools for self- healing and community engagement, building and accountability. I am the 2018 ‘Candian’ Individual poetry slam champion. I am a former youth mentor of “Newcomers are Lit”. I am playwright, author and performer of the play Three Ladies and co-creator of Whiteface. I am Founder of Sinergia, Fiesta y Resistencia and “Remix the Ritual”- A Hip Hop theatre collective. I am a crew member of “Los FreeRoosters” in Cali, Colombia. I am a daughter, a granddaughter, a sister, a lover, a neice, an auntie, a woman, a human, a future birth worker, a healer, a mentor, a student, an artist, a poet and a prophet always aiming to channel the message of loVe.”
Dale Lee Kwong
Dale Lee Kwong is a Calgary-based poet, playwright, and essayist. She is third-generation Chinese-Canadian. Her work explores Chinese-Canadian history, diversity and inclusion, adoption, and LGBTQ issues. She is passionate about Calgary’s Chinatown, and was a frequent host of pre-pandemic Chinatown walking tours. Dale is a sometime performer under the direction of her border-collie/heeler cross, Fonzarelli.
Mūkonzi Mūsyoki
Mūkonzi Mūsyoki is a writer, director and a dramaturge. He is a second-year PhD student at the University of Alberta in Performance Studies. Mũkonzi graduated from Kenyatta University in Kenya on July 2016 with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in English, Linguistics and Literature. He later went on to do his Masters in the University of Alberta specializing in Kenyan Theatre. He has been in Canada for four years and has worked with Workshop West, Timms Centre Studio Theatre, the University of Alberta Drama Department, MAA and PAA Theatre and The Citadel Theatre. Mũkonzi has also worked as a dramaturg for Ignite Afrika Trust where he continues to participate in the OSNW (Old Stories in New Ways) Project and TIC (Theatrical Interactions for Change) back in Kenya collaborating with local artists from Kisumu. His research is on Postcolonial Theatre and Performance, Dramaturgy, Urban Discourse and Identity Politics in contemporary East Africa.
Michelle Todd
Michelle Todd is an Edmonton native and has been active in the arts community for over 25 years as an actor, writer, choreographer, director, facilitator, and producer. A graduate of MacEwan’s Theatre Arts program, Michelle most recently performed with Saint Maggie Productions, Shadow Theatre, and Northern Light Theatre. She was Theatre Alberta’s 2020 recipient of the Michelle Dias Community Award.
Cruising at 30 Kilometers a Second and Attempting Not To Crash A new work by Kevin Jesuino Presented by Mile Zero Dance
Streaming online through Zoom February 12, 7 PM Mountain Time February 13, 2 PM Mountain Time
In a live streaming performance Kevin Jesuino will show new work. In an attempt to not arrive, a queer human finds their own place on Earth hoping someone will dance with them before the last song is played for the night.
The event is free and donations are welcome.
Register in advance to receive the link to the show.
We’re working hard to save Christmas! If you can’t be with your family, at least you can be with us!
On Christmas Day, the Grindstone Theatre presents a Christmas Comedy Special that will bring the holiday spirit to Alberta audiences online.
The Grindstone Comedy Christmas Special is a 45 minute(ish) original sketch comedy special Hosted by Kathleen McGee with musical guest Aladean Kheroufi, featuring an exclusive update from ‘Deena Hinshaw’ and ‘Jason Kenney’, and an amazing cast of some Edmonton’s favourite comedians, performers and local celebrities. Join us December 25th at 8pm for the premiere event – a live streamed performance from our home to yours. Watch live, join the chat and share your virtual lols with fellow viewers.
If you can’t make our live showing on December 25th, have no fear! The show will be available for download starting December 26th for you to stream on your own time.
Featuring: Byron Martin, Derrick Johnson, Malachi Wilkins, Kyle Canniff, Donovan Workun, Ruth Alexander, Benjamin Blythe, Abby Vandenberghe, Natasha Lynn Myles, Lee Boyes, Rich King, Clayton Plamondon and more!
Varscona Theatre luminaries gather together in seasonal style for their first ever virtual Holiday Gala, made possible in part through support from the Heart + Soul Fund by EPCOR.
Filmed on location in Old Strathcona and in living rooms across the city, this online fundraiser premieres December 20, 2020 on Youtube at precisely 7:30 PM.
A Rosebud Nativity is a modern retelling of medieval cycle plays popular in Europe in the middle ages, featuring a variety of Biblical stories from Creation to the Birth of a Savior. Featuring students in Rosebud School of the Art’s Mentorship Program.
Making Love With The Land Performance is a series of online performances inspired by Joshua Whitehead’s forthcoming book Making Love With the Land in which LGBTQ+ and BIPOC artists explore creation in a post-pandemic world. This performance of Whitehead’s work features performances by Joshua Whitehead, Barry Bilinsky, Kevin Fraser with Immigrant Lessons, Lisa LaTouche, Richard Lee, Zach Running Coyote, and Tia Kushniruk. Together they celebrate and explore sensuous language, the body, land, and all their intersections.
Whitehead is the author of full-metal indigiqueer (Talonbooks 2017), Jonny Appleseed (Arsenal Pulp Press 2018) and the editor of the newly released Love after the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction (Arsenal 2020). He is an Oji-nêhiyaw, Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer member of Peguis First Nation (Treaty 1) and currently lives in Calgary (Treaty 7).
Making Love With The Land Performance builds on Springboard’s goal of supporting capacity building for marginalised LGBTQ+ & BIPOC voices through the arts, and provide the means for centring these individuals and communities with vibrant spaces, platforms for connection, and methodologies that can hold creation, connection, and performance in healthy ways. Springboard Performance is passionate about designing safe spaces, now both physical and digital, for art creation and systems that support a cultural ecosystem.
Rosebud Theatre is thrilled to bring you Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol this holiday season, filmed for online viewing. This visually stunning, one-person show embodies all the characters in Dickens’ story.
It’s Christmas Eve in Victorian England. A street-wise storyteller lights a candle and with a twinkle in his eye, invites us into the story of a miser who was meant to be a benefactor. His name is Ebenezer Scrooge, and on this very night he will be visited by three spirits. Using Dickens’ richly descriptive language, Nathan Schmidt imagines this well-known tale of redemption in a way that reawakens the time-honoured Christmas spirit it embodies.
A CHRISTMAS CAROL – A RADIO PLAY December 16 – 23, 2020 A radio play by Philip Grecian, Based upon the novel by Charles Dickens Directed by Sean Anderson
A familiar story told as a radio drama, A Christmas Carol begins with a group of actors discussing the tale they will tell. They decide on an opening line, and the storyteller begins, transforming into the mean and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge as he speaks. The online presentation combines the actors, filmed in a recording studio, bringing multiple characters to life, with the addition of sound effects, original music and artwork.
This production will be presented as an online video only. Tickets are $20 per device.
Written by the Award Winning Playwright Calla Wright Directed by Rebecca Merkley
Featuring: Calla Wright, Erin Pettifor and Chiara Tate-Penna
Played to sold-out houses in both 2018 and 2019.
With the rising cases of Covid-19 in Alberta, we’ve decided to perform the play as a live Zoom webinar with 20% of our profits going to Refugees of climate disasters worldwide.
Epcor Heart and Soul Fund Presents Edmonton Musical Theatre’s Virtual Concert
At Home For Christmas
Friday December 11th at 7:00 p.m.
From our house to your house….join us for our annual Christmas concert!
Ignite and share your Christmas spirit with your family and friends with some wonderful holiday music!
Enjoy the evening as you sit back and relax with that cup of hot chocolate!
50/50 draw at RaffleBox.ca will be held during the livestream. Donations are greatly appreciated.
Edmonton Musical Theatre’s Virtual Concert is made possible by Epcor Heart and Soul Fund @epcor #HeartAndSoulFund
Celebrating its 44th season, Edmonton Musical Theatre continues to carry on the vision of our founder, the late Dr. Dasha Goody, in providing quality training and performance opportunities to Edmonton and area residents of all ages.
Midwinter Dreams curated by Creeasian Presented by Mile Zero Dance
Streaming online through Zoom December 12, 7 PM Mountain Time
Inspired by the movement and colours of the Northern Lights, Matthew Creeasian’s Midwinter Dreams touches on how our perception of time and place shifts based on the land we stand on. The curated presentation of works features a variety of short sets from interdisciplinary artists based in Edmonton and across North America including live beat makers, music producers, dancers, DJs, spoken word artists and more – all who Creeasian has performed or appeared with on bills in the past.