oct 1 | culture days | re:union

This weekend PT is participating in Culture Days, a nation-wide three-day event aimed at increasing awareness, accessibility, participation and engagement in the arts across the country. The day will feature our upcoming co-production of Sean Devine's Re:Union with Horseshoes & Hand Grenades Theatre.

Saturday, October 1st, 2-4pm

Join us for a casual open house where you will have the opportunity to meet playwright and co-artistic producer of Horseshoes & Hand Grenades Theatre Sean Devine as well as PT artistic director Ron Reed.

Throughout the afternoon you will have the opportunity to be among the first to hear a live reading of the most recent draft of Act I Re:Union, see the original set designed by award-winner John Webber as it gets installed into the theatre, have an exclusive backstage tour of the facilities, and check out a small exhibit of photos and poems related to Norman Morrison and Re:Union.

As part of our 2011 Community Outreach Series "The Activist City", guests will also be invited to make their own video testimonials, answering diverse questions related to political activism.

Come and go as you please for this inside scoop into Pacific Theatre and Horseshoes & Hand Grenades' latest creation!

sept 23 | artisan u. presents: how to watch improv comedy, the threequel

Tonight!  Regular PT-players Mike Deboer, John Voth, Kyla Ferrier, and Kaitlin Williams will be on stage along with admin staffers Frank Nickel and Alison Chisholm in Artisan's third-ever comedy improv show. Joining these SIDE SHOW regulars on stage will be the Nelson Boschman Trio, playing the soundtrack to the entire event. The whole thing is for the benefit of Union Gospel Mission.

Artisan Vancouver Church will host a benefit evening of clean improv comedy featuring Mike deBoer, Kyla Ferrier, Frank Nickel, Kaitlin Williams, John Voth and Alison Chisholm. These actors have worked in various improv comedy groups and settings, including The Panic Squad, Bust A Gut, Pacific Theatre, TWU's 11:07, and Vancouver's TheatreSports League.

For a twist, the actors will be joined by jazz musicians Nelson Boschman (piano), Adam Thomas (double bass) and Kenton Wiens (drums).

All net proceeds will go to help Union Gospel Mission eradicate homelessness in Metro Vancouver. Give the gift of laughter to your friends and loved ones while helping UGM help Vancouver's hungry, hurting and homeless.

Tickets:
$10 in advance (plus service charge) - brown paper link below
$15 at the door (while they last)

Doors open at 7:00pm. Show begins at 8:00pm.
Cash bar will be open.

For more info on Artisan Vancouver Church, visit www.artisanvancouver.ca

For more info on Union Gospel Mission, visit www.ugm.ca

More info and tickets at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/194056!

tuesdays with morrie | responses

"There is a wondeful connection between Ken Hildebrandt (Mitch) and Glen Pinchin (Morrie), especially during their weekly conversations. Both are masters of the pause with Hildebrandt managing wonderful phrasing when he is simply engaged in talking with Morrie. There is a leisurely pace that runs through the entire show, unhurried as if death can wait and kudos to director Carissa Boynton and her actors in not being afraid of silence." | Mark Robins, GayVancouver.net

"Glen Pinchin gets the nod to play Schwartz, a sociology professor at Brandeis University. Pinchin, who was a thirty-year veteran with the RCMP and has turned to acting as a second career was spot-on as the Jewish academic. ... Cynics (like myself), might regard Tuesdays With Morrie as just another sentimental tear-jerker, more superficial than sincere. Well, they may have a point. But, it might still make you laugh, feel, and even think about your own mortality. It might even prompt you to borrow Letting Go: Morrie’s Reflections on Living While Dying from your local public library - written by Morris S. Schwartz." | John Jane, Review Vancouver

"A Gallery 7 Theatre production of the touching tale, Tuesdays with Morrie opened Pacific Theatre’s 2011/12 season with a double shot of soul this past Wednesday night." | Maziar Ghaderia, Maziart

"Tuesdays with Morrie is absolutely outstanding. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed and cried so much all in the same production. Heartfelt thanks to the cast, crew and all involved-- a truly wonderful gift, and not to be missed." | Barbara Joan, email response

"The beauty in Pinchin’s characterization comes from its humility. He never calls attention to the old man’s cuteness or irascibility. The focus for Pinchin’s Morrie is all on Mitch; he’s just trying to gently help out the uptight younger guy. ... Pinchin already understands the value of less." | Colin Thomas, The Georgia Straight

"This was one of the best plays I have ever seen at Pacific Theatre! Which is quite astounding because they are all so good but this one was great! It got a standing ovation." | Audience Response, Facebook

"The 80 minute play (with no intermission) captures audiences from the beginning, as Mitch appears on stage in a monologue describing Morrie. ... Glen Pinchin, as Morrie, perfectly portrays a man whose body is slowly degenerating, and captures the essence of what it would be like to watch your body become frail while your mind is still sharp. With no added make-up and with only a few scene changes, Pinchin’s performance convinces audiences that he is actually dying. His movements are slower, his face is obvious with pain, and his voice becomes that much weaker." | Samuel Ramos, The Source

"Another winner! I am just sorry that it is such a short run. After I told a friend about it on Sunday and she was wanting to see it, I found out there is only one night with any space, and very limited!! As a professional nurse, I found the acting by the man with ALS very sensitively done, without unnecessary detail ! The two actors were remarkable; totally believable in their roles. Anyone who sees the play (me included) will be challenged to think.. Amazing script." | Anne Mak, email response

"I was slightly concerned that I’d find this play to be excessively saccharine and trite. But I need not have worried. The play is about friendship, about accepting weakness and human frailty, and what aging and death can teach us about life. If a moment is about to become maudlin, some caustic sarcasm or embarrassing incident intervenes." | Lois RP, Hummingbird604

"All of the performances at Pacific Theatre are excellent but Tuesday with Morrie was the most excellent performance I have ever seen. I was moved from tears to laughter and back again. In our society it is so hard for us to talk about death even when we have loved ones in the midst of dying. Morrie and Mitch allowed us to draw near to death in a genuine and real way opening the doorway of possiblity for we as an audience to be respond similiarly. In the midst of death, Morrie showed us all how to live, deal with guilt, regret and how to forgive others and ourselves." | Joan, email response

image journal | issue 70

Delicious. An exceptional issue of Image Journal coming our way....

It features the haunting, atmospheric paintings of Enrique Martinez Celaya, who writes that art can be “a whisper of the order of things.” Lincoln Perry, an agnostic painter who decided to take up the great stories of the Bible as his subject matter for two major cycles of paintings, writes about what it taught him. In an interview, Canadian novelist David Adams Richards, author of God Is: My Search for Faith in a Secular World, writes: “Those who have no quarrel with the world are the only ones able to save it.” Michael McGregor remembers his long, synchronistic friendship with the great expatriate poet Robert Lax, a friend and contemporary of Thomas Merton, who deserves to be read more than he is. Steven Greydanus explores the role of houses in films for children—in which they are blown up, sent into outer space, attacked by otherworldly beings, or float away—and why these odd things happen to them. The issue also includes a baseball story by Valerie Sayers, with a cameo by Joe Dimaggio; and from Ruben Degollado, a family story from East LA that is worthy of the Book of Judges. Also featured are poems by Martha Serpas, Mark Jarman, Alison Pelegrin, plus new poetry and fiction in review.

oct 6-29 | timothy clayton | havana gallery

Well known to Soul Foodies, Gina Chiarelli's artist husband...

the passion project | new york | regina

Hey New Yorkers! THE PASSION PROJECT, by far one of the coolest productions to ever take Pacific Theatre's stage, is playing right now in your city. Hey Regina-ites! It's coming to you shortly thereafter! Also, in an act of wonderful symmetry, Reid Farrington and Ron Reed are both simultaneously creating their own adaptations on A CHRISTMAS CAROL. Who's up for a road trip to see both this Christmas?

NYC Run: Sept. 16-25 at 3LD Art & Technology Centre
Regina Run: Oct. 14-16 at Shu Box Theatre as a part of Curtain Razors’ Moveable Feast

Foxy Films is proud to return to 3LD Art & Technology Center for a limited engagement of their celebrated production of THE PASSION PROJECT.

Created and directed by Reid Farrington, acclaimed theater artist (Gin & “It”) and former video designer for the world-renowned Wooster Group, THE PASSION PROJECT is a 40-minute intersection of performance and film that explodes Carl Theodor Dreyer’s immortal 1928 silent film classic The Passion of Joan of Arc into three dimensions, placing the audience inside the film, sitting next Joan.

THE PASSION PROJECT speaks to the ephemeral nature of film with images from Dreyer’s masterpiece floating on air, caught on frames stretched with parchment and organized by a single female performer. This performer moves the projected image of the actress who portrays Joan (Maria Falconetti, in her only film role) through the environment, making the Catholic saint’s emotional journey and inevitable death on the pyre truly palpable.

Performed by Laura K. Nicoll with additional artists involved including Janet D. Clancy, Sara Jeanne Farrington, Austin Guest, Shelley Kay, Stephen O’Connell, and Jadelynn Stahl, THE PASSION PROJECT had its World Premiere at the PS/K2 festival in Copenhagen, Denmark in November of 2007. Since then it has been seen at 3LD Art & Technology Center and PS 122 in New York; at the Vancouver PuSh Festival in British Columbia; and in Budapest, Hungary at The Contemporary Drama Festival.

The limited engagement of THE PASSION PROJECT will play at 3LD Art & Technology Center in Lower Manhattan from Fri. Sept. 16 through Sunday. Sept. 25. A special benefit performance on Mon. Sept. 19 will help support Foxy Film’s newest work, Dickens: The Unparalleled Necromancer, a fascinating exploration of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Following the 3LD engagement, THE PASSION PROJECT will return to Canada this fall as part of Curtain Razors’ Moveable Feast, which highlights innovative performance events. From Fri. Oct. 14 to Sun Oct. 16, 2011, THE PASSION PROJECT will play at the Shu Box Theatre in Regina, Saskatchewan in partnership with the University of Regina Theatre Department.

oct 2 | pacific rim string quartet

For a number of seasons, Pacific Theatre has been proud to call the Pacific Rim String Quartet our "Chamber Quartet In Residence." I believe they played their inaugural season of concerts in our cozy little space. But PT has grown to the point where installing and performing our shows leaves no more free Wed-Sat evenings between September and June, and Holy Trinity Church has grown to the point where there's no room Sundays, Mondays or Tuesdays. Alas.

Fortunately, the PRSQ has also grown - not in size, there's still four of them, that's why they call it a quartet - but in reputation, to the point where they're performing in lots of other venues, and are ready to set up shop in new digs. So make sure you go visit them -- just down the road, at Canadian Memorial United Church.

click to enlarge

what christian theatre looks like | converge magazine | ron reed

Natasha Irvine from Converge Magazine interviewed Ron this summer for a special feature issue on faith and the arts. Read the article, titled "What Christian Theatre Looks Like" below, or in its original context here.

Pacific Theatre doesn’t call themselves a Christian theatre company but they do talk about the fact that Christians founded the company — a lot. “I think Christian is a very awkward adjective,” said Ron Reed the founding Artistic Director. “But, it is a great noun and I am proud to be a Christian.”

Now in their twenty-seventh year, Pacific Theatre is a well-respected fixture in the Vancouver theatre community. For their 2010-2011 season, Pacific Theatre garnered 22 Jessie Richardson Nominations and won a handful of awards, including one for the Curation and Execution of an Outstanding Season of Theatre.

Reed remembers how much Pacific Theatre endured early on as the company struggled to maintain its Christian roots while trying to find funding and put on shows with substance. “For a decade the arts community was very nervous about us. They thought we were doing propaganda and that it must be bad,” said Reed.

In that first decade Reed said that they were ostracized by the theatre community, had very small audiences, and were not reviewed by the local media. “People assumed that if Christians made theatre they were making theatre to preach to people or evangelize,” Reed said, “but that wasn’t what our theatre was ever about. It was just a desire to explore life.”

“It seems to me that if you label the plays as ‘Christian’, they need to be dogmatically correct or something. But plays aren’t like that. Plays are stories. They are not there to prove things; they are not there to persuade people. They are not sermons. Sermons are great but they don’t make very good plays.”

Critical success has proved that Pacific Theatre is filling a valuable place in the theatre world. “People in the theatre community — critics, fellow artists — by and large, commend us for our mandate because it is unique.”

At only 120 seats Reed admits that Pacific Theatre looks like a small operation. “But,” he said, “There is a massive community of artists that exist and are doing their craft because of Pacific Theatre.”

While the productions undertaken by Pacific Theatre are not proselytizing, they specifically explore Christian themes. “If something is important to Jesus it is going to show up on our stage probably,” said Reed. “[The plays we do] raise questions and they may provide a few different answers, but the answers will probably contradict each other.”

David Jennings, a corporate finance lawyer, former board member of Pacific Theatre, and life-long supporter of the arts said, “There is no Andrew Lloyd Webber here . . . at Pacific Theatre there are very few people who come to be entertained.” He thinks the space is too intimate and the questions that the plays pose are too personal for an audience to just sit back idly. Jennings thinks that the challenging content is what has helped to define Pacific Theatre and made it accessible to people of any faith system. “When plays are willing to go to the dark places and tell the truth they are much more likely to go into someone’s soul.”

This vision for theatre as an exploration of difficult truths reflects Reed’s own Christian and artistic conversion. Growing up in a churchgoing home, Reed says he didn’t connect with his faith until high school. At that time he was enamored with radical politics of the early 70s. One day, while reading the Sermon on the Mount, he realized that Jesus was preaching the most radical and least middle-class message he had ever heard. “I had one of those moments where the lights just went on,” said Reed.

“Lots of artists become Christians and wrestle with whether they have to give up their art because it is too important, but I didn’t really have the ability to do that because it was a part of my spiritual awakening,” he said.

After 27 years Reed can hardly imagine doing anything else. “This is my calling, this is what God put me on the planet to do,” said Reed. He has no intention of shaking Pacific Theatre’s association with faith, “We held on to things during a decade when everyone ignored us…why would we compromise now?”

tuesdays with morrie | production photos

Last night was a wonderful opening of TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE!  Here are some production shots or performers Glen Pinchin and Ken Hildebrandt, taken by our very own Ron Reed.

TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE

September 14-24

http://www.pacifictheatre.org

sep 30 | vancouver chamber choir | the english touch

THE ENGLISH TOUCH - Byrd to Britten
Fri Sep 30, 8pm
Ryerson United Church

Vancouver Chamber Choir ~ Pacifica Singers ~ Marc D’Anjou, organ ~ John William Trotter, conductor

The Vancouver Chamber Choir, conducted by John William Trotter, opens the 2011-2012 season with music from England, both sacred and secular.

Organist Marc D’Anjou is featured in Britten’s delightful "Rejoice in the Lamb," which features the quirky poetry of Christopher Smart. Arrive by 7:45 pm to hear an organ prelude based on the famous "Big Ben" theme!

Tudor composer William Byrd provides a polyphonic mass while Elizabethan madrigalists Morley and Weelkes are playful in colourful pieces from "The Triumphs of Oriana." Plus more recent choral works by Jonathan Dove and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Thomas Morley - Arise, Awake
Thomas Weelkes - As Vesta was from Latmos hill descending
William Byrd - Mass for four voices
Jonathan Dove - Seek Him that maketh the seven stars
Benjamin Britten - Rejoice in the Lamb
Ralph Vaughan Williams - Silence and Music
Ralph Vaughan Williams - Te Deum

Subscribe to four or more concerts now and save! Call 604-738-6822

Single tickets available at Ticketmaster: online or  1-855-985-ARTS (2787)

tuesdays with morrie | opening night!

Tonight TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE opens and with it, our 2011-2012 season!

We are thrilled to have Gallery 7 Theatre as our guest producers with this beautiful, life-affirming story about generosity of spirit in the face of death.

TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE

September 14-24

http://www.pacifictheatre.org

Photo credit: Ron Reed. Pictured (L-R) Ken Hildebrandt and Glen Pinchin in TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE.

oct 6-22 | steel magnolias

Our friends from Chemainus Theatre are coming to Vancouver!  Their production of STEEL MAGNOLIAS is being presented at Gateway Theatre this fall.

Anybody who’s anybody in Chinquapin, Louisiana goes to Truvy’s beauty parlour to get her hair done. Today, Truvy’s new assistant, Annelle, isn’t sure if she’s married or not, but won’t let that get in the way of “doing good hair.” Their clients are M’Lynn, a social worker who will do anything for her soon-to-be married daughter Shelby; Clairee, an eccentric millionaire; and Ouiser, a curmudgeon who says she’s just “been in a bad mood for forty years.” Six southern belles with backbones of steel rely on each other through thick and thin in this funny, heartbreaking story.

October 6-22 at Gateway Theatre
Tickets: https://www.gatewaytheatre.com/

tuesdays with morrie | moving day

This weekend the set from Gallery 7 Theatre's guest production of TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE was moved in!  Here are a few photos from the moving day.

TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE

September 14-24 at Pacific Theatre

Tickets: http://www.pacifictheatre.org or 604.731.5518

oct 16-29 | timothy clayton | flowers from the french quarter

The Havana Gallery (same location as the restaurant and theatre space) is showcasing Timothy Clayton's series FLOWERS FROM THE FRENCH QUARTER in October.  On top of being a busy local artist, Timothy is also actress Gina Chiarelli (THE BUSY WORLD IS HUSHED)'s husband!

sept 21-oct 1 | katharine venour | true love lies

Katherine Venour was last seen on Pacific Theatre's stage in MY NAME IS ASHER LEV where she knocked our socks off playing Asher's mother, the art director, and model.  See her this fall in Touchstone Theatre's TRUE LOVE LIES.

Brad Fraser’s Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love was a huge hit for Touchstone in the early nineties, and True Love Lies meets up with two of its characters – Kane and David – twenty years later. Kane is now straight, married and living in mortgaged suburbia with two kids. David’s reappearance outs dad to his kids and forces the question, does true love ever die? With the crackle of lightning fast one-liners, acidic exchanges and wickedly witty characters, this hilarious new play shatters our illusions about the “perfect” Canadian family.

“An extremely funny tale of secrets and lies . . . graphic, fast-moving, compelling.” Manchester Evening News

September 21st – October 1st 2011
The Cultch Historic Theatre

SPECIAL PERFORMANCES:
Preview – Wed Sept 21, 8pm
Saturday Matinees with Talkbacks – Sept 24 & Oct 1, 2pm
Evening Shows with Talkbacks – Sun Sept 25 & Tues Sept 27, 8pm

Tickets:
The Cultch Box Office
By Phone 604-251-1363

fog of war | re:union | sep 11 | videomatica

Watched FOG OF WAR last night, having just heard Sean Devine's new play RE:UNION Wednesday. Wow - the two are like companion pieces. Not that you have to see one to appreciate the other, not one bit. But experiencing the two in proximity like that is a remarkable thing, the way Sean's play explores the things in McNamara and Morrison that are glanced at but not expanded. It's not like Errol Morris raises questions that RE"UNION answers: Sean's play is just as full of mystery. But the two mysteries combine to make something much, much richer.

If you can see FOG OF WAR before RE:UNION opens (Oct 21) at Pacific Theatre, definitely do it. I can't help but wonder if Sean's play was triggered by the documentary, that the whole piece is his deeper exploration of some of its hints and feints and teases. Who was this Quaker man who sacrificed himself in protest of the Vietnam war? And he had a daughter who almost died with him? Why does McNamara come back to that - it sounds like it shook him. And what was behind that Medal of Freedom speech? And if his heart changed - as it seems clear it did, to see the man's raw, unexplained emotion - what did he think when the plane hit the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, and he saw a nation gearing up for another Vietnam?

And here's a bit of surprising good news: the DVD I watched last night I rented from VIDEOMATICA!!! We'd all believed their doors would be shut by August 31. But they're still very much in business - not permanently, but for a while. So that means there's still someplace to rent FOG OF WAR! Which is good news all round.

sep 22 - oct 22 | anita wittenberg | circle mirror transformation

That middle hula-hoop girl? Look familiar? That's Anita Wittenberg. Mourning Dove, Agnes Of God. Longtime Chemainus actor, dear friend of Pacific Theatre. Anyhow, she's in town, doing this show...

CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION
By Annie Baker

CANADIAN PREMIERE
September 22 – October 22
Arts Club Granville Island Stage

When Marty gathers four Vermont locals for the first ever drama class in their small town, she has no idea how an injection of hula-hooping and wacky acting games will come to change their lives—including, most unexpectedly, her own. Directed by Nicola Cavendish.

more info

tuesdays with morrie | meet the cast

Meet the cast of TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE!

Glen Pinchin - Morrie

If you've been around PT for a while you probably recognize Glen. Here he is in 2008's production of YOU STILL CAN'T - having a little trouble fitting into that quirky Vanderhof family:

The next season in YOU STILL CAN'T, however, he became one with this unruly clan:

Ken Hildebrandt: Mitch

This will be Ken's first appearance on the Pacific Theatre stage.  He has been busy, however, as the artistic and executive director of Gallery 7 Theatre out in Abbotsford.  Not that he's let that stop him from jumping on stage whenever he got the chance!  Here he is having a grande ol' time in COTTON PATCH GOSPEL:

 

... and in the Gallery 7 production of CHICKENS.

 

We can't wait to have these two talented performers take our stage together.

tuesdays with morrie | director's notes

The notes from TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE director Carissa Boynton.

Love

In 1995, Mitch Albom reunited with his college professor, Morrie Schwartz, who had recently been diagnosed with a fatal illness. Mitch and Morrie then together journeyed to the end of Morrie’s life, as student and ‘coach’. This experience marked a profound shift in Mitch’s career, moving him from well known sports journalist to internationally renowned author.

Tuesdays with Morrie was written with the intention of helping to pay Schwartz’s medical bills, and though rejected by numerous publishing houses, once published, quickly became a success. Tuesdays with Morrie stayed at the top of the New York Times bestseller list for 205 weeks. The impact of the relationship chronicled in the book is so great that it has been translated into 41 languages.

I invite you to sit back and watch one man open himself up to a wise man’s teaching, and begin an emotional journey of change.

sep 9-18 | lucia frangione | leave of absence | fringe

Lucia developed "Leave Of Absence" with us at Pacific Theatre, but in its original full-length form it was just too big a project for us to afford to produce. She's been working on a new treatment that we'll be considering for our 2012-13 season. But meantime, Cia's pared the piece down to its essential core to be staged by ACTivist Theatre Collective as part of a trio of short plays marking the 50th anniversary of Amnesty International, which will be shown as part of the Vancouver Fringe Festival.

Short and Sweet: Small Plays for Big Ideas
September 9 - 18
Fridays and Saturdays 7 & 9:45pm
Sundays 7pm only
Photohaus Gallery | 14 W7 Ave

Amnesty International and ACTivist Theatre Collective have joined together to present this evening of socially-engaged theatre, live music, fresh art, and sweet justice (along with a cocktail bar and a host of tasty treats). It’s an experience not to be missed.

Short and Sweet: Small Plays for Big Ideas is an event that showcases three entertaining short plays all based on human rights issues: The Possible Lives of Dolores Maria Garcia Rodriguez by Zoe Green & Jordan Hall, and the winners of the ACTivist Theatre Collective & Amnesty International short-script playwriting competition, The Apartment by Trina Davies, and Leave of Absence by Lucia Frangione

We invite you to take part in our event at Photohaus, a photography gallery just off Main Street. There you will enjoy live music, perhaps a cocktail, fresh-baked treats, and you’ll have the opportunity to view the art that we have selected for the Event from our Amnesty/ACTivist Art Competition.

sep 9-19 | fringe | rove | dice squires

Rove: The Legend of Rusty Point

Dice Squires (Laundromat, Godspell, Party This Weekend) writes to tell us about "a quirky, mythical, outdoor adventure, site-specific - which means the audience gets to frolic along the seawall, lantern-lit pathways, and the enchanting Circle Point. My character is a perky, self-important underworld tour guide. The mythical tale includes a gauntlet of ghosts, sisters separated at birth, a crazy tattooed man with an affinity for car crashes, haunting choral music, Canada geese bumping & grinding...yeah, I wasn't kidding about quirky. But the audience is split in two to experience one sister's perspective or the other...so if you want to come and see the tale at the beginning, follow the wild Canada goose at the beginning!"

"Rove" will play EVERY DAY at the Vancouver Fringe Festival
September 9-18 | showtime varies each day, see Fringe website for details

sep 5-7 10 13 14 | screaming silently

ME2YOU PRODUCTIONS
presents

SCREAMING SILENTLY
by Shane Rochon

"What once was hurt, what once was friction, what left a mark no longer stings because grace finds beauty in ugly things" - Bono

Four siblings need to reconcile among themselves as they prepare for their deceased father's memorial service. A story on the gift of second chances.

Directed by Heather Dallas. Featuring MATT MITTELSTADT, DANNII JOHNSON, KRISTINA HUTCHISON, SHANE ROCHON, JARED ERICKSON, BILL ASHBEE & ALANNA KENNEDY.

Sept 5 6 7 @ 8pm
Jericho Arts Centre
Tix online or 604-224-8007 ext. 3

Then, it's on to the FRINGE FESTIVAL
September 10 / 13 / 14 @ 7pm
Sun Yat Sen Garden
Tix

tuesdays with morrie | artistic director's notes - ken hildebrandt

Part two of the artistic director's notes for TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE: Gallery 7 Theatre's Ken Hildebrandt.

What a thrill it is to introduce our little theatre from Abbotsford to Vancouver audiences! I sometimes find myself smiling at the delightful absurdity of this opportunity to share this story here in the City. I mean, what good could come from Abbotsford, a town known for raspberries, blueberries, dairy farms and airshows, but not necessarily for a thriving arts and cultural scene? Yet, enormous talent oozes from this diamond-in-the-rough, city-in-the-country and this production showcases just a sample of some of the high calibre work being produced in the Fraser Valley as emerging and veteran artists of all disciplines find their voice through the arts. Thank you Ron for inviting us to be a part of your season here at Pacific Theatre!

Though I hadn’t read Mitch Albom’s book at the time, when I first read the play version of Tuesdays with Morrie a couple of years ago, I found it to be quite moving. The story was uplifting, humorous, sad and tragic all at the same time. After that first read, I knew this play needed to be produced on the Gallery 7 stage, and though it took a couple of years for that dream to become a reality, our recent 20th anniversary season presented the perfect opportunity.

As I’ve worked on this show over the past year, I’ve also come to realize that this story is refreshingly void of the cynicism that seems to permeate our culture today. It avoids quaint sentimentality and delves deep in to heart and soul matters in a honest and sometimes uncomfortable way. Ironically, though this play deals with death and sickness, it’s really about living life to the fullest.

What stands out most, however, is the depth and intimacy of the relationship between these two men. In our culture, relationships between men don’t often scratch below the surface. Yet I believe deep within each man’s soul, there longs for connection with other men who inspire, encourage and walk-alongside us, to help us make sense of what it means to be a man intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. It’s definitely true of my life. Albom’s story celebrates the importance of healthy, intimate & meaningful relationships, which is a very good thing indeed.

This production ran with great success in Abbotsford this past Winter, and I was delighted and humbled by how this production connected with men and women in very deep and emotional ways. That experience proved once again that theatre has this amazing ability to probe even the deepest areas of our heart, soul and mind in a manner that enlightens, challenges, and entertains. There’s nothing quite like live theatre. I trust you will have a similar experience as you enjoy today’s performance! Be moved. Be engaged. Be encouraged. Be inspired.

sep 8-18 | selkie wife | erin mahoney

You saw Erin in REFUGE OF LIES, as Joanne Worley in GODSPELL, this summer in THE CASINO, and now... In her own show! Developed in a workshop with none other than Lucia Frangione. Kerry Vander Griend directing - as well as acting several times on the PT stage, Kerry helmed CHICKENS, THE FARNDALE CHRISTMAS CAROL, and our most recent edition of THE LION, THE WITCH & THE WARDROBE. Tantalized? I am.