50 years since its founding, Theatre @ York opens the 2018-2019 season with the premiere of rochdale, a new play by David Yee under the direction of Nina Lee Aquino, featuring the fourth-year acting ensemble.
Opened in 1968, Rochdale College was an experiment in student-run alternative education and co-operative living. The project ultimately failed when it could not cover its financing and neighbours complained that it had become a haven for drugs and crime.
“We are delighted to open our season with a new Canadian play that embraces the same spirit of experimentation and social advocacy that guided the founding of the Department of Theatre at York 50 years ago,” commented department chair Marlis Schweitzer. David Yee and Nina Lee Aquino have collaborated on a play that not only gives voice to the youth, energy, and passion of the 1960s but also resonates with students today. We are incredibly fortunate to have such Canadian innovators kick off this season, as we reflect on the past 50 years and look ahead to the future.”
David Yee is a Canadian actor, playwright and the artistic director of fu-Gen Theatre Company. His play carried away on the crest of a wave won the 2015 Governor General Award.
Nina Lee Aquino is an award-winning director and dramaturge, and the Artistic Director of Factory Theatre. She is committed to the development of new works, and to the manifestation of interculturalism in theatre.
Performance Schedule:
7:30 p.m. on November 17, 19-23
1:00 p.m. on November 21 & 23
2 p.m. on November 24
Tickets $7- 20
Online Box Office or call 416-736-5888
Upper year visual art student Courtney Fairweather’s solo exhibition When I Grow Up … is a critical examination of “traditional” gender roles.
Gallery Hours:
Mon. – Thurs. 10am – 4pm.
Admission is free and all are welcome
Fifth year Visual Art student Eszter Rosta’s solo show Woven, explores materiality, physicality, and objecthood in a number of large-scale raw canvas works.
“I want to play with the prominence of the shape through the materials in question and natural pigmentations such as teas, coffee grounds, plants, etc. Furthermore, I also intend to represent the objecthood of the canvas, by showing them for the canvas that it is – the actual fabrication of the material, the complexity of its weaving, and its natural reference to plants, through processes of manipulation and human imprint.
IMAGE: Eszter Rosta’s Substance (a) – 2018
Gallery Hours:
Mon. – Thurs. 10am – 4pm.
Admission is free and all are welcome
Third year Visual Art students Ellen Soule and Liv Paul team up to create and present Just the Wind, a mixed-media exhibition that invites viewers to ask questions about the way they experience fear and trauma.
“It is a well-known expression that most people have encountered when hearing a strange noise that it was “just the wind” rather than an intruder – human, or spectral. Our joint exhibition focuses on the experience of our fears or traumas and how we process them. We want people to connect with a moment they remember hearing the phrase so that they immediately recognize their connection to the works. We hope that people will see their own fears represented in the visualizations of our personal fears, which are common in many people but create different reactions individually. ”
IMAGE: Liv Paul – Portrait of Ellen, ink drawing
Gallery Hours:
Mon. – Thurs. 10am – 4pm.
Admission is free and all are welcome
Theatre @ York presents Middletown by Will Eno, featuring the acting students in the MFA program and directed by the esteemed Jackie Maxwell.
Lives of the inhabitants of Middletown transect in an emotional journey that takes them from the local library to outer space and beyond. The moving and funny play emerges as a meditation on loneliness, birth, death, and the anxieties of our contemporary lives.
Performance Schedule:
Thursday, January 24 7:30pm Opening
Friday, January 25 2pm & 7:30pm
Saturday, January 26, 2pm
Theatre @ York presents a studio production of Metamorphoses by Mary Zimmerman under the direction of Birgit Schreyer Duarte, featuring the third year acting students.
With the themes of loss, transformation, rebellion and the ever-present power of imagination Metamorphoses vividly juxtaposes the ancient and the contemporary in language and image to reflect the variety and persistence of story in the face of inevitable change.
Originally from Germany, Schreyer Duarte is a director, translator and dramaturg who enjoys introducing international work to Canadian audiences and tackling challenging scripts with actors. Most recently, she translated Deportation Cast for Theatre @ York, directed Noise at Randolph College for the Performing Arts and Hamlet at Shakespeare in High Park. She is also the dramaturg & artistic associate at Canadian Stage.
Performance Schedule:
Thu. Feb 7, 7:30pm
Fri. Feb 8, 2pm and 7:30pm
Sat. Feb 9, 2pm
Admission is free, but seating is limited. Those wishing to attend are invited to sign up in advance for the performance of their choice. A sign-up sheet will be posted outside the door of CFT 139 in the Centre for Film and Theatre.
The Devised Theatre Festival premieres four riveting new collaborative productions — each conceived, created, produced and performed by fourth-year students in Devised Theatre in the Department of Theatre’s Performance Creation & Research program.
Each show is presented by a production company formed by a student ensemble within Devised Theatre.
The four shows are dead skin, a grotesque and physical exploration of the darkness within by Four Eyes Collective; #Filters, which challenges the way we connect on a daily basis by Transcendence Theatre; Refraction, a supernatural thriller where a woman is confronted by her past by Catapulse Collective; and After George, a revealing drama which plays out inside a high school anniversary reunion by Atomic Oddity Productions.
The Devised Theatre Festival runs in two series, each presenting a double bill:
Mon March 11 – 7.30 PM: PREVIEWS/INVITED DRESS Series A: dead skin – #Filters
Tues March 12 – 7.30 PM: PREVIEW/INVITED DRESS Series B: Refraction – After George
Wed March 13 – 7.30 PM: OPENING Series A: dead skin – #Filters
Thu March 14 – 7.30 PM: OPENING Series B: Refraction – After George
Fri March 15 – 4:00 PM: Matinee Series A: dead skin – #Filters
Fri March 15 – 8:00 PM: Series B: Refraction – After George
Sat March 16 – 3:00 PM: CLOSING Matinee Series B: Refraction – After George
Sat March 16 – 7:30 PM: CLOSING Series A: dead skin – #Filters
Venue: Begin in the Festival Lounge space in Accolade East Building room 209 to sign in, shows will take place in ACE 207.
Admission: Pay What You Can. Suggested $10.
For full details about the shows, the production companies, the artists, and blog posts, visit the Devised Theatre Festival website.
Theatre @ York presents Orlando by Sarah Ruhl, directed by MFA candidate Lindsay Bell and The Balcony by Jean Genet, directed by MFA candidate Margaret Legere. The two shows will be performed in repertory and feature the MFA and fourth-year actors.
Orlando is a dramatic adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s feminist classic by contemporary playwright Sarah Ruhl. It investigates the adventures of a poet who changes sex from man to woman and lives for centuries, meeting the key figures of English literary history.
The Balcony uses the setting of an unnamed city and a distant background of a revolution and counterrevolution to explore strains of power in a society. The play compelling examines the delicate equilibrium of reality and illusion.
Performance Schedule:
Orlando
Sunday, March 24 at 7:30pm (Preview)
Tuesday, March 26 at 7:30pm (Opening)
Wednesday, March 27 at 1:00pm
Friday, March 29 at 7:30pm
Saturday, March 30 at 1:00pm
The Balcony
Monday, March 25 at 7:30pm (Preview)
Wednesday, March 27 at 7:30pm (Opening)
Thursday, March 28 at 7:30pm
Friday, March 29 at 1:00pm
Saturday, March 30 at 7:30pm
Tickets $7- 20
Buy online or call 416-736-5888
X is a collaborative exhibition by Kristen Elizabeth Donoghue-Stanford and Rebecca Garcia Echeverria focused on the theme of femininity and the subversion of the stereotypes that limit it.
Through the exploration of their different and similar experiences, Donoghue-Stanford and Garcia propose to create an abstracted feminine environment that calls upon a shifting perspective of femininity and redefining what it means to exist in the everyday as a woman. The exhibition will exist as a lament to the experiences of women, but also as an expression of gratitude.
Gallery Hours:
Monday-Thursday, 9am – 4:00pm
Reception Oct 1, 6-8pm
Free admission
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My Body by Deana Gisborne (2019), 43’ x 39.5’, Graphite on Paper[/caption]
The State of Not Knowing is an exhibition works on paper by Ernesto Hidalgo (print media) and Deanna Gisborne (painting & drawing).
Artist statement: Ultimately, a search for our complicated identities is at the heart of our work, whether this is manifested by obscuring the body, multiplying form, collapsing into a writhing vortex or creating dream-like worlds where animals and humans intersect. We try to reconcile contradictions in ourselves, made possible through the unbounded language of art. All of this probing of the self-conscious mind is expressed in bodies, trying from all angles to reach that same conclusion and achieve resolution: Who am I, and how can I grasp this ever-evolving self? This question is, of course, unanswerable, but we continue this cycle indefinitely, because we are human, and we are curious.
Gallery Hours:
Monday-Thursday, 9am – 4:00pm
Free admission
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Felt, by Ernest Hidalgo (2019) Screen print on rag paper; mounted on foamcore. 20” x 28”[/caption]
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The Ashley Plays. Photo: Judith Rudakoff[/caption]
The Ashley Plays is an annual performance cycle of short, devised, site-specific monodramas, written by the playwrights and developed by the dramaturgs in the 3290 and 4290 Playwriting & New Play Dramaturgy courses taught by Professor Judith Rudkoff in York University’s Department of Theatre.
Each piece in the cycle is thematically linked, relates to the site in which it takes place, and involves a character named Ashley,
The audience is divided into three pods of moving spectators. Each group is led through the cycle by a guide to experience the monodramas up close.
Meeting Place:
Audience members are asked to assemble outside the Joseph G. Green Studio Theatre in the lobby of the Centre for Film and Centre. Please arrive by 12:45 pm for instructions and to be grouped into pods.
While admission is free, voluntary donations will be collected for Oxfam Unwrapped, an online charity from which we will be purchasing life-changing resources for communities worldwide.
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Detail from A Lament, by Kristen Elizabeth Donoghue-Stanford, 2019, Acrylic Yarn, 15ft x 5ft x 10ft[/caption]
Lifelines (Hilda) is a solo sculpture and time based art installation by Kristen Elizabeth Donoghue-Stanford focused on the theme of lamentation and mourning of someone who is no longer present.
Artist statement: The exhibition will focus around ideas of life, death, loss, and remembrance, interplaying with one another. 87 knitted tubes in neutral colours will be suspended within the gallery space, arranged to create guided pathways and a knitted canvass for video projection.
The installation will be curated in order to showcase a metaphorical image of the lifelines of a particular life; that of a woman named Hilda, whom the footage collected belonged to. 87 knitted tubes will be used within the installation showcasing the number of years Hilda lived until she passed away on January 6th, 2019. The video shows Hilda and her family throughout several years of their lives and will be played on loop throughout the exhibition. A slight distortion will be used in order to hide or blur certain images within the video frame, as well as the projection onto the knitwork will add its own distortion. This is meant to symbolize the memories we don’t always get to keep with us, even when someone has left us. As one of Hilda’s favourite pastimes and a skill that she passed onto the next generation of her family, the knitwork could not more perfectly summarize the complicated, yet beautiful framework of a life. In this installation we experience the feelings of remembrance and loss and face the concepts of life and death as we witness the lifelines of somebody who is no longer with us through the process of lamenting. It opens the possibility for reflection and the ability to express gratitude towards such a life.
Gallery Hours:
Monday-Thursday, 9am – 4:00pm
Free admission
Reception: Thursday, November 14, 2019 from 5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) is a beloved feminist revisioning of two of Shakespeare’s most well-known plays, Othello and Romeo & Juliet. Written by Canadian playwright Ann-Marie MacDonald, the play explores the hypothetical question: what if Shakespeare’s tragedies were actually intended to be comedies? To learn the answer to this question, please join us November 16-23 in the Joseph G. Green Theatre to find out.
Performance Schedule:
Sat, Nov. 16 (preview 1) @ 7:30 pm
Sun. Nov. 17 (preview 2) @ 7:30 pm
Tues. Nov. 19 (Opening) @ 7:30 pm
Wed. Nov. 20 @ 1:00 pm
Wed. Nov. 20 (Relaxed Performance) @ 7:30 pm –Plan your visit
Thurs. Nov. 21@ 7:30 pm
Fri. Nov. 22 @ 1:00 pm
Fri. Nov. 22 @ 7:30pm
Sat. Nov. 23 @ 2:00 pm
Tickets $7- 20
Online Box Office or call 416-736-5888
Devised Theatre Festival 2020
March 10 – 14, 2020
The Devised Theatre Festival premieres three captivating new productions, each conceived, created, produced, and performed by fourth year Devised Theatre students in the Performance, Creation, and Research stream in York University’s Theatre program.
This year, the theme for the Devised Theatre Festival is: Escapism in the age of the Experience Culture, wherein we ask questions about how we try to escape, why we might feel the need to escape, and why this desire to escape may be problematic.
The three shows featured in this year’s festival are: Auto-nomy, a seductive physical theatre piece about companion robots who gain sentience, by The Vector Regime; Five, an intermedial physical theatre piece about four young women who are trapped inside a video game, by Mind Yo’ Business Productions; and Goodnight, Sunny, a magic realism piece about two siblings, Jonathan and Jamie, who go on one final adventure with their imaginary friend, Sunny.
Each show is presented by a production company formed by a student ensemble within Devised Theatre.
The Devised Theatre Festival runs in two series, each presenting a double bill:
Tuesday, March 10th: Company A: The Vector Regime (7:00pm) | Company B: Mind Yo’ Business Productions (8:30pm)
Wednesday, March 11th: Company B: Mind Yo’ Business Productions (7:00pm) | Company C: Triptych Theatre Collective (8:30pm)
Thursday, March 12th: Company C: Triptych Theatre Collective (7:00pm) | Company A: The Vector Regime (8:30pm)
Friday, March 13th: Company C: Triptych Theatre Collective (3:00pm) | Company A: The Vector Regime (4:30pm) | Company B: Mind Yo’ Business Productions (6pm)
Saturday, March 14th: Company B: Mind Yo’ Business Productions (3:00pm) | Company A: The Vector Regime (4:30pm) | Company C: Triptych Theatre Collective (6pm)
Venue: 207 Accolade East Building | York University Keele Campus
Admission: Pay What You Can. Suggested $10 (cash only please)
For full details about the shows, the production companies, the artists, and blog posts, visit the Devised Theatre Festival website.
Theatre @ York presents Elizabeth Rex by Timothy Findley directed by ted witzel
Timothy Findley’s Elizabeth Rex shares Good Night Desdemona’s interest in the Shakespearean canon.
Here, Findley imagines an intimate meeting between a group of players and Queen Elizabeth I, who has ordered a command performance of Much Ado About Nothing as she awaits the execution of a former lover, the Earl of Essex. With wit and poetry, Findley explores the entanglement of love, desire, and gender identity.
Performance Schedule:
Tuesday March 17th at 7:30 p.m. (Preview)
Wednesday March 18th at 1:00 p.m. (Preview)
Wednesday March 18th at 7:30 p.m. (Opening)
Thursday March 19 at 7:30 p.m. (Relaxed Performance)
Friday March 20th at 1:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
Saturday March 21st at 2:00 p.m.
Saturday March 21st @ 7:30 p.m. (Closing)
Box Office Information
Previews: $7.00
All Other Performances:
Tickets: $20.00
Student: $12.00
Senior: $12.00
Groups of 10 or more: $10.00
(Group price applies when all group tickets are purchased at once for a single performance. Not available online, please phone or visit the box office)
Buy online or call 416-736-5888
Relaxed Performance: Thursday, March 19th at 7:30pm
A Relaxed performance is intended specifically to be sensitive to and accepting of audience members who may benefit from a more relaxed environment. The performance is designed to reduce anxiety and provide a safe, enjoyable experience, taking into account variable sensory, communication or learning needs and abilities. This means that there is a more casual-than-usual approach to front-of-house etiquette and we ask audience members to be aware of people’s needs to move or make involuntary noise.
