ahdri zhina mandiela: Mentorship Matters
Toronto-based playwright and director ahdri zhina mandiela has discovered that being the founder of a protean arts group like B Current is a double-edged sword. She’s thrilled to see the work paying off – “so many of the young black artists you see in the city now have come through the B Current training programs” — but she’s also discovered that if she wants more variety in her own creative world, she has to go out and drum up the work herself. “People think I’m so busy with B Current — and I am — that they don’t call me. But they can call me,” she says with mock emphasis.
Which is not to suggest that mandiela isn’t in demand. She directed El Numero Uno, now playing at the Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People (until February 25) and she’s presently in rehearsals at Factory Theatre working on who knew grannie: a dub aria (opening March 18), a play she wrote and is directing.
First New George F. Walker Play in a Decade
Tonight’s world premiere of And So It Goes is writer/director George F. Walker’s 23rd production at Toronto’s Factory Theatre (including three revivals), which celebrates its 40th anniversary season in 2010.
“Walker has been a huge part of Factory’s history, and his plays have resonated in a big way with audiences,” says the theatre’s artistic director Ken Gass, “So when George called to say he’d written a new play, I pretty much leapt at the opportunity. This is very much a play for our times.”
In And So It Goes, Ned and Gwen are middle-class victims of the recession grappling with the fallout of their daughter’s schizophrenia and Ned’s downsizing. Pushed to the edge during their downwardly mobile spiral, they seek the help of a literary legend whose unorthodox therapy may prevent them from going all the way over.
Designer Sitting Pretty On Cloud 9
Costume and set designers aren’t high on the mainstream media’s hit list, which explains why award-winning designer Judith Bowden, left, is so rarely interviewed about her art. Yet, when the curtain goes up on Mirvish Productions’ Cloud 9 at Toronto’s Panasonic Theatre Tuesday night, Bowden’s set and costumes will be the first things to register with the audience.
Bowden, in collaboration with director Alisa Palmer, has created a metaphorical and physical environment for the characters of this daring satire to inhabit. There’s nothing straight-ahead about Cloud 9, a play by Caryl Churchill (Top Girls), that tackles political and sexual oppression in British colonial Africa and modern London; on Cloud 9, time shifts, age and ethnicity mutate, gender bends.
By the time critics and audiences get their opportunity to judge the theatrical success of the production (win free tickets, details below), Bowden will be hard at work on her next gig, designing sets and costumes for the Shaw Festival’s An Ideal Husband. Such is life for a perpetually freelance artist.
Behind the Curtain with Kaha:wi Dance Theatre
Live With Culture loves to take you behind the scenes and apparently so does choreographer and artistic director Santee Smith. Smith’s Kaha:wi Dance Theatre stages a pay-what-you-can dress rehearsal of its captivating A Story Before Time on Friday (January 15) at the Canadian Children’s Dance Theatre.
I was so intriqued by the promo shot above that I put in a call to Smith who happily invited me to the National Ballet School’s Ivey House where the company is in rehearsals this week. The dance relates the Iroquois creation story, which comes to a head in a battle between twin brothers, the Holder of the Heavens, above centre, and the Bent One, above right, surrounded by a delightful animal posse.
Theatre Arts in the Hood
Acting, singing and dancing are just the most obvious things being taught at Scarborough Village Community Centre on Wednesday afternoons. Even more important, says George Randolph, founder of the Randolph Academy, are the confidence and self-esteem being instilled at this Arts in the Hood program.
Most of the students taking part in the two-month Triple Threat classes are from John McCrae Senior Public School in this troubled east end community. “Ours is a pretty high-needs school,” confirms Vice Principal Marsha Yamamoto. “We’ve got a lot of at-risk kids so we’re looking for alternative ways to engage them in school life. If we can connect them to something they’re interested in within the community, then they’ll stay out of trouble. They’re also learning to work more cooperatively.”
