Community Productions
Objectives
Our Community Production is a sight specific theatre Production that will take place in one of Vancouver’s parks. The cast will involve diverse artists of various experience and ability from a wide range of social and artistic organizations.
The objectives of this three day theatre event are:
· To bring together professional/emerging performers from a cross-section of diverse social and artistic communities, who would normally never have the opportunity to work together, to collaboratively develop and perform a diverse theatre production celebrating the story of water in the global village.
· To give this mosaic ensemble the support and guidance, through the craft of theatre expression, the opportunity to traverse foreign territory, build communicative bridges of understanding, open doors and risk new perceptions.
· To create a cohesive, vibrant and out-spoken theatre ensemble wherein each committed participant, irrelevant of theatrical experience, plays a respected, valued part in the whole.
· To present three performances of a theatrical event with clarity, craft and community vigor.
· To use a part of the Vancouver landscape as a connective literal setting to address and shed light, with the voice of theatre performance, on the importance of a fundamental environmental topic that affects all of society.
Past Experience
In June/July 2011, Theatre Terrific produced the sight specific work The Bread Project. This community production involved a cast of 21 actors of mixed ability and experience. The partnerships formed in that project and it’s development included artists from Craning Neck Theatre, Tigermilk Collective, puppeteer Tim Gosley of Muppet fame, SFU Theatre students, Strathcona Mental Health, The John Howard Society, Jobswest (an employment agency for developmentally challenged clients), clients from BC Association for Community Living, plus a number of performers who do not belong to any supportive organization but live with a challenging disability.
A strong working relationship was developed with the Vancouver Parks Board to the extent that the park board, invited Theatre Terrific to choose which park would suit the next production. The Bread Project included the making and baking of bread on site which was shared with the audience, an enormous bread puppet, plus two other large puppets, song, dance, live music and an adaptation of the mythical story of Demeter, the goddess of harvest, whose daughter Persephone is stolen and taken to the underworld. The story told of a field, standing fallow and forgotten next to a village who had forgotten it’s value.
The production celebrated the reawakening of the village to the memory of the sowing, harvesting, grinding of grain, and the making and baking of bread. The Bread Project played three daytime matinee’s in the beautiful waterfront setting of Vancouver’s Crab Park Portside. Admission was by donation. This production was also marketed by the City of Vancouver as part of it’s 125 Year Celebrations.
Theatre Terrific intends to repeat year on year the great success of The Bread Project in much the same format, having learned a great deal about site specific work with a large diverse cast and the many production details necessary to make such a work come to successful fruition.
Artistic Merit
Choosing to do a collaborative work around the environmental topic of ‘water’ has many merits. These are:
· Water is an element much in the news as both a dangerous and a vital requirement in our lives. This is a common denominator that all participants can identify with.
· Choosing to do this in a park wherein water is literally present is an added bonus. Vancouver has many, many parks that border the shores of the ocean, inlets and lakes. Therefore the choices of advantageous location are many.
· The use of the entity of a village in the story along with choral and group choreography allows a large cast of people with mixed abilities and experience a access a unified place within the work.
· The use of live music will provide an adaptive form of cuing and also serve as a connective and scene change element.
The Developmental Process
Theatre Terrific's producing Artistic Director, Susanna Uchatius utilizes a strong clear approach to making theatre development both accessible and yet respectfully demanding, in order to achieve the highest possible quality of theatre with a diversely abled cast. This process includes:
· Having all the committed participants collaborate in writing a community contract that clarifies conditions important to each participant and have them sign it.
· Use methods well respected in the study of theatre in an adaptive form to methodically build voice, movement and ensemble skill for all participants.
· Give equal value to all artistic offerings by the diverse cast, thereby giving all participants a sense of ownership in the whole.
· Diligently challenge each and every performer to their fullest extent. This builds personal and communal respect and esteem.