City of Wine – Oedipus and Seven

Oedipus directed by Ursula Neuerburg-Denzer, Concordia University, Montreal

Performs Wed May 6 @ 8pm, Sat May 9 @ noon  

After an extremely early morning, long bus ride and exhilarating load in, the cast and crew from Oedipus at Concordia are thrilled to have arrived in the great city of Toronto for the City of Wine festival. It has certainly been a long haul getting here but we are all excited to stage our show at Theatre Passe Muraille. Having adapted to a new playing space and significantly altered set, the show promises to be interesting and fresh for all! It is really great to be involved in the City of Wine Festival. It has already proven to be a fantastic theatre experience and opportunity to meet some wonderful new people and catch a glimpse at the theatre world many of us will continue to pursue in the future. It’s also been a great chance for some national travel, too! Looking forward to seeing you all at the show, cheers!

Hayley Lewis

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Seven directed by Sarah Stanley, York University, Toronto

Performs: Thurs May 7 @ 4pm, Sat May 9 @ 8pm

When Seven takes the stage at Theatre Passe Muraille it will be the first time that it is performed. Unlike the other six plays, York’s production has yet to be seen by an audience. This certainly adds to our excitement and anticipation as the City of Wine festival week approaches. For the last four weeks we have been in a whirlwind of rehearsals; doing script work, creating songs, and practicing chorography and fight scenes. The actors have been transforming into their characters and discovering that, although they are “UnNamed”, they are truly complex individuals. Meanwhile our team of dramaturgs and assistant directors have been researching Greek mythology, the Trojan War, and finding connections between the play and current events. Seven is the story of the very last Thebans. After being forced to leave Thebes and fight in the Trojan War, they must face their own mortality and the end of their city’s history. As we have become more and more immersed in this world, the significance of bringing Thebes to its end has really set in. Being part of City of Wine has been such a rewarding journey. We are very excited to see the work that the other schools have done and to celebrate our successes together.

Samantha Serles

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City of Wine – Creon

Creon, directed by Jillian Keiley, Memorial University’s Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, Corner Brook, Newfoundland
Performs: Thurs May 7 @ noon, Sat May 9 @ 4pm

Is May 1st here already?! My class separated only a few short weeks ago to return to our own respective corners of the country, and already we’re coming together again as we all join the traveling mass of theatre stories en route to Toronto! Having first mounted Creon in November, there has been a long waiting period for Grenfell in which we have strived to keep the show fresh and ever-improving. After five months of a waiting to bring Creon to the stage once more, my class is eager to finally get to work and learn from so many talented people, meet theatre students from schools across the country, and help in bringing such great stories to life. See you all soon!

City of Wine – Pentheus and Jocasta

Pentheus directed by Tatiana Jennings, Humber College, Toronto
Performs: Tues May 5 @ 8pm, Friday May 8 @ noon

Having closed the show on April 18th, Pentheus is still fresh in our minds and bodies at Humber College. We celebrated a great run at our theatre, and look forward to the remount in May. Much like the other participating schools, we’re wrapping up our year and time at Humber, with other final performances and projects taking place. Our time at Theatre Passe Muraille is fast approaching, and our remount rehearsals are on their way as well! As Torontonians we have the luxury of knowing Passe Muraille as audience members, so we’re familiar with the space. However, we will be faced with the point of view of performers, so will soon be navigating a newly taped-out rehearsal floor that will reflect the City of Wine setup. As the date draws closer, we talk often of meeting the other students from across the country, as well as directors, technicians, family, and the general public that will be involved with City of Wine. It’s such a thrilling way to exit theatre school, working amongst one another and closing the distance between schools across the country. What better way to enter a career in the arts than to work with other emerging artists from all necks of these Canadian woods? It’s with this inspiration that we press forward, managing to get through our year-end tasks and performances, looking forward to the City of Wine and all that will follow.

Emily Farrell

City of Wine – Harmonia and Laius

Harmonia directed by DD Kugler, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver

This process of rehearsing a show for remount is a strange and wonderful thing. Strange because things are the same, and yet different; it’s clearly not a new production, and yet it’s not quite the same as the first one either. But this is what’s wonderful about the process as well. What an opportunity it is to come back to characters and a story with the kind of understanding that only a production can give you, and then continue to work! To be able to solidify as well as break open the elements of the original show! To make new discoveries (not least of which is that where once you had space on the stage for entrances and exits, you now have a solid wall…)! This chance to take a second look at our work is a gift, and we are excited to be able to bring this story to life again as part of the City of Wine Festival.

Caroline Sniatynski

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Laius directed by Eda Holmes, George Brown Theatre School, Toronto

Performs: Wed May 6 @ noon and Fri May 8 @ 4pm

The writing of this paragraph is wedged between an Italian line run of Laius, and a performance of one of our spring shows! Here, at George Brown Theatre School, we are ending off our year (and time at theatre school) by performing two shows in rep: a Restoration comedy (The Relapse) and a musical (The Baker’s Wife). In between 12-hour tech rehearsals, we have been getting together to review blocking, run lines, practice transitions, and review the live music we will have to pull together again for our remount of Laius in May. It is a challenge to keep three shows ready to go at a performance level, but we all feel our acting muscles are the strongest they’ve ever been — it is amazing how many worlds we can hold on to at the same time. In fact, leaving this script for days and weeks at a time to enter other characters, examine other issues, and experience other eras has actually sharpened the clarity of the Theban world for me. I have a keener sensorial understanding of what that world feels like, where its moral compass lies, and how its tragedies resonant specifically for the characters. We all look forward to reoopening the world of Thebes with fresh eyes and hearts, especially in the presence of so many other students entering the world with us! We are all also very excited to be hosting so many out-of-towners in our city … we will welcome them with wine and more wine.

Leora Morris

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City of Wine: The biggest thing ever

City of Wine tells the epic story of the city of Thebes and its citizens through a cycle of seven plays by playwright Ned Dickens. Produced by the award-winning dramaturgical theatre company nightswimming, the cycle will be performed twice over May 5th to 9th, 2009 at Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto, Canada.