mymothersstory

August 24 2023

What Are Theatre Audiences Telling Us?

Stageworks Performing Arts Education @deltastageworks, diverse theatre, diversity, mymothersstory, storytelling

LISTENING TO OUR AUDIENCES

At Delta Stageworks we’ve been working with the idea for several years that meaningful theatre is an audience experience where the stories being told are genuinely connected to one’s community. Our theatre company tag line is ‘Local Theatre that Tells Local Stories’, and we aim to connect with audiences – and entertain them – through authentic local storytelling.

Listening to audience feedback from our workshop production of Heirlooms & Baggage (My Mother’s Story) earlier this year was a bit of a litmus test for this idea for us as theatre-makers, and it was great to hear that audiences loved the seeing a show that comes from local storytellers experiences of and, moreover, that the diversity of those stories was a big part of what made their time in the theatre with us so enjoyable. Seeing the diversity of actors and hearing diverse mothers stories on stage was meaningful for them they told us. Which probably aligns with the universal truth that as audiences we seek to see ourselves reflected on stage! We want to witness stories and characters that reflect our own lived experience.

So with this wind in our sails, the company is excited about getting back into rehearsal and bringing Heirlooms & Baggage (My Mother’s Story) to the Genesis Theatre in Ladner, BC from Oct 12-15 (Preview show Oct 11) this fall with more stories and a huge amount of new theatricality that a being in a big theatre affords.

Back with the show are company members Camryn Chew, Peg Christopherson, Renee Iaci, Ragini Kapil and Eric Keenleyside. Company member Marilyn Norry is back to help shape the actors stories while Fran Gebhard directs. Bringing diversity, inclusion and heaps of exciting young talent and to our design & tech team is Christian Ching (Set & Projections), Keagan Elrick (Lighting), Devin Basil (Sound) and Emily Willcox (Stage Management).

Early Bird tickets are available through August 31 on our landing page. A Seniors discount code is also available by email: deltastageworks@gmail.com

November 13 2022

Devised Theatre and the Investigation of Identity

Stageworks live theatre and comedy, Performing Arts Education @deltastageworks, devised theatre, mymothersstory, storytelling

Devised Theatre and the Investigation of Identity

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Stageworks associate artist Cory Haas was appearing in the remarkable Un.Deux. Trois. by Mani Soleymanlou* in Vancouver this week. This is a show that comes from the theatre practice of devised theatre – the definition of which includes using our own personal lived experiences to tell the audience stories that offer a connection to a big picture social issue. In the case of Soleymanlou, it is his search for his own identity – born in Iran, living in Canada and speaking French – that begins a wider investigation into the “who am I?” question that eventually involves some 36 diverse Francophone actors from across Canada all together on stage in a piece of theatre that the Montreal Gazette describes as, “a theatrical symphony of individual and collective anxiety angst”. In Trois, we hear stories of the actors personal experiences of grappling with questions of their French-speaking identity; experiences of racism, loss of their ‘mother-tongue’ culture and language amongst many. Apart from the sheer exhilarating intensity of seeing so many actors on stage at once, what grabs you about this show is its commitment to the act of listening to diverse voices. It asks us as audiences to tacitly acknowledge that this is something theatre as we know it – a theatre where the privilege of white, cis-gendered, male voices/decision-makers has predominated – has not been doing a very good job at.

Cory Haas has facilitated our company’s devised theatre work on two pieces; Then & Now, Pandemic Life Stories – which is currently in an extended phase (with thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts), and our spring 2023 show Heirlooms and Baggage (My Mother’s Story). In the latter show we have being building the show around the exploration of our mother’s identity, investigating the question of “who was she?” (she was not just our ‘Mom’ we’ve discovered!). We have also wanted to give space to diverse stories of lived experiences in this new show and for audiences to hear these. We’re headed into our next phase of theatre-making in early 2023 and it’s going to be fascinating to see what Cory brings to our theatre-making process from his experience of working on Un. Deux. Trois.

*Mani Soleymanlou is the artistic director of Orange Noyée and of the National Arts Centre’s French Theatre. https://nac-cna.ca/en/bio/mani-soleymanlou

July 16 2021

Cooking in the Writing Kitchen with Marilyn Norry

Stageworks live theatre and comedy, Performing Arts Education @deltastageworks, mymothersstory

One of the really exciting aspects of creating the Then and Now project – Delta Stageworks’ look at living through the pandemic this past 16 months – has been reconnecting with my colleague Marilyn Norry from my early days working in the theatre in Toronto in the 1980s. I have huge admiration for Marilyn as an actor, a writer and as a story editor. She has been fearless and mesmerizing on stage and has made enormous contributions to the growth of young playwrights in Vancouver as a dramaturge and editor. She is also the founder of an important women’s history/storytelling project: My Mother’s Story. If you’re reading this, take a detour over to her mymothersstory.org website to see the scope of this almost 2 decades- long project! This summer Marilyn and I are (with input from other company members) constructing a second draft of the Then & Now script. It’s a bit like getting into a kitchen with an old friend and making up a recipe for a one pot meal that’s going to serve a big crowd; we’re going through the ingredients we have on hand and thinking about what flavours are going to work together to get to the savoury, memorable whole. It’s not unusual for a new play to take many months and many drafts to arrive at the ready-for-production form, but it is unusual to write a play from the vantage of being in an unfolding event. It’s also unusual – for us at least – to be writing for a multi-media structure. Getting to where we are now has been a completely out-of-the-box workshop process of filtering interviews, personal stories, news stories and the whole zeitgeist of pandemic life through devised theatre workshops (often using Zoom) and writing sessions. So it’s exciting – and maybe a little daunting – to now be collectively shaping up a second draft, and with a lot of big questions still in the air: What’s our big takeaway for audiences? How do we weave together personal narratives and stories from others that we’ve gathered that resonate with us? How much of the play should be digitally mediated? And a really big unknown: how are we going to end this show? Cooking in the writing kitchen with Marilyn: working with an old colleague has some rich rewards.