All tagged Downstage theatre
Hailed as “hysterically funny, brilliant, brutal” by Now Magazine, Beautiful Man makes its Alberta premiere in the Motel Theatre at Arts Commons. Written by the Hamilton-born Erin Shields who is known for her sharp lens interrogating the negative depictions of women in literature, Beautiful Man is a biting satire about the portrayal of women in film and television, co-produced by Downstage and Verb Theatre.
Dive into the creative minds of playwright solar punks, envisioning radical pluralistic futures where nature and community thrive in this series of staged readings from Climate Change Theatre Action 2023 - All Good Things Must Begin.
Arts Commons is heating up this spring with Downstage’s Stage It Festival of new works! Downstage will host four days of theatre, music and more in Motel Theatre, Arts Commons. This fresh festival includes a new audio play from award winning local playwright, Tara Beagan plus three new plays that were created as part of Downstage’s Stage It Program.
As many arts companies are enjoying a quiet summer, Downstage is just heating up. This month their professional development program, which was launched during the pandemic and is embarking on their first season on in person collaboration, invites two new creator-producer duos into the building. Read on to learn more about these aspiring theatre professionals.
When I saw a workshop reading of Sunny Drake’s play Men Express Their Feelings I was still living in Tkaronto/Toronto and had no idea I would become the Artistic Director at Downstage. The moment the reading was over, the audience leapt to their feet in rapturous applause and I knew that I wanted to direct Sunny’s brilliant hockey comedy. That night, I told Sunny about my desire and we agreed that it could be a wonderful project for us to collaborate on.
Deer Woman’s first public audience was the reading at Native Earth’s Weesageechak festival in November 2017. After four days of development we had a showing. We experimented with blocking and video design. The primarily Indigenous crowd was silent when we concluded, and Cherish recalls feeling worried. The first sound to explode from our people was not applause, but a loud sob from one woman, followed by resounding cheers.
