Titled Breath is Alive, the film’s intent is to capture the essence of Smukler’s work by following him into the studio as he teaches young artists who are discovering their vocal potential and established actors as they hone and rejuvenate their process. Interviews with 91��ɫ students and alumni, professional colleagues and others who have worked with Smukler will flesh out the story, providing a glimpse into the delicate, intricate process of vocal practice.

David Smukler

As co-producers and directors, Nelles and Paetz bring firsthand experience studying under Smukler to their research-creation project. Both have worked as voice coaches and professional actors, applying and sharing the skills they learned with Smukler both behind the scenes and in the spotlight.

“While David��shows no signs of slowing down, he is a senior practitioner and we feel it’s crucial to capture his work now, while it continues to be vital and energetic,” said Nelles, who is currently pursuing doctoral studies in theatre at 91��ɫ. “Watching David work with actors can be as transformative as the work itself. In the company of his energy, you’re reminded of the innocence of creativity and the sheer joy of discovery.”

L.J. Nelles

Before he began teaching at 91��ɫ in 1980, Smukler served as voice coach for the Royal Court Theatre, English Opera Group and Royal Opera, Covent Garden in the UK and held appointments as head of voice at the Toneelschool, Amsterdam, the Department of Drama at Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburg, and Ontario’s Stratford Shakespearean Festival. He joined the full-time faculty in 91��ɫ’s Department of Theatre in 1984, serving three stints as acting area coordinator over the next two decades. He developed a strong voice and speech training component and played a pivotal role in founding the MFA program in Acting, the only program of its kind in Canada. Since his retirement in 2004, he has continued to teach in 91��ɫ’s Graduate Program in Theatre, overseeing the Graduate Diploma in Voice Teaching which he established in 2001.

“David was at the forefront of a kind of actor training that was new to Canada when he first began coaching at Stratford and teaching here at 91��ɫ. His work with actors and directors in the Department of Theatre defined an approach to actor training that forms the heart of our program and has served our students well for more than 30 years,” said Eric Armstrong (MFA '94), who has followed in his mentor’s footsteps in both the professional and academic arena. A respected dialogue and dialect coach in his own right, Armstrong is professor of voice and acting at 91��ɫ, where he currently directs the Graduate Program in Theatre.

Hollywood star Rachel McAdams�� (BFA '01), award-winning Shaw and Stratford Festival veteran Deborah Hay (BFA '95), and stage and screen actor Christine Horne (BFA '04) are among Smukler’s many former students at 91��ɫ who have gone on to remarkable performance careers. Other notable Canadian actors he has coached include Shawn Doyle (Desperate Housewives, The Eleventh Hour, 24) and Arsinée Khanjian (The Sweet Hereafter, Ararat, Sabah).

“David has a remarkable ability to challenge actors to go deep, to confront their personal demons in order to tap the well of their imagination,” said Armstrong.

In addition to his work at 91��ɫ, Smukler has given professional workshops across Canada for Equity Showcase Theatre and has coached voice and dialect for innumerable film and theatre productions. As director of training for in Vancouver, which he established more than 25 years ago, he has worked extensively with performers, directors and broadcasters in theatre, opera, film and television. He has recently returned to acting, in works ranging from Theatre Rusticle’s production of Peter and the Wolf to Wordsmyth Theatre’s staging of Chekhov’s The Seagull.

Smukler has been recognized by the international Voice and Speech Trainers Association as a Distinguished Member for his lifetime contributions to the field. His accolades include the 91��ɫ Faculty of Graduate Studies' Teaching Award, given in recognition of his contributions to the advancement of academic excellence and the quality of graduate teaching at 91��ɫ.

When completed, Breath is Alive will stand as a tribute to Smukler as artist and teacher, and a record of the development of his art form and a generation of theatre practitioners in a pivotal period in Canadian theatre history.

To help fund the film, Paetz and Nelles have turned to crowdsourcing. Their ‘indiegogo’ campaign has surpassed the initial goal of $5000 needed to kick-start the project and cover basic production costs. Now they are seeking additional support to expand the scope of the film with more footage and interviews, and for post-production.

To make a contribution, visit the today, or e-mail ljnelles@yorku.ca.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Theatre Glendon theatre students are pushing the boundaries of audience interaction in their upcoming�� production,�� , opening Feb. 28.

Inspired by the Occupy movement and adapted from Peter Weiss’ Marat/Sade by student Dan Pelletier, this play explores class struggle and questions the nature of revolution. Directed by Glendon theatre instructor and award-winning director Aleksandar Lukac, it will take its audiences deep into the struggles of the 99 per cent.

Here’s the unusual bit. Every performance will be on the Internet. And – a very big and – viewers will be invited to send comments via and about the production. Those comments will be projected in real time onto the tent city set, raw and uncensored, and the student actors will answer them on stage during the performance.

“T�󾱲� hasn’t been done before that I know of,” says Lukac. Known for mounting , especially in his native Serbia, Lukac has alerted Toronto theatre companies about this experiment so they can witness what happens. The tweets and Facebook messages “will be a distraction or a help. Once we open the gate anything can pass through. It will show who’s watching, anyway.”

The play runs Feb. 28 through March 3 at Theatre Glendon, Glendon campus, at 7pm. Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for students. Call the box office for tickets: 416-487-6822.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Established and emerging artists in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Fine Arts bring their collective talents to a riveting new production of a baroque classic: Henry Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas. This epic story of love and betrayal plays out at the Sandra Faire��& Ivan Fecan Theatre on 91��ɫ’s Keele campus for two performances only, March 1 and 2.

Lead artists Joseph Farahat and Charlotte Gagnon

Based on a chapter from The Aeneid, penned by the Roman poet Virgil in the first century BC, Dido and Aeneas recounts the tragic tale of Dido, Queen of Carthage, and the Trojan hero Aeneas. Dido loses her heart to the fierce, handsome warrior Aeneas after he is shipwrecked on her shores, only to be devastated when he abandons her to continue his quest to find Rome.

This story of doomed love has resounded through two millennia. 91��ɫ’s production, a collaboration between faculty and students from the departments of Music, Theatre and Dance, is a strikingly contemporary but timeless re-imagining. Thirty performers play the characters as well as the place, forming a living set on an otherwise empty stage.

“T�󾱲� Dido project is the realization of a dream I’ve had since I joined 91��ɫ,” said Professor Catherine Robbin (left), who heads��91��ɫ’s classical vocal music program. “There’s so much talent and expertise in our performance programs, and it’s a joy to bring it together in an opera production. The experience of combining our creative energies is tremendously exciting and rewarding, both for the students involved and for those of us who teach and work professionally in the field.”

An internationally renowned mezzo soprano, Robbin fills the dual roles of music director and producer for the production. She is no stranger to Dido and Aeneas, having sung the title role in the 1982 Stratford Festival production, which earned her critical accolades as�� “a voice which is unquestionably the greatest, in its range, that Canada has produced in several decades” (The Globe and Mail). Her discography features many baroque composers, including Purcell, Handel and Vivaldi, in collaborations with leading conductors such as Christopher Hogwood, Trevor Pinnock and John Eliot Gardiner.

Presiding over the orchestra pit for 91��ɫ’s Dido and Aeneas is Robbin’s Music Department colleague, award-winning choral conductor and composer Professor Stephanie Martin (above). Martin, who serves as music director for the historic Church of St. Mary Magdalene and conductor of Toronto’s Pax Christi Chorale, directs the 16- member 91��ɫ Baroque Ensemble.

The stage director is theatre Professor Gwen Dobie (left), who brings extensive directing credits in contemporary opera and theatre to the table. Dobie‘s��most recent productions include ���������������dzپ���ܱ� and Sound in Silence for her company, Out of the Box Productions; the Canadian premiere of the Danish opera On this Planet by Anders Nordendoft; and the world premiere of the opera Eyes on the Mountain by Canadian composer Christopher Donison.

Susan Lee (BFA ’90, MFA ’10), an alumna and current faculty member in 91��ɫ’s Department of Dance, brings her long-standing interest in interdisciplinary collaboration to Dido and Aeneas. In a performance career spanning two decades and three continents, Lee has originated roles in almost 50 world premieres by some of Canada’s most highly acclaimed choreographers. Her own choreography has been described as “… a tour de force of magic and mystery” (The Globe and Mail). She brings that magic to bear on this production, contributing original choreography to the work.

Starring in the role of Dido is fourth-year music major Charlotte Gagnon. Gagnon recently won first prize at the Newmarket Voice Festival Senior Scholarship Competition, as well as two awards for opera performance and the prize for outstanding performing ability and career potential in classical singing. She also placed second in her class at the 2011 National Association of Teachers of Singing Ontario chapter competition.

First-year music student Joseph Farahat sings the role of Aeneas. Both young artists are studying with eminent soprano Norma Burrowes in 91��ɫ’s classical vocal performance program.

In total, the cast for Dido and Aeneas features 21 singers, four actors and five dancers. Not only performers, they also play an active role on the production side. Dressed all in white, they have designed their own costumes based on their personae in Purcell’s opera – or ��in the case of the non-speaking roles, inspired by characters drawn from the classical literature of five centuries, who were betrayed or betrayers in their time.

Eschewing a physical set, Professor Elizabeth Asselstine, chair of the Department of Theatre, and Professor William Mackwood, who teaches design and production in the Department of Dance, have created elaborate lighting and projection designs for the show. Working with a technical team of four theatre students, they paint the white-costumed canvas of the performers with evocative colour and special effects.

Tickets��are $17, or $12 for students and seniors.��For tickets, contact the Box Office at 416-736-5888.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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playGround, the annual juried fringe festival of 91��ɫ’s Department of Theatre, celebrates its 20th season with two dynamic programs running Feb. 14 to 17 in the Joseph G. Green Studio Theatre,��139 Centre for Film & Theatre at91��ɫ’s Keele campus.

Well-known for its uncurbed spirit and risk-taking mindset, playGround is a student-produced seedbed for the next generation of theatre artists. It showcases original works conceived, written, performed and produced by up-and-coming playwrights, directors, designers and actors from all levels of91��ɫ’s undergraduate theatre program.

Meg Moran and Meara Tubman-Broeren, both fourth-year students studying devised theatre in the Department of Theatre’s Creative Ensemble, are the co-artistic directors of this year’s edition of playGround. With the help of a peer jury, they selected the most promising ideas from the almost four dozen proposals submitted.

“Not only does the festival showcase the work of emerging artists of our generation and community, it also deals with what’s important to us as students right now,” said Tubman-Broeren. “What unifies all the pieces is our mandate, which is to foster innovative and experimental theatrical work which engages its audience and ignites thought and discussion.”

“Producing the festival has been a challenging and lengthy process, with its share of ups and downs, but overall it’s been very rewarding,” said Moran. “T�󾱲� is a unique opportunity for us as students to work so independently. It’s been a real learning experience for Meara and me.”

The old adage:, “when you want a job done well, give it to a busy person”, rings true for this duo. In addition to their work with playGround, they are collaborating with other members of the fourth-year Creative Ensemble on a show slated to run March 27 to 30.�� Moran is also assistant-directing the upcoming Theatre @ 91��ɫ production of Edward Bond’s Restoration, which will run March 18 to 24.�� And Tubman-Broeren is performing in a physical theatre adaptation of Shakespeare’s King John, which will be playing downtown this summer.

playGround 2012 ranges from light comedies to dark dramas, and from staunch realism to dance theatre.��Here’s an overview of the featured productions:

Series A��

Meat is a dystopic romance in which a young doctor’s morality is put to the test when his work forces him to explore, sacrifice and examine what it truly means to be human.��

Belly Doll is imagined and choreographed as a unique melding of traditional belly dance and theatrical performance.��

The Doorstep – In every relationship, there are conversations. These conversations are intimate, emotionally driven, and personal, and have the potential to be the beginning, or the end, of something beautiful.��

Old Town explores the nature of familial responsibility and sibling dynamics framed within the question: When is it time to grow up?��

The Watching Game is a raunchy comedy revolving around people watching.��

A Working Woman follows the story of a prostitute on the precipice of a life-changing decision.��

Emerging Artists Collective – “A lowbrow commentary on highbrow art”, exploring the challenges and pitfalls faced by the current generation of young artists.��

Womb - What if we weren’t told the whole story? Before there was Adam and his wife, Eve, there was Adam and his equal, Lilith. Womb explores the possibilities of a world where Lilith was the first mother.��

Series B��

Danny and Annie looks at the different ways love comes in and out of our lives.��

Drafts - Everybody is looking, but is anybody really seeing?��

Wonder’s Lost Where Wonder’s Found – A woman winds her way through the ridiculous annals of compulsion and the heart-aching longings of loneliness while seeking to remember the miracle of life.����

The Abstraction – Two men in a gallery contemplate an abstract work of art and decide what it means to each of them.��

The Vagina Dialogues is a verbatim piece composed of interviews with91��ɫUniversity students about the misconceptions and mysteries surrounding the vagina.��

Da Capo explores a composer, his muse and the various layers of their relationship through movement.��

Cracked - At the end of her life, Ida Hookman must finally face the consequences of her self-obsessed lifestyle and defend her autonomy in the process.��

Emerging Artists Collective presents a new devised work that examines the artist’s place in the city of Toronto.��

Each program is presented three times over playGround’s four-day run. Series A plays Tuesday, Feb. 14 and Wednesday, Feb. 15 at 7:30pm, with a matinee Friday, Feb. 17 at 1pm. Series B has a matinee Wednesday, Feb. 15 at 1pm, and runs Thursday, Feb. 17 and Friday, Feb. 17 at 7:30pm.

Moran and Tubman-Broeren encourage patrons to purchase their tickets in advance, as performances do sell out. Tickets are $7 per show and are available through the 91��ɫ Box Office website or by calling 416-736-5888.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Phillip Silver is set, costume and lighting designer for Soulpepper Theatre’s production of The Price by Arthur Miller, currently in previews and opening tomorrow.

(BA '92) has assembled a diverse team of 91��ɫ talent to bring to life a theatrical, grown-up version of Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. Previews begin tomorrow and opening night is Tuesday at The Theatre Centre.

The Price

This is the second time Silver, theatre professor and former dean of 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Fine Arts, has worked on The Price. The first was��more than��40 years ago at Edmonton’s Citadel Theatre.

Set in the crowded attic of a Manhattan brownstone in the 1960s, this family drama centres on two estranged brothers arranging to sell the contents of their dead father’s house.

��������������Above: Phillip Silver's set model for The Price��

This time around, “my life experience has made me more aware of the currents that run through a family,” said Silver. “I appreciate this work much more in my sixties than I did in my twenties.”

With the set and props for The Price being largely family heirlooms, including some antiques, Silver’s work as designer involved less set building and more shopping. Sourcing items to represent the lifestyle and personalities of the family and evoke their memories in the crowded attic room took him as far as Barrie, Woodstock and Cambridge – as well as to eBay.

That wasn’t the only challenge. Since Soulpepper runs several plays in repertory, the stage needs to be cleared daily, with sets stored to make room for the next show. Silver had to make less seem like more and devise clever ways to pack things away as compactly as possible. For example, a “stack” of chairs under a drop cloth is actually only one chair plus a wooden skeleton that gives the appearance of a number of chairs underneath. An array of smaller items is stacked inside that skeleton when it is moved into storage following each performance.

The Price will run to Oct. 6 at The Young Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto’s Distillery Historic District. For tickets, visit the ��website.

Peter and the Wolf

Above: An illustration for Theatre Rusticle's Peter and the Wolf

For Peter and the Wolf, contract faculty member (BA '90) has assembled ��actors, dancers and an eight-piece chamber orchestra to present a physically robust, poetic and musically stirring re-invention of the children’s classic as part fairy tale and part dream. It is produced by her award-winning company, Theatre Rusticle, and features a cast that includes Professor Emeritus David Smukler, Wesley Connor (MFA ‘09) and��Matthew Romantini (BFA ‘05), dancer Viv Moore (BFA ’90, MA ‘07) and a chorus consisting of theatre students Susannah MacKay and Liam Hanebury, and Jamie Ebbs (BA ‘11). Katy Murphy (BA ‘11) serves as assistant director, former theatre student Renna Reddie is associate producer and Michelle Ramsay (BFA ‘97) designed the lighting.

Peter and the Wolf continues to Sept. 11 at The Theatre Centre, 1087 Queen St. W. For tickets, visit ��online.

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