Theatre artists Ted Witzel and Ker Wells are going about it somewhat differently. They’re the inaugural participants in the 91��ɫ MFA in Theatre – Stage Direction in Collaboration with Canadian Stage, a landmark initiative that’s breaking new ground in Canadian theatre training.

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Launched last fall as a partnership between one of Canada’s preeminent theatre schools and one of the country’s leading not-for-profit contemporary theatre companies, this innovative graduate program offers highly specialized, advanced training in large-scale theatre directing. ��Its mission is to support the development of directorial talent for the national and international stage.

“When directors make their mainstage debut, they often feel they’re getting one kick at the can, and if they fail they’ll never get to do a large production again,” said Professor Eric Armstrong, director of 91��ɫ’s MFA theatre programs. “Here, you get to work with large casts on big shows in a mentored setting – something that just��doesn't��happen in the professional world.”

The collaborative MFA program allows students to develop their creative and technical skills to the highest level, integrating their academic and studio work in 91��ɫ’s Department of Theatre with involvement in artistic projects at . The opportunity to direct a Canadian Stage production and an internship with a major national or international theatre are key elements of the two-year program.

Canadian Stage Artistic and General Director Matthew Jocelyn and��Resident Artist Kim Collier serve as personal mentors for the MFA candidates. ��Collier, co-founder and artistic director of Vancouver’s Electric Company Theatre and winner of the 2010 Siminovitch Prize for directing, works closely with the students to support their professional development.

The program is customized for each student based on their background, artistic orientation and goals, so Wells and Witzel’s experience over the past year and their plans for the next are highly individual.

Wells assisted Collier in her direction of the Canadian Stage production of Red last fall, and served as assistant director to Richard Rose for , Canadian Stage’s 30th anniversary Shakespeare in the Park presentation, running in Toronto’s High Park until September 2.�� This coming season, Witzel will assist Kim Collier on a production for Vancouver's .

On the international front, Wells heads to the Netherlands this fall for an internship with acclaimed director Ivo van Hove at ,��working on a play by Ingmar Bergman. Witzel has an internship lined up with the renowned Canadian-born, Europe-based opera director Robert Carsen��(LLD Hons. '05)��for a production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute at the in Baden-Baden, Germany��in March 2013.

Both MFA candidates bring a wealth of experience to their work at 91��ɫ, at Canadian Stage and abroad.

Active in Toronto’s independent theatre scene for the past five years, Witzel is artistic director of , a company he co-founded in 2006. His directing credits include a number of bold, site-specific adaptations of classics in non-traditional venues such the Gladstone Hotel, Drake Underground, Whippersnapper Gallery and Trinity Bellwoods Park. His most recent productions for Red Light District have been La Ronde, an adaptation of the Arthur Schnitzler play, at the downtown club Wicked, and Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly, Last Summer with the Tennessee Project at the Gibson House Museum in North 91��ɫ. Witzel divides his time between Toronto and Germany, where he has worked as assistant to leading directors such as Johanna Schall and Sebastian Baumgarten.

Wells is an actor, director and teacher who has toured across Canada and in the US, England, Denmark, France, Italy and Serbia. He was a founding member of Primus Theatre in Winnipeg, where he worked for nearly a decade before moving to Toronto and co-founding Number Eleven Theatre in 1998. His productions with Number Eleven include Icaria, The Prague Visitor and The Curious History of Peter Schlemihl. Other credits include The Confessions of Punch and Judy for New 91��ɫ State-based NACL Theatre and solo shows Living Tall for Public Energy, Peterborough and Swimmer (68) for Toronto’s Hopscotch Collective.

91��ɫ’s Graduate Program in Theatre is now accepting applications for the next cycle of the MFA program in Theatre - Stage Direction in Collaboration with Canadian Stage. Two new students will be admitted into the program in September 2013. The�� application deadline is Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2012. Directors with extremely strong individual and interpretive voices and substantial professional experience are invited to apply. Candidates should be committed to developing their artistic and technical skills and have a clear interest in working on a large scale.

For more information, visit��the Theatre -��Stage Direction in Collaboration with Canadian Stage website.

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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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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