Opening Night! Hope to See You All There!

Two great new works open on our deck tonight The Ugly Spot, by Lisa Lorentz-Gilroy and Exposure by Stephen Allred, Bethany Hughes and Jessie McPhee. Walterdale is pleased to have a continued investment in the development of new work.  

Meet Lisa Gilroy (Lorentz) - Playwright, The Ugly Spot, From Cradle to Stage 2013

I wrote my first play, Sitter, for the New Works Festival at the University of Alberta in 2011; it was short and goofy and I adored the process of watching it come to life. The following year, I wrote another play, Walter Alone, for the same festival and that’s when I came to the realization that writing plays and watching them hit the stage was more fun than eating marshmallows and peanut butter. So I promptly replaced one hobby for another. Just kidding, I would never give up marshmallows and peanut butter.
            When I heard that Cradle to the Stage was accepting play submissions, it was already the day before the deadline. At first, I resigned to submit something for the following year but excitement got the better of me. Before I knew it, I had canceled my date with myself to practice the moonwalk and was sitting at my computer writing a story that, I realized, had wanted to come out for a quite some time. Thus, The Ugly Spot was born.
            During the process, I had the great fortune and privilege to work with a passionate and talented writer, actor, teacher, director and dramaturge who I like to call Brian Dooley. You can call him that too, because that’s his name. It’s no exaggeration to say that Brian revolutionized the way I look at theatre and writing; he asked me hard questions about my work and pushed me to challenge myself and challenge my writing. Since September, The Ugly Spot has shape-shifted more times than that blue lady from X-Men and it’s been a great learning experience for myself as a new writer. The finished product is a short piece on life, death, and forgiveness and I hope that you’ll enjoy it.

Announcing the Selected Plays for From Cradle to Stage 2012-2013

Every year Walterdale takes one of it's performance slots in the season to develop new works by local playwrights.  Over the years we have developed the program so that we provide professional dramaturgy for the development of the submitted work.  This year, we were blessed and challenged by the work that we received this year as we saw a very high caliber of work from 15 submitters (17 scripts) which made our selection process all the more difficult.

The Jury narrowed that pool of scripts down to the following five for the dramaturges to select the finalists from (in no particular order):

Secrets by Jacqueline Dumas

Downturn by Cody Porter

The Ugly Spot by Lisa Lorentz

Wolfman Crossing by David Haas

Exposure by Stephen Allred, Bethany Hughes and Jessie McPhee

From those 5 scripts the successful pieces that we will be

producing on our stage this year will be:

The Ugly Spot by Lisa Lorentz

Dramaturge: Brian Dooley

Lisa Lorentz is a new playwright and student at the University of Alberta in her final year of the Ba/Bed combined degree program. She enjoys both acting and playwrighting within the community and is excited to have had two of her most recent plays showcased in the University’s New Works Festival.

Exposure by Stephen Allred, Bethany Hughes and Jessie McPhee

Dramaturge: Tracy Carroll

Jessie McPhee collectively created Subterranean (2011) with his long time improv troupe DotDotDot for the Next Fest Festival in Edmonton and has also collectively created two shows with Break the Wall Theatre, Excuse Me… This is the Truth! (2008) and TrueLife (2011), for both the Edmonton and Winnipeg International Fringe Festivals.

Stephen Allred has found his home on stage ever since he was first cast as Ichabod Crane in his grade 7 production of Sleepy Hallow. Since then he has appeared in such shows as Fiddler on the Roof, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, The Drowsy Chaperone, and Forever Plaid.
Bethany Hughes - An Edmonton local, this girl is known for her relationship with Peanut Butter. She has worked around Edmonton on various projects and is hoping to get involved drama therapy. She has worked with youth at the Art Start Program for the past 4 years. Bethany graduated with her BA in psychology and drama.