Join Us for a Playwriting Workshop - Part of From Cradle to Stage 2013

The Nuts & Bolts of Playwriting – An APN Workshop

Sunday, May 26th

10:00 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.

(Lunch provided)

Walterdale Theatre – Glenfield Rehearsal Hall

Facilitator: Tracy Carroll

By creating mini-production companies with participants, we’ll look at some of the building blocks of developing a new play from the writing, acting and directing point of view.

A fun, hands-on session for all participants of the From Cradle to Stage Festival and members of Walterdale Theatre.

This workshop is free to all Walterdale Members, contact Sarah Van Tassel at walterdalead53@gmail.com to reserve a spot.  Space is limited.

Important Announcement from the Board - Regarding Signage on Our Building

Have you ever sat in The Next Act and glanced over at Walterdale? We certainly have a beautiful building, situated in a most desirable location.  What is missing, however, is anything prominent announcing that there is theatre going on inside this historic fire hall.  Many of you may remember the old cement sign that used to be on the sidewalk in front of the building.  This disappeared years ago – I presume to upgrade the sidewalks.  Since then, we have only had the marquee to signify our presence but it often gets overlooked when crowds are on the sidewalk and it is not very visible when driving past.

Over December, we had a false fire alarm and 6 fire trucks arrived at our theatre; we were told in no uncertain terms that they had difficulty finding us due to lack of signage and confusion about our name on their registry. This prompted the Board to look at our building from an outside perspective and think about the need to advertise our theatre and to become a more prominent feature of Old Strathcona and in Edmonton's theatre community.  We know who we are, but does anyone else?

The Board had a professional sign company design several signs for the front and West side of the building.  In May, a final design was chosen and we would like to share this with the membership at two informal sessions – Saturday, May 11 from 4pm-5pm and Sunday May 12 from 3pm-4pm upstairs in the Glenfield Rehearsal Hall. We have had to work with the Heritage City Planners on the sign design and installation and this design has met with their approval as well as our landlord – The City of Edmonton.

Over the past 55 years,Walterdale has called itself both orally and in print:  Walterdale Playhouse, Walterdale Theatre and simply Walterdale. The fire registry has us listed as Walterdale Theatre and our registered legal title is Walterdale Theatre Associates.  In an effort to keep all of our information consistent with our legal name and to remain theatrically current and easy to find in electronic media, the Board would like to have the signs say:  Walterdale Theatre.  We have fielded this idea to a few of our long-time members who have all thought this was an excellent idea; in fact, long overdue.  The Board hopes that the greater membership will agree with this proposed name affirmation and invites you to come to either Saturday the 11th at 4 pm or Sunday the 12th at 3pm to look at the designs.  If all goes well, the signs should be up for the Fringe Festival and one will not help but see Walterdale Theatre behind every busker, every food vendor, and every shot of the Fringe on the news and in papers and magazines.

If you cannot join us on these two dates, please feel free to contact me at walterdalepres@gmail.com or Sarah Van Tassel at walterdalead53@gmail.com, or leave us a message at the theatre and we will make every effort to show you the designs and hear your thoughts at a more convenient time.

Thank you for your consideration.

Clare Mullen
President
Walterdale Theatre Associates

Meet Sarah Culkin - Anna in Exposure at From Cradle to Stage 2013

What is your role in this production? I play Anna in Exposure. She's a young mother who's recently been through a lot, so she's come to a sort of psychiatric workshop/recovery centre, where she meets Will and Eric.

What brought you to Walterdale? I was interested in the one-acts at the Walterdale because the productions are locally written, and it's a cool experience to work on something from square one. Watch the lil' baby grow!

What is your background in theatre? Theatre has been a big thing for me since elementary school. I've acted, directed, costumed a whole show and even written a play through the drama departments at my old schools. From there I've done children's theatre, clown and play readings, as well. I read a part in Magpies, which had a staged reading in Walterdale's one act festival last year, and right now I'm rehearsing for another locally written piece that goes up in July. Basically, I've taken every opportunity that's come my way, so I spend a lot of time not sleeping.

What has been your biggest challenge during this process? It can be tough understanding a character when you have no reference points, you know? You can't say "Oh yeah this is how she's normally played," because no one's been there before. But that's also the fun part, growing the character on your own.

Both plays this year deal with people being connected but not knowing they are connected, has anything like that ever happened to you? This is going to sound so teenage girl, but I accidentally met one of my friends through a blogging site. We would talk almost every day about our lives and our friends and oh you know also boys and at one point I realized I knew literally everyone she was talking about. It was so weird. Out of ALL the people on the website, we had started talking to each other and WE LIVED IN THE SAME CITY.

Celebrate our APN - Walterdale Partnership by hearing a few new plays

EDMONTON PLAYWRIGHTS’ CIRCLE READINGS

May 6, 2013 7:30PM

Walterdale Theatre Admission by donation

An evening of readings of segments from brand-new plays written by the participants of our 2013 Playwrights’ Circle, facilitated by Conni Massing. 

Always an entertaining evening, please join us in helping these writers take their plays from page to stage for the first time.

The Writers:

Liane Faulder

Alexis Hillier

Gilbert da Silva

The Acting Ensemble:

Amber Bissonnette

Julie Golosky

Richard Lee

Michael Peng

Hope to see you all there!

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For more information about any of our programs, please go to our website at:

www.albertaplaywrights.com

Introducing Sam Banigan - Will in Exposure (From Cradle to Stage 2013)

What is your role in this production? I am playing the part of Will in Exposure, he is agoraphobic, but in the end he just wants to be normal again.

Why did you audition for this show? I really wanted to try and get out of the school environment and career track I was on and I thought that this could be a good place to start.

What is your background in theatre? I grew up with 2 very artistic parents and it just kinda became my life. Grade 5 was my first play that I ever did, and then I've been in one or more every year since then, Most recently I have performed in Neil Labute's A Second Of Pleasure at my school's Playworks festival.

What has been the biggest challenge for you? The biggest challenge I have had is working with new people, I have only ever worked with people I knew from class so just entering this new world was difficult. The most gratifying? The most gratifying part of this is that no one can say that they've seen someone else play this character before and I can literally start from the bottom and go up, create a completely original character not inspired by any other production.

Both plays deal with hidden connections that people have.  Have you ever had a situation where you discovered you were connected to someone in a weird and unpredictable way? I guess I have had a couple moments, for instance, last year in my math class I met a guy named Chase and I thought he was like alright guy maybe a little douchey but then I found out that he was an actor as well and we were in our school's production of The Odyssey. Now, I consider him to be one of my best friends. Another weird one was when I was at Artstrek in 2009 I met Greg Dowler-Coltman and just 2 years ago he auditioned me for the Advanced Drama 10 class at Vic and he is now my Directing teacher and will be again next year as well as my Advanced Acting teacher.

Spotlight on Christopher Nash - Sound Designer for Burning Vision

What is your role on this production? I'm the Sound Designer, so I came up with the long list of sound cues for the show.  Many of the sounds are made from scratch.  I even got my inner Hank Williams on to sing I Saw the Light.

What drew you to Burning Vision as a project to work on? I'm a musician and songwriter (I post my stuff to topher.ca), and when my friend Sarah was going to direct Burning Vision, she contacted me to see if I would be interested in giving sound design a try. It was an excellent way to stretch myself and learn something new.

What is your background in theatre? I was in a couple of musicals as a child growing up in Wainwright. In university I was the on-stage music director for summer musical revues in Lethbridge. I have no recent experience in sound design - I'm pretty much a newbie. The only background I have with Walterdale is that I travelled to Japan with its former artistic director Sam Varteniuk.

Burning Vision deals with Canadian History that is not well known, but which has had a long lasting impact on many people environmentally and culturally. What has working on this show made you think about with regards to our impact on the environment and people's cultures? My background is Japanese-Canadian, so the Second World War and the atomic bomb and Hiroshima and internment camps are all very much a part of my personal history. So that impact of the play was obvious to me going in. The surprise was the aspect of how Canada mined the uranium for the bomb. I had never heard of that before. It makes me think of our involvement in the war in a whole new way.

What has been the biggest challenge of working on this show? The most enjoyable aspect?  Being new to everything was a little scary. Learning the sound cue software took some getting used to. The sheer volume of the number of sound cues was a bit of a challenge. But the most enjoyable aspect was working with the great production team and crew to cobble together a show that was hard to do, but comes off as very impressive. That, and making the sound of a bomb that scares the shit out of everyone was pretty damn satisfying, too!

Spotlight on Yvonne Trethart - Costume, Make-up and Hair Designer for Burning Vision

What is your role on this production?  I am the costume, makeup and hair/wig designer. I am in charge of designing the whole aspect of costumes for the show. I do renderings of my vision for what the costumes, the makeup and the hair will be. I also add a photo collage as reference. After discussing it with the director, I then set a building schedule in which I help with construction and answer any questions pertaining to costumes. Also, I buy costume pieces for the show as well as any needed makeup and wigs. I solve any problems that arise during the dress rehearsals. I make sure that every costume is fully finished and have them ready in time for opening night.

What drew you to this production?  I like the idea of the play being a historical piece. I get to do lots of research about the time and learn why they wore clothing they did. Then I make that moment in time come alive on stage with the costumes.

What is your background in theatre? I started in Santa Barbara, California, taking lots of theatre classes and volunteering to be head of wardrobe for shows. Slowly but surely, every show I worked in taught me a little bit more about costumes than the classes could teach like makeup tricks, caring for wigs, doing fast changes and rigging costumes to fit the blocking. Soon enough, I was designing costumes for shows and getting recognition for my work. After graduating with three Theatre Arts degrees, I came to see my husband’s hometown and began to look for theatre here. I was drawn to a costume building workshop that Geri Dittrich was hosting at Walterdale. I asked how I could volunteer at this theatre and right away I started helping to build costumes for some shows.

What have you learned from working on this particular show? It is sad for me to see how the indigenous people were treated and currently are treated here and in my country. With such rich cultures struggling to survive, one assumes that everyone is doing what they can to preserve them, just like when they have historical findings. However, they still use cultures’ ignorance in order to deteriorate it. I guess the damage caused in hardly noticed until it has happened and then we look back on it. 

What were your biggest challenges on this show?  The most enjoyable aspect?  One of my biggest challenges was beading and building the hide jacket. I had not built anything with real leather before and I found that beading is really time consuming. What I enjoyed from working in this show was working with a bunch of great crew and actors and seeing the whole show coming together.

Check out Burning Vision and Yvonne's wonderful designs onstage now at Walterdale (show runs to April 20th).