September Newsletter - 2020-21 Season
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WHAT IS HAPPENING THIS SEASON?
Be it from our desks, our homes or somewhere in between, the Axis staff has been focused on our purpose - education and entertainment - and that focus has been driving us forward to continue creating work for our community. It’s that exact community - and audiences - that deserve our deepest thanks: for the support, understanding and patience shown to us since the beginning of the pandemic. When the reality of COVID-19 hit, the rest of our 2019-20 season became ‘but a dream’. Scrambling through uncertainty, we have landed in our 2020-21 season with new ambitions and risk-taking ventures; drastic shifts that will ask a lot of our staff, artists and audiences. We’re up for it and hope you can join us.
This new season still holds us up to high standards of creativity. There is a growing trend to shift theatre online and our resistance is futile! In our own fashion (yes, a fashion with which we are totally experimenting), Axis will rehearse, direct and produce three online readings of new works written by young people. We held a competition called YOUNGPlays, selected three submissions, gave them some cash and will now take on the responsibility of light dramaturgy and a production online. The readings will feature local talent and be directed by Axis’ Artistic Director, Chris McGregor and Axis’ Artistic Associate, Cassandra Bourchier. Pull out your phone (if you aren’t reading this on there) and follow us on our social media channels, so you can be sure to have all the updates for when the readings will be streamed online!
In June of this year, the Kwantlen First Nations tale, TH’OWXIYA: THE HUNGRY FEAST DISH received two Jessie Richardson Theatre awards; Outstanding Production and Outstanding Stage Manager. We are so honoured to have had a remarkable team for this play - it gets better every time! - and we owe deep thanks to Jillian Perry for her steadfast stage management on this tour and so many of our other shows. This was the first tour stopped short by the global shut-down, a huge disappointment for cast and crew, who were so looking forward to bringing this Stó:lō story to the Maritimes and Ontario. It wasn’t to be, although, the set and touring van received an all-expense paid roundtrip ‘cross Canada tour by rail and truck. The persistent demand for this production has inspired us to create a new video version of the show for educators to share with their students online. We will perform and film the play in a longhouse on the Kwantlen territory, near Fort Langley, BC, and with the added history of these peoples, narrated by the playwright Joseph A. Dandurand, we intend to create something truly unique for our audiences.
We hold on to the hope that all touring this season is not lost with a tentative schedule to send our play SOMEBODY LOVES YOU, MR.HATCH to the East Coast and into the United States in 2021. This play is about community and love; could anything be more fitting for what our world is currently going through? Can the show be performed with masks? We’re going to find out!
Then there is WILLOWBRIDGE, a script created in collaboration with 23 drama students from Cariboo Hill Secondary in Burnaby. Yes, it’s true, those students didn’t see the fully ripened fruit of their labour when schools were closed in March 2020 at the height of their full-production rehearsals. Nevertheless, Axis Theatre has been dedicated to having this work produced on stage and thankfully a Vancouver high school, Lord Byng Secondary, has stepped up to the plate to take on this powerful project. The original creators, many of whom have graduated high school, will finally get to see the culmination of all their hard work come to life on stage.
Our priority for this season is to go full throttle into development and workshops. Strap in folks, there are brand new plays in the works for when theatre gets back up and running! We have the time and are taking full advantage of it. Instead of one new show we are working on three: CRY, HEART, BUT NEVER BREAK, FROG BELLY RAT BONE, and WHERE HAVE ALL THE BUFFALO GONE?. Ambitious maybe, but we are a dedicated and creative team. It’s exciting and nerve racking and expensive; we’re ready. It’s GO time! There will be live readings of all these projects and we cannot wait to share them with you.
We miss the face-to-face and are eager to stay connected this season - at a distance. So, look to our website blog and all social media outlets for updates on upcoming works, and to show us your support!
With deepest gratitude,
Chris McGregor - Artistic Distractor
Daune Campbell - General Mangler
Petrice Brett - Tour Mourner & Safety Clown
Cassandra Bourchier - Intern Extraordin-hairy from quarantine
MORE NEWS - IN DEVELOPMENT
Adapted by Axis Theatre in partnership with Mortal Coil Performance, the Glenn Ringtved storybook comes to life on stage! This heartwarming tale teaches lessons of loss and how to move on when someone we love leaves us.
A new work written by emerging Métis playwright, Tai Grauman.
A new adaptation by Axis' AD Chris McGregor based on the storybook by Timothy B. Ering.
