Timms Centre for the Arts, University of Alberta
the lower depths by maxim gorky
freely adapted by david kennedy
ualberta.ca/artshows
fresh • inspired • committed
Bridges
catering
Proud to support U of A Studio Theatre’s opening night receptions Enjoy the show ! 780-425-0173 info@bridgescatering.ca bridgescatering.ca
the lower depths by maxim gorky Freely Adapted by David Kennedy
Cast Mikhail...........................................................................................................................................Billy Brown Vassa.........................................................................................................................................Gabby Bernard Natasha............................................................................................................................................Kiana Woo Bobbie................................................................................................................................ Hayley Moorhouse Andrei.................................................................................................................................... Matt Mihilewicz Anna........................................................................................................................................Hillary Warden Natalie........................................................................................................................................... Erin Pettifor Clay....................................................................................................................................... Joel David Taylor The Baron................................................................................................................................Silverius Materi Satine.......................................................................................................................................Alex Cherovsky The Actor...................................................................................................................................... Priya Narine Luka............................................................................................................................................ Connor Suart Creative Team Director................................................................................................................................... David Kennedy Assistant Director....................................................................................................................... Dorian Lang Set and Lighting Designer.................................................................................................... Guido Tondino Costume Designer......................................................................................................................... Sofia Lukie Sound Designer...........................................................................................................................Aaron Macri Set Design Assistant.......................................................................................................................Elise Jason Assistant to the Costume Designer..................................................................................... Bailey Ferchoff Vocal Coach....................................................................................................................... Shannon Blanchet Movement Coach......................................................................................................................... Lin Snelling Fight Director..................................................................................................................... Patrick Howarth* Production Dramaturg....................................................................................................... Lebogang Disele Production Dramaturg............................................................................................Dana Tanner-Kennedy Make-up Consultant................................................................................................................... Elise Seguin Make-up Assistant...................................................................................................................Karlie Christie Stage Management Stage Manager.............................................................................................................................. Jake Blakely Assistant Stage Manager.................................................................................................Kaylie Rennebohm Assistant Stage Manager..........................................................................................................Roxanne CĂ´tĂŠ Faculty Advisors Design Advisor....................................................................................................................... Guido Tondino Stage Management Advisor.................................................................................................. John Raymond
3
Production Team Production Manager......................................................................................................Gerry van Hezewyk Technical Director........................................................................................................................ Larry Clark Assistant Technical Director..................................................................................................Izzy Bergquist Production Administrative Assistant........................................................................... Jonathan Durynek Wardrobe Manager..............................................................................................................Joanna Johnston Cutter................................................................................................................................................ Julie Davie Master Carpenter.................................................................................................................. Darrell Cooksey Scenic Carpenters..............................................................................................................Barbara Hagensen Dan Menard Properties Master............................................................................................................................Jane Kline Properties Assistants.........................................................................................................Tiffany Martineau Jacinda Maxwell Lighting Supervisor......................................................................................................................Jeff Osterlin Head of Lighting........................................................................................................................... Tristan Fair Lighting Technician.............................................................................................................Jacinda Maxwell Sound Supervisor................................................................................................................. Matthew Skopyk Running Crew Crew Chief..................................................................................................................................... Tristan Fair Sound Operator.................................................................................................................. Brayden Saunders *The participation of these artists are arranged by permission of Canadian Actors’ Equity Association under the provisions of the Dance Opera Theatre policy.
4
Contents 5 Studio Theatre Mandate • 6 Dramaturgical Notes 11 Doll House Photos • 12 Upcoming Shows 13 Admin, Production, Front of House & Volunteers • 14 Donors
U of A Studio Theatre Mandate • To provide sterling training and
educational opportunities for BFA acting, technical theatre and stage management students, and MFA design, directing and MA dramaturgy students
• To provide research / creative activity
• To provide opportunities for connections
with departments across campus through the choice of plays which have cultural, literary and historical significance
• To provide opportunities for the
community at large to engage with the Department of Drama through guest artist collaboration and attendance as audience members
opportunities for the Department of Drama’s faculty directors and designers
2017 — 2018
season
World Premiere
NORTHERN LIGHT THEATRE IN CO-PRODUCTION WITH L’UNITHÉÂTRE PRESENT
DO THIS IN MEMORY OF ME / EN MEMOIRE DE MOI BY CAT WALSH
WITH FRENCH TRANSLATION BY MANON BEAUDOIN
MAR 13–MAR 25
7:30pm Nightly | 2:00pm Sunday Matinée P R E V I E W M A R 1 3 : Pay what you can and FREE for students with valid student I.D. Performances alternate between English and French. Full schedule on our website.
LA CITÉ FRANCOPHONE 8627 - 91 STREET TICKETS: $25 Student/Senior, $30 Adults, $20 Sunday Matinee. Prices do not include GST. Mid-season subscriptions are still available. Please call Northern Light Theatre at 780-471-1586 or visit www.northernlighttheatre.com
Dramaturgical notes compiled by Lebogang Disele, Max Rubin, and Dana Tanner-Kennedy
“Thus set in for me a rapid current of intense, confusing, astonishing life. It all strikes me now like a raw tale, narrated by a good-hearted, but painfully truthful, genius. From this space of time, as I go back to it, I find I strain to believe that such things actually took place. My impulse is to dispute and disown the reality—such dull savagery on the part of one’s own tribe is too wounding to acknowledge. But truth outweighs pity. Besides, this is no mere autobiographical passage; it is a picture of the stifling, pent-in atmosphere in which the ordinary Russian lived—indeed, lives to this day.” From The Autobiography of Maxim Gorky
Maxim P. Dmitriev’s 1897 photograph of tramps in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia— Gorky’s hometown.
Squatters occupying an empty luxury office building in London to protest the lack of affordable housing options for tenants priced-out of the rental market. This image served as initial inspiration for our contemporary adaptation of Gorky’s play. Photo by Martin Godwin for the Guardian.
The following images served as further points of departure for this adaptation of The Lower Depths. Considered a masterwork of Russian social realism, Gorky’s 1902 play depicts the lives of alcoholics, prostitutes, thieves, and homeless men and women living together in a shelter. To update Gorky’s world, we’ve added contemporary addictions and political movements, abandoned commercial spaces, and the economic pressures and detritus of a post-digital revolution. Together with inspiration and text from Charles L. Mee’s Time to Burn—Mee’s 1997 take on Gorky’s play, which he invites other playwrights to pillage and use as their own—we’ve returned to the Depths, where over a century after its writing, we still traffic in the same illusions and fantasies which forever serve as a bulwark against the winter of our discontent.
6
Young man injecting heroin.
Sex worker.
Graffiti in an alley off Hastings Street in Vancouver, the epicenter of Canada’s opioid crisis. Mural by artist Smokey D.
Image from 2017 documentary by SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement depicting how activists in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside responded to the arrival of fentanyl. Film by Am Johal and Eric Sanderson.
7
Dramaturgical notes continued
8
As part of the anti-consumerist “freegan� lifestyle, participants salvage discarded, unspoiled food from supermarket dumpsters.
A freegan meal in the UK.
An automated sorting area at a distribution centre in England. Photo by Dan Kitwood/ Getty Images.
Mountain of e-waste in China.
A desolate strip mall.
The Iffley Open House project provided space for homeless people until they were evicted to create new housing for Oxford students.
A shuttered Target Canada store.
An abandoned Sears.
9
Dramaturgical notes continued
The Lower Depths By the Numbers OPIOiDS in CANADA AND THE US There were 2,861 apparent opioid-related deaths in Canada in 2016. Drug overdoses killed more people in the US in 2015 than HIV/AIDS at its 1995 peak. More Americans died of drug overdoses in 2016 than died in the entirety of the Vietnam War.
AUTOMATION In the next 10 to 15 years, between 1.5 million to 7.5 million jobs in Canada could be lost to automation, affecting even lawyers, doctors and engineers.
20 to 50 million metric tons of e-waste are disposed worldwide every year. The weight of e-waste in 2016 was equivalent to about 4,500 Eiffel Towers. The estimated value of recoverable materials in 2016’s e-waste was $81.7 billion, which is more than the 2016 Gross Domestic Product of most countries in the world.
FOOD WASTE Roughly one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year - approximately 1.3 billion tons — gets lost or wasted.
RETAIL APOCALYPSE
The food wasted by the United States and Europe alone could feed the world 3 times over.
The retail industry is the single largest jobs category in the country, employing 1.96 million people in 2016, according to Statistics Canada.
In Canada, $31 billion worth of food ends up in landfills or composters each year. 850,000 Canadians use food banks every month.
Target’s closure two years ago left nearly 18,000 low-income Canadian workers without jobs. Hudson’s Bay Co. will reportedly cut 2,000 jobs by 2018. In April, the number of 2017 bankruptcies in the US had already equaled the bankruptcy total in all of 2016.
10
E-WASTE
doll house photos by Ed Ellis
Studio Theatre, Nov. 30 - Dec. 9, 2017
11
Upcoming Shows: The School for Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
March 29-April 7 at 7:30 pm
Exit the King
by Eugene Ionesco
Translation by Neil Armfield and Geoffrey Rush
May 17 - 26 at 7:30 pm uab.ca/shows
WE’LL WALK YOU HOME.
SEPT/OCT: MON - FRI:
7PM - 12:45AM SUNDAYS: 7PM - 10:45PM
NOV/DEC: MON
- FRI: 6PM - 12:45AM 6PM - 10:45PM
SUNDAYS:
780-4-WALK-ME www.safewalk.ca
12
Administrative Staff
Production Staff
Kathleen Weiss Chair, Department of Drama Julie Brown Assistant Chair, Administration David Prestley Theatre Administrator / Events Coordinator Liz Ludwig Graduate Advisor / Executive Assistant Connie Golden Undergraduate Advisor Helen Baggaley Office Coordinator Jonathan Durynek Box Office Coordinator
Gerry Van Hezewyk Production Manager Larry Clark Technical Director, Timms Centre Matthew Skopyk Sound Supervisor Jeff Osterlin Lighting Supervisor Don MacKenzie Technical Director, Studios Darrell Cooksey Master Carpenter Jane Kline Properties Master Joanna Johnston Wardrobe Manager Karen Kucher FAB Costumer Julie Davie Cutter Jonathan Durynek Production Administrative Assistant
With assistance from Faculty of Arts staff: TJ Jans Fine Arts Communications Lead Erik Einsiedel Communications Associate
Front of House Bonita Akai, Danielle Dugan, Terri Gingras, Julianna Hunt, Konstantine Kurelias, Laura Norton, Ian Ross. Barb Samoil-Selk, Candice Stollery, Jake Tkaczyk
Volunteers Katie Austin, Bernard Bannach, Debbie Beaver, Susan Box, Hridya Chaudhary, Joan Damkjar, Victoria deJong, Jonathan Durynek, Tristan Fair, Thom Friesen, Duncan Gillespie, Pooja Happy, Mary Ingraham, Randa Kachkar, Don Lavigne, Kevin Liang, Sareeta Lopez, Jair Lugo, Tom and Gillian McGovern, Marlene Maylj, Jennifer Morely, Christina Nguyen, Alice Petruk, David Prestley, Amir Shah, Gerri Slanley, Levon Vokins, Jaime Whiting
13
Donors Heartfelt thanks to the individuals, foundations and organizations listed below for recognizing the importance of the arts by directly investing in the Department of Drama’s innovation and leadership in theatre training and performance. A round of applause to our supporters!
Baha & Sharon Abu-Laban Geoffrey & Janet Allcock Vera Apletree Robert & Linda Ascah Diana M. Bacon Doug & Annalisa Baer Barbara Baer Pillay William & Carole Barton Lindsay D. Bell William & Kathleen Betteridge Julia Boberg Richard Bowes Leon B. Boychuk-Hunter Janita Broersma-Zylstra Adolf & Kathleen Buse Nancy Cheng Rachel Christopher Brent Christopherson Douglas Cole Jill Concannon Andrew Ede & Lesley Cormack Jim & Sheila Edwards Family Fund at the Edmonton Community Foundation Kevin & Lorna Crockett Ellen Daniel Richard & Karen Davies Brian J. Deedrick Robert Desmarais Ian Dymock & Dorothy Fabijan Jim & Joan Eliuk Leonard & Jackie Evenson
Jennifer Ezekowitz Lyle Trytten & Elizabeth Fair Richard Leaker & Sandra Foy Mike & Anne Giles Derek & Mary Griffiths Kelly Handerek Bohdan & Elaine Harasymiw Royle Harris, Senator Emeritus Christopher R. Head Stephen Heatley Elizabeth K. Hobbs John & Brenda Inglis Pavel & Sylva Jelen David W. Johnston Joan Johnston Margaret Keene Robert Longworth & Linda Crawford Isobel Mailloux Amin Malak Lawrence & Nicole Mallet John & Peggy Marko Gordon & Norma McIntosh Rod & Heleen McLeod Larry Prochner & Barbara McPherson Mark & Roma Minenko Drs Roderick & June Morgan Peter & Elaine Mueller Steven Nicely Ruth Nishioka Audrey O'Brien
Terrance Rowswell-O'Connor Award Fund at the Edmonton Community Foundation Jack & Esther Ondrack Judy and Tom Peacocke Joseph Piccolo & Julie Brown Ronald W. Pollock Charles Roberts James & Judith Robinson Bente Roed Valerie Sarty Alan & Ramona Sather J Marilyn Scott Alison Scott-Prelorentzos Linda N. Seale Albin J.E. Shanley Solberg & Shirley Sigurdson Betty Lou Sloan Dale & Daryl Springer Brian Taylor & Ms Dorothy Haug Thomas Usher Margaret Van Dyke Henriette Van Hees Sonia Varela Alan & Lorraine Welch James Wetterberg Lorris & Mary Williams Susan S. Wong Jerry & Debbie Yee Diane E. Zinyk Various Anonymous Donors
This list includes those who donated to various Drama funds from January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2017. Apologies for inadvertent omissions or errors. Contact 780-492-2271 for corrections.
14
WHAT’S ON at UALBERTA? 2017/18
Special Flex Pass Ticket Offer: 3 Student tickets for only $30!
at the t i m m s c e n t r e for the a r t s
The School For Scandal
Exit The King
Mar 29 - Apr 7
May 17 – 26
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
by Eugene Ionesco
Masterworks for Piano University of Alberta | Department of Music
2017/18
Convocation Hall
March 4, 2018 @ 3 pm Faculty Composers: Echo of Nothing Timms Centre
March 9, 2018 @ 7:30 pm
John Williams Celebration: Music from the Movies and More Winspear Centre
March 20, 2018 @ 7:30 pm See uab.ca/shows for full concert lineup.
Becky Thera: lacuna Madeline Mackay: Not Yet Earth Admission to FAB Gallery is always free!
Feb 20 - Mar 17 Opening Reception: Thursday, Mar 1 from 7 - 10 PM See uab.ca/shows for full gallery exhibition list.
For tickets and details on all Fine Arts events: uab.ca/shows