Seventeenth annual Directors’ Festival attracts larger audience than ever before
Boasting two stages, four visiting schools, 23 UFV directors, and the opportunity to see somewhere in the neighbourhood of 50 plays over the course of five days, it’s safe to say that the 17th annual UFV Directors’ theatre festival was a rousing success.
Directors’ Festival Review: The Field
Overall, the setting and the strong characterization blend together to set the audience firmly in the scene – and as we learn the high stakes of the situation, we gain the same desperation as the two soldiers as we hope beyond hope that the ending is not inevitable.
Directors’ Festival Review: Speak Now
This show is the quintessential short and sweet piece – the audience can kind of see from the very beginning where it might be going, but with a length of 15 minutes, we don’t mind being led there.
Directors’ Festival Review: Last Will and Testament
This kind of show is pretty much exactly why Dfest exists – to give small, intimate, and straight-up weird shows a place to play. As UBC Okanagan’s first contribution to Dfest, it’s prime example of experimentation, creativity at its finest, and what that combination can evolve into.
Directors’ Festival Review: Stiff Cuts
Apparently it’s Dominique Elstak’s first time onstage, but she and the entire cast shine in their roles.
Directors’ Festival Review: Mail-order Annie
Kirkley’s inflection is oddly like that of Stuart McLean – and once you hear it, you can’t not hear it. This lends itself to the insistent Canadian theme.
Directors’ Festival Review: One for the Road
J.D. Dueckman, as Nicholas, could own the show through pure volume of lines alone but also delivers the goods, capturing the character perfectly; he is eloquent, confident, comfortable, and a little bit crazy.
Directors’ Festival Review: Ready to Start
Ali Shewan both wrote and stars in this one-woman show as Abby, a young woman entering adulthood and struggling with her mother’s bipolar disorder.
Curtains open on UFV’s 17th Annual Directors’ Theatre Festival
Boasting two stages, four visiting schools, 23 UFV directors, and the opportunity to see 42 plays over the course of five days, UFV’s theatre department proudly presents the 17th Annual Directors’ Theatre Festival.
The Cascade’s coverage of the 17th Annual Directors’ Theatre Festival
Watch this space for further coverage and reviews of the festival to be added in the days to come.
Theatre Review: Gallery 7’s The Importance of Being Earnest
Gallery 7’s production at MEI of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest is performed beautifully.
Theatre Review: UFV’s As You Like It
There is something innately funny about people posing as members of the opposite gender, a universal truth that is heavily exploited in the UFV Theatre Department’s latest production of Shakespeare’s As You Like It.
As You Like It: UFV’s upcoming production promises you will
This spring’s Shakespearian production As You Like It plays from March 7-25 at the Chilliwack campus theatre.
Theatre Review: Dead Man’s Cell Phone
Well performed—at times brilliantly performed—and mildly amusing, Dead Man’s Cell Phone is not a bad way to spend an afternoon. More importantly, it’s a great way to support your fellow students.
Theatre Review: Arabian Nights
Director Heather Robertson presents a production full of colour, music, laughter, sadness, desperation, enchantment and redemption. The play is centered on the fate of its main characters, but the audience is presented with a truly remarkable ensemble effort by the entire cast.
Arabian Nights promises a spectacle you won’t want to miss
The first production of UFV Theatre’s new season of productions is Arabian Nights, which premieres November 11 at 7:30.
Theatre Review: Witness for the Prosecution
The Chilliwack Players Guild has created a fun production and the cast and crew provide a good night’s entertainment suitable for audiences of all ages. The play has three acts and lasts two hours and 45 minutes, including a 15 minute intermission. The play’s run concludes this week with performances at 7:30 p.m. on October 19, 20, 21 and 22.
TheatreSports Hits Town
TheatreSports, the Vancouver Improv League, is back in town – and they’re coming to UFV. This Friday the TheatreSports crew will be at the Chilliwack campus for both a workshop and an improv show.
UFV Coup d’Etat: by students for students
The brilliant and fresh UFV student group Coup d’ Ètat competed in the Fraser Valley Zone festival this past May. Their production of Dog Sees God was rather successful: Joshua Wilson won Best Emerging Director – Adjudicator‘s Choice; Haley Smith received an award for Best Graphic Design; and the group received an award for Best Backstage Cooperation.
A Madcap Night with Misty Hill!
Misty Hill Automaton! The Musical! is a cutting-edge creation of two Fraser Valley artists, Steve Martens and Ray de Kroon. Work on Misty Hill began back in 2004, as Martens a former UFV student and singer-songwriter began writing music for the play. de Kroon, a slam poet, freelance writer, and recent UFV graduate, began writing the script for Misty Hill a few years later after connecting with Martens through UFV’s English department head, John Carroll.
Writer’s Apology: “UFV Theatre Department Steals from Students”
To those affected by my article, I deeply regret the hurt and anger I have caused UFV, the Theatre Department and students. I am accountable for making sure my facts are 100 per cent accurate, and it is to my great shame and embarrassment that I so misrepresented UFV Theatre. I also sincerely apologize for [...]
Theatre Review: The Tempest
Generally Shakespeare is not for the faint of heart. With its perplexing archaisms and early 17th century humor, a perusal through a Shakespeare play often arouses only bewildered incomprehension in the modern reader (myself included). Therefore it provides a unique challenge to the director and cast willing to produce it, a challenge which the UFV Theatre program has decided to meet head-on.
Theatre review: Gallery 7 presents Tuesdays with Morrie
“I used to be Agnostic, but now I’m not sure” says the eponymous Morrie Schwartz. Tuesdays with Morrie was originally a book written on the true events of Mitch Albom and his professor Morrie Schwartz. Mitch was a student of Schwartz’s in the seventies where they were very close. Morrie would often call Schwartz “coach” because, “everyone needs a coach”. Albom left university and lost touch with Schwartz, only to reconnect with him sixteen years later when he learns that his mentor has been diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ASL) or Lou Gehrig’s disease. After a heartfelt talk, Albom promises to visit every Tuesday until he passes away.
Theatre Review: Girl in the Goldfish Bowl
For the first time in my life, I actually walked away with a glow from a UFV play – that’s right, I said “glow.” I can see why Canadian playwright Morris Panych won a Governor General’s Award for Girl in the Goldfish Bowl in 2004; the play, though set in a memory of 1962, is still very much designed to be meaningful to the twenty-first century audience. Girl in the Goldfish Bowl takes a humorous yet sad and touching look at the struggles of the post-modern family and, by extension, North American society. Without fear, the play tackles head on issues of sex, alcohol, drugs, gender, childhood, marriage, and religion, through the experiences of a little girl who believes that her goldfish has been reincarnated to save her family.
