By Amy Van Veen (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: July 17, 2013
Colleen Plenert is a UFV student whose direction of the play The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon found roaring success at this past spring’s Annual UFV Directors’ Festival. As a result, her one act production got picked up for this year’s 35th Annual Harrison Festival of the Arts.
How did The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon do at the Harrison Festival of the Arts? Was it a good turn-out for you?
It was a lot of fun doing the Harrison Festival! Performing a show in a new space always presents its own challenges, but this show transitioned fairly smoothly. The nature of D-Fest forces you to keep your lighting, sound, and set fairly simple; something that came in handy while moving the show to a new location. The cast performed to a sold-out audience and from the sound of things, everyone enjoyed themselves.
How did you find it differed from showing it at D-Fest?
One of the major differences between Harrison Festival and D-Fest was the type of space we performed in. At D-Fest, we were in the theatre at UFV, which is a thrust stage [audience on three sides]. At Harrison, the Memorial Hall is set up as a proscenium stage [audience on one side]. That meant we had to adjust all the blocking for the show to accommodate the different angles as well as different entrances and exits. However, my cast was so talented that the changes were pretty seamless.
I’m so appreciative that Harrison provides this opportunity for young (and somewhat inexperienced) directors to remount a show, fix anything that maybe you weren’t quite satisfied with during the first run, and do a show you love again.
It sounds like you guys had a good time. Are you working on any other projects at the moment?
Yes, I’m acting in a play called Two Rooms by Lee Blessing. It’s the inaugural production of Working Title Faction. I play a character named Lainie. My husband, Michael (played by Derek Ward-Hall), has been taken hostage by terrorists in Beirut so I have cleared out a room in our house of all the furniture so that I have a way to connect with him and try to experience what he’s going through. The other cast members are Beth Gasser and Matt Veenbaas. It runs August 13-18 in the studio at the Carousel Theatre on Granville Island.
Dylan Schroeder, a graduate of UFV, wrote and directed the coming-of-age play What the Water Gave Me, as well as starred in The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon under the direction of Colleen Plenert. Both performances at the Annual UFV Directors’ Festival and Harrison Festival of Arts were met with a full house.
How do you think What the Water Gave Me went at the Harrison Festival of the Arts?
It went super well! My actors were all amazing and we had a very responsive audience. It was sold out; they ended up having to print out extra tickets.
Did anything particularly memorable happen before/during/after the performance?
Well since I was acting in the second show as soon as I had cleared off my set I had to refocus and get ready to perform. Being involved in both shows was pretty memorable, as was spending the day in Harrison with my casts and having all my friends in the audience.
How did Brothers Grimm go?
It went great! Colleen was a great director and the audiences responded super well to all the jokes. It was exhausting, but since I got to play so many ridiculous characters it was also really fun.
Any other shows lined up for you or any other plays sitting in the back of your mind?
I’m going to be adapting Snow White with Thomas Smith for a local theatre group called Theatre Junkies Anonymous and after that I’m sure something else will come to me. We are using the Grimm Brothers’ version as our model but we haven’t committed to any time periods yet.
