Pi Theatre

Archive for November, 2009

This week is your last chance to catch after the quake before it closes — we can’t extend this run. Don’t miss this incredible performance! There are still tickets on sale now through vancouvertix.com or call 604.629.VTIX (8849).

“after the quake is an absolute delight…deservedly the hit of the late fall season.” - Jerry Wasserman, Vancouver Plays

“One of the best plays I’ve seen this year” - Ed Farolan, Review Vancouver

 

“I’ve never seen anything like it. And I loved every minute of it.” - Jo Ledingham, Vancouver Courier

“after the quake is a stunning piece of theatre. It is rare to experience a show where all these elements integrate so well and are so delicious to watch…A delicate feast for the senses…exquisite…Subtle, tender, and beautiful. I loved it, go see it.” - Rachel Scott, Plank Magazine

 

“Wildly original and warm without ever lapsing into sentimentality, after the quake is both a great ride and a testament to the healing powers of imagination…It’s the stuff of dreams.” - Kathleen Oliver, Georgia Straight

“Murakami should be pleased” - Patron

 

“after the quake bursts the clouds and reminds me exactly why I love theatre so deeply. This is a perfectly balanced play. You should see after the quake.” - Simon Ogden, The Next Stage

“The show is a must-see for anyone feeling that need to reach out, looking for a connection with some one. And fans of Murakami will feel like they’re experiencing his work for the first time while watching after the quake. Which is quite the treat, indeed.” - Trevor Record, Ubyssey

 

“after the quake isn’t just good live theatre — it’s excellent, delicate, surreal, hilarious, and thought-provoking” - Jake Tobin Garrett, BeyondRobson.com

Last show December 5!Studio 16, 1545 West 7th Avenue, at Granville Street 

Tickets on sale now through vancouvertix.com or call 604.629.VTIX (8849)

After a great first week of After the Quake, let us introduce you to the fantastic directors, actors and members of the crew you haven’t met yet!

Craig Hall, Director. Craig is a Vancouver based Director/Designer and the Artistic Producer of Rumble Productions. Directing credits for Rumble include Cozy Catastrophe, Clark and I Somewhere in Connecticut (Critics Choice Innovation Award) and Recovery. Other favorite directing include Lazy Susan for Theatre Melee, Broiler for Theatre Replacement, The Domino Heart, Snowman, Till I am Myself Again and Delvecki’s Closet (Jessie Award for Outstanding Production) for Section 8 Productions, Valparaiso for The Virtual Stage, Jocasta, Other People’s Pain and Terrible Things for Studio 58 and Box_ for Radix Theatre. Favorite set design credits include [sic] for Theatre Skam, San Diego for Rumble Productions/Studio 58, Rage for Green Thumb Theatre, Our Town for Studio 58, FareWel for The Firehall Arts Centre and Brilliant! for the Electric Company (Jessie Award). In 2003 Craig won the Ray Michal Award for most promising new Director. He is a graduate of Studio 58.

Richard Wolfe, Director. Richard took over the artistic directorship of Vancouver’s Pi Theatre Productions in March 2008 after more than a decade with Vancouver’s Theatre Conspiracy. He has worked across the country on over 100 productions as a director, producer or actor. Richard is a member of Lincoln Center’s Directors’ Lab in New York, and the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas; he has participated in the Directors Project at the Shaw Festival and is currently President of See Seven. Richard is also the recipient of three Jessie Richardson Award nominations for Outstanding Director and the winner of the Ray Michel Award for Outstanding Work by an Emerging Director. Bashir Lazhar was his directorial debut at Pi Theatre.  He earned his MFA from the University of British Columbia.

Alessandro Juliani, “Narrator/Frog”. Alessandro is as an actor, singer and composer, who is fortunate to work in film, television, voice-over and theatre. Recently he composed original music for local productions of The Miracle Worker (Vancouver Playhouse) and The Tempest (Bard on the Beach), both directed by his partner and collaborator, Meg Roe. As an actor, he most recently appeared onscreen in the Syfy miniseries Alice, and onstage in Toronto, Mississippi (Vancouver Playhouse), and The Violet Hour (Belfry Theatre). Alessandro is indeed pure Alessandro, but at the same time he is a thing that stands for a world of un-Alessandro. In the immortal words of Popeye the Sailor, “I yam whats I ams, and dats all that I yams.”

Manami Hara, “Sayoko/Nurse.” Manami Hara was born and raised in Tokyo Japan and is a graduate of Studio 58. Most recently she was seen in Top Girls (Vancouver Playhouse). She is a co-writer of Sexual Practices of the Japanese (SPOJ) (Theatre Replacement) which toured to Ottawa (NAC/ Magnetic North Festival), Toronto (Factory Theatre) and Seattle (On the Boards). She co-produced and co-created Shinju-Double Suicide, Kabuki style dance theatre piece with Yayoi Theatre Movements. Her selected theatre credits include, Hana’s Suitcase (The Grand Theatre), The Pillar Clock (La Luna/NeWorld/Firehall Arts Centre), Funny Faced Ogre (Richmond Gateway Theatre), Apple (Touchstone Theatre), Herotica I & II (Ruby Slippers, High performance Rodeo, Theatre Passe Muraille), The Tempest (Globe Theatre), Voices of Christmas (New Play Centre), and Romeo and Juliet (Carousel Theatre). Her film and TV credits include: Open Mic (David King), I’ll be Home for Christmas (Disney), DaVinci’s Inquest (CBC) and War Between Us (Atlantis & Troika Films).

Leina Dueck, “Sala.” Leina was last seen in the Theatre Replacement’s That Night Follows Day at Vancouver international Push Festival. Leina is in grade 5 at Capilano Elementary School in North Vancouver. She loves many sports such as competitive figure skating, soccer and field hockey. She joined the school band this year and enjoys learning to play saxophone. Her passion is her art classes; figure drawing and claymation.

Yota Kobayashi, Sound Design. Acoustic and electroacoustic composer Yota Kobayashi was born in Nagoya, Japan, in 1980. He moved to Vancouver in Canada in 2000 and studied music composition at Simon Fraser University with Barry Truax and Owen Underhil. He is currently based in Vancouver, where he works actively with film, dance, and theater productions, while he teaches electronic music at Langara College and sound designing at Stylus College of Music and Technology. His compositions Reminiscence and Kakusei were awarded the third and second prizes respectively in 2006 and 2009, at the Prix Jue de Temp/Times Play electroacoustic competition held by Canadian Electroacoustic Community. In 2008, his composition Tensho was awarded the first prize in the international competition for electroacoustic music Musica Nova organized by the Society for Electroacoustic Music in the Czech Republic.
Website: www.programsounds.com

Itai Erdal, Lighting Design. Itai has designed over 120 shows for theatre and dance companies in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Tel Aviv, London, Berlin and New York. Some of the companies he worked for include: National Arts Centre, Vancouver Playhouse, Citadel Theatre, Bard on the Beach, Arts Club Theatre, Factory Theatre, Volcano Productions, Pleiades Theatre, Theatre for the New City, Manitoba Theatre for Young People, Pacific Theatre, Persephone Theatre, Alberta Theatre Projects, Prairie Theatre Exchange, Neworld Theatre, Electric Company, Theatre Replacement, Touchstone Theatre, Leaky Heaven Circus, Modern Baroque Opera, Carousel Theatre, Ruby Slippers, Studio 58, The Gateway Theatre, The Jerusalem Lab, Haifa Theatre, and Teatro Villa Velha in Salvador, Brazil. Itai has been nominated for fifteen theatre awards in the past seven years, winning the Sam Payne award for most promising newcomer in ‘03, the ADC’s Jack King award in ‘05, a Dora Mavor Moore award in ‘07, the best design award in the Dublin Fringe in ‘08, and a Jessie Richardson award in ‘09. He is a member of Associated Designers of Canada.

David Kerr, Stage Management. DK is very pleased to be Stage Managing after the quake and to be working again with both PI Theatre and Rumble Productions. Previous work with PI includes: Bashir Lazaar, Helen’s Necklace, Elisa’s Skin and Disco Pigs; and previous work with Rumble includes Burning Vision. DK has also stage managed for: neworld theatre; Rumble Productions; Theatre Conspiracy; Theatre Replacement; Touchstone Theatre; and Urban Ink Productions.  Internationally DK tours with LaJoye Production’s SNOWFLAKE and he has just returned from a one month tour of Japan which included a performance in Kobe. DK is also the Site Production Manager for the Vancouver Folk Music Festival and the Production Manager for the Vancouver International Children’s Festival and the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival.

Stacy Sherlock, Apprentice Stage Management. Stacy is ecstatic to be working on Pi Theatre and Rumble Production’s after the quake!  After recently receiving her Bachelor of Fine Arts from UBC’s theatre design and production program, she is extremely excited to begin working on her theatrical career.  Select credits include: Assistant Stage Management for The Emperor of Atlantis (City Opera Vancouver), Sound Design for Macbeth (Carousel Theatre) and The Idiot’s Karamazov (UBC), as well as Projection Assistant for Studies in Motion (Electric Company). Stacy feels honoured to have had the opportunity to work with a great team on such a fantastically fun show.  Stacy would like to thank Richard and Craig for this awesome opportunity and a big thanks to DK for all his guidance and support!

James Foy, Production Management. James is a freelance Production Manager and Technical Director as well as an Artistic Associate at Theatre Conspiracy. He has worked as a PM/TD for Carousel Theatre, Solo Collective, Rumble Productions, Urban Ink Productions, Theatre Conspiracy, Touchstone Theatre, Pi Theatre, and the PuSh Festival. James co-founded GasHeart Theatre with associate Quinn Harris, and just completed a run of The Gas Heart at the Vancouver Fringe. He holds a BFA in Theatre Design and Production from the University of British Columbia.

Check out what people are saying about After the Quake:

“I hadn’t been to a play in a really long time. As in I can’t even remember the last time I saw living, breathing actors on stage in front of me instead of projected, cold onto a screen. The experience is so different, I had forgotten what a thrill live theatre can be. Especially good live theatre. But after the quake isn’t just good live theatre–it’s excellent, delicate, surreal, hilarious, and thought-provoking. It makes me want to go see more plays in this city.”

Jake Tobin Garrett, BeyondRobson.com

“Wildly original and warm without ever lapsing into sentimentality, after the quake is both a great ride and a testament to the healing powers of imagination…It’s the stuff of dreams.”

Kathleen Oliver, Georgia Straight

After the Quake closes on December 5, and several performances are already sold out.  Get your tickets now at Vancouvertix.com.

Check out what our photographer, Ken Bryant, has to say about shooting for live theatre:

“The production shoot is a dress rehearsal…is a photographer’s dream in many ways: scores of lights, gelled and focussed, wielded by a lighting professional, and a cast with weeks spent living in their roles; freedom to roam the theatre with his camera and choose any angle that still allows him to stay out of everybody’s way, a fly on the ceiling.”

Read the rest of the post here.

@donforan is the winner, with the following haiku:

Tsunami nightmares

In the wake of disaster

Life after the Quake

Congratulations to @donforan, and thanks to everyone else who entered! We got some great entries — here are some of the runner ups:

The earth can move you

in some very special ways.

You must work with her!

@Naliano

Life after the quake.

Can super frog save

Vancouver theatre?

@avibryant

Rumble and grumble.

She stumbles from her slumber.

This morning she roars.

@acusack

Lost or forgotten

Memories of the earthquake

Conjured the great Frog

@0355user

In after the quake, Kevan Ohtsji is playing Katagiri and Katasuki, and Tetsuro Shigematsu is Junpei. We have asked them to tell us more about their characters.

Tetsuro Shigematsu:

Playing Junpei in after the quake has been one of the most exhilarating creative adventures of my life. Not only has this given me the opportunity to re-explore my own memories of living in Japan during the Kobe earthquake, but it been so enlightening to work with such a talented team of people. Alessandro, Manami, Kevan and Leina are all such talented and generous actors. Not only do they give me so much to respond to moment by moment, but when I’m beginning to sink, I can feel them reaching out to me in their own skillful way, and lift me back up. And thanks to our directors Richard and Craig, I feel like I’m twice the actor I was than when I first began.

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A descendant from a long line of Samurai warriors, Tetsuro Shigematsu was born in London, England. A former writer for This Hour Has 22 Minutes, he also hosted The Roundup on CBC Radio One. He recently completed his first feature film for which he wrote and directed. Currently, he can be seen on Spike TV’sThe Deadliest Warrior. He’s also doing his MFA in the Creative Writing program at UBC. Tetsuro is thrilled to be working with such talented artists in such an auspicious production.

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Kevan Ohtsji:

I am thrilled to be working with such generous and amazing directors, cast & crew.

Personally, I absolutely love Murakami’s books. And this play which interweaves two of his short stories is nothing less than breath-taking.

It’s been a really fun and interesting time exploring the realm of theatre performance. I come from a background of television and film so projecting is the lines, and playing to and including the audience has been a new thing for me. I absolutely love the beautiful set that has been built for us, and am looking forward to performing the play with such a wonderful cast & crew.

As we discover, work through and rehearse the scenes I am awestruck at how interconnected each character is to one another, and constantly find new, abstract, and surprising ways in which they collide. And symbolically the possibilities are infinite.

There are many scenes which may or may not be in Katagiri’s mind, and subconscious mind. It’s been a thrill to delve into Katagiri’s world of hope which he is so afraid to believe in. It’s such a rich world full of hope, loneliness, fear, and in desperate need of love.

Looking into Takatsuki’s inner workings has revealed many surprises for me. I find that many of his hopes and dreams mirror Katagiri’s to a T – it’s just that the methods he utilizes to achieve his goals is drastically different. The love triangle he finds himself a part of is spinning out of his control, and he finds himself unprepared in so many ways to deal with life. Deep within his gregarious outer shell, he is just as, if not more frightened by life than even Katagiri.

Those are just but examples from two characters. The real juice is how so many parallels can be drawn from every single character in this play intermingled with one another. It’s a wonderful process and I’m thrilled be a small part of it all!

—————————-

This Canadian-born Japanese has claimed one of the few slots for Asian actors in the movie industry after many years of hard work and determination. Born and raised in Burnaby, BC he began studying his craft seriously as a teenager and at the age of seventeen, garnered his first role in Christophe Gans’ Crying Freeman. The years following, Ohtsji delved deeper, studying mercilessly and embarking on such shows as Smallville, The Outer Limits, Dreamcatcher, The Butterfly Effect, Andromeda, Stargate, and The Fringe, to name a few.  He’s also been the voice of lead characters in animated shows like G.I. Joe’s Valor vs Venom, the Hot Wheels series Highway 35, and Acceleracers, in addition to the popular EA Sports’ video game Need for Speed: Most Wanted.

The beautiful rehearsal photos you can see on this blog (here and here) are Ken Bryant’s work. Read what he says about the link between theatre and photography!

After a lifetime spent teaching language, I am super-saturated with words, and increasingly fascinated by images. The photographs I most like to take are those of people — above all, people whose faces and bodies reflect action and emotion. I am attracted to complex and dramatic lighting, the kind that shows bodies and faces outlined in dense shadow, far from the flat, boring lighting of the TV sitcom. In short, the theatre is my ideal  location for a shoot, and After the Quake my ideal play, with a range of mood that extends from comic, through romantic, to dark and claustrophobic.

To learn more about his work, check out his website!

The buzz is out! Check out The Province’s coverage of After the Quake. You can also hear coverage on Tuesday’s edition of CBC’s On the Coast and later this week on CBC’s The Early Edition.

What a treat it is to have time on your side.  And what about space?  That too.  For this production, we had both.  Longer rehearsal period means more time for discovery… more time for creativity to set in.  Of course, as a Set Designer, that doesn’t mean much unless the set is also involved in that process… and it was.  Cue the new rehearsal space known as “Progress Lab 1422”, and voila…

time and space.

The set was built ahead of time so it could be set up in the rehearsal room…. Most of it anyway.  It is truly a rare pleasure for directors to enjoy rehearsals on the actual set, as the set is normally built just before being moved to the theatre, and never sees the rehearsal room.  And for me, that’s a chance to integrate ideas more fully.  A little bit of a double-edged sword though, as it is more work as changes and adjustments are made on the go…

a chance to custom build to blocking and new ideas.

But isn’t what we all strive for as theatre artists?  A chance to explore your craft, and to be lucky enough to be in a room with your peers, and let that creative team effort take you where, alone, you have no chance to go?  All right… enough with the melodramatic.  What you really need to know is…. there will be a set on opening night.  It will be solid… might even be beautiful… but I hope that you’ll also find that it serves the story really well.

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Based in Vancouver, Yvan has been designing for Theatre, Music and Special events for over 15 years. His designs have been seen on most stages around Vancouver, including Rumble (Recovery), the Vancouver Playhouse (River, Asylum of the Universe), the Arts Club Theatre (Complete Works of Shakespeare, Carol’s Christmas), and four seasons at Bard on the Beach. Recent credits include the national tour of Skydive for Reelwheels Productions, Jocasta for Studio 58, and King Arthur for Axis Theatre. His Designs have been nominated 11 times for Jessie Richardson Awards. Yvan is a graduate of Studio 58 in Vancouver.

Have a look at his set design for after the quake here!