What is your role on this production? I am the stage manager for Shatter. The way I usually explain my role to people is a behind the scenes HQ. Myself along with our assistant stage manager, Becky, are the eyes and ears in the rehearsal hall. We connect the artistic side of the process that Josh is going through with the reality side which is our amazing designers and technicians actually making it happen. We also make schedules along with the director and production manager and communicate with actors. Usually that ends up looking like endless e-mails and schedule making. During the show the ASM is backstage taking care of props and costume as necessary and I’m in the booth calling lighting and sound cues.
Meet the Creative Team of SHATTER – Josh Languedoc is the Director!
What is your role on this production? I am the director of Shatter.
Is there a quote from the play that speaks to you? Why? I keep returning to the final line in the show: “Oh…well….we all do our part.” It seems simple, but to me, this line is both a strong message of empowerment, but it is also a call out on dangerous behaviour we have as a society. Throughout the arch of this play, we see incredible tensions between friends and strangers as mistrust builds through the social circumstances surrounding the tragedy. So, on one hand, we need to recognize we have a power in the face of tragedy. That power is in coming together, supporting one another, and never losing hope. That is the part we must play when faced with tragedy. However, on the other hand, we also do our part in adding to the tension that comes with tragedy. We tend to look for a source to blame and we tend to foster division rather than acceptance.. So, we as a society can add greatly to the negativity to a situation if we choose to push people away and divide rather than accept.
Why should audiences come see the show? Even though this tragedy took place 100 years ago, the cautionary message in this play is currently relevant to the state of our world. All across the United States, and extending here in Canada, numerous debates have occurred over how to handle issues of terrorism, mistrust, and the political climate. This play does an incredible job of capturing the drama individuals face when a tragedy occurs. Who do we really trust? Who are our real friends? What should we do to keep ourselves safe? Is it reminding ourselves we will be OK? Do we take shelter in our lover? Or do we build a wall and protect us from the dangers? All of these questions are explored in the drama of the play, and I feel this play will provide audiences with an incredible sense of emotion as we explore these questions together. Especially by recognizing the dangers we can place ourselves in by going the mistrust route.
What is your background in theatre? At Walterdale? I have been onstage since the age of 5. Theatre has very much remained in my life since that age. Currently, I work as a theatre educator for the Citadel Theatre, Edmonton Public Schools, Black Gold Schools, Workshop West Playwrights Theatre, Kompany Family Theatre, and in my own company, KidLibs Theatre. I’m also a professional improviser with The 11 O’Clock Number (Grindstone Theatre) and with KidLibs Theatre.. Plays like Shatter also inspire me as a playwright. Currently, I am the Playwright in Residence at Workshop West Playwrights Theatre, and am writing several plays for different theatre companies, including Native Earth Theatre and Kompany Family Theatre.
At the Walterdale, I have performed as an actor in 3 shows. I played Art Milligan in The Male Order Bride, and was part of the general ensemble in Walterdale’s musical productions of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and The Three Penny Opera.
What do you hope that audiences will take away from the show? Honestly, I just want audiences to feel the emotional weight of this tragedy. Through the drama of the main characters, the full sense of uncertainty and anger associated with this tragedy is felt. I want audiences to see themselves in these characters – would I change the way Anna does within this tragedy? Would I feel like Jennie if I experienced what happened to her? Would I be proud in my tactic if I were in Brian’s shoes? Would I be like Elsie and remain hopeful in the presence of extreme tragedy? And then, which of these characters gives us any insight in how to handle these types of tragedies?
Interview by Stephanie O’Neill
Introducing the Cast and Creative Team of THE WOMEN!
Mary – Roseanna Sargent
Sylvia – Nicole Lemay
Edith – Jenn Robinson
Peggy – Mandy Stewart
Nancy – Sarah Van Tassel
Jane – Sadie Bowling
Mrs. Morehead – Syrell Wilson
Miriam – Katelyn Arthurs
Countess De Lage – Trish Van Doornum
Little Mary – Lilianna Coyes-Loiselle
Crystal – Julie Whelan
Maggie & Ensemble – Peg Young
Pilates Instructor & Ensemble – Sarah Spicer
Sadie & Ensemble – Wendy Shobe
Olga & Ensemble – Katie Elliott
Lucy & Ensemble – Chantal Rohovich
Miss Watts & Ensemble – Katrina Kunkel
Miss Timmerback & Ensemble – Tyra Watkin
CREATIVE TEAM:
Director – Catherine Wenschlag
Production Manager – Steven Sobolewski
Stage Manager – Gaby Phaneuf
Dramaturg – Anne Marie Szucs
Fight Director – Julianne Murphy
Set Design – Leland Stelck
Costume Design – Mandy Mattson
Lighting & Projection Design – Jessica Poole
Sound Design – Erin Foster-O’Riordan
Hair & Makeup Design – TBD
Properties Master – Alayna Hunchak
Master Builder – Morgan Smith
Master Painter – Brooke Emberly
ASM(s) – Nic Juba & Cassie Duval
Lighting Operator – Fraser Thurston
Sound Operator – Glenn Cook
Dresser – Liz Cook
Meet the Cast of A DOLL’S HOUSE – Tim Marriott is Torvald!
What is your role in this production? I play Torvald, the husband of Nora. Torvald has just received a promotion in the bank where he works, and this new position is very important to him. He and Nora have been married for eight years and to others their home is “lovely and peaceful”. Torvald is concerned about appearances, but if anyone asked he would say that he and Nora have very successful and loving marriage,
What is your background in theatre? At Walterdale? I have been around Theatre in Edmonton all of my adult life. This year is forty years since my first involvement with Walterdale.
What brought you out for this show? Why did you want to become involved? I think the play explores very effectively the difference between people’s assumptions about their world, and its reality. This is a very intriguing examination of this theme, in a compelling drama focused upon male/female, husband/wife relationships.
What do you think audiences will take away from the show? I think a modern audience will see this 19th century play as being very contemporary.
Photo Credit: Kristen Finlay
Photo features: Tim Marriott as Torvald and Nicole English as Nora.
Set Designer – Joan Hawkins
Costume Designer – Geri Dittrich
Lighting Designer – Richard Hatfield
Meet the Team of A DOLL’S HOUSE – Alex Hawkins is the Director!
What is your role on this production? My name is Alex Hawkins, and I am the director of A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, the first show of the 2017-2018 Walterdale Theatre season. I submitted this play to the Walterdale Artistic Director and Board earlier this year, and I am very pleased that it was chosen for the season. One of the reasons is that this play is often misunderstood as an old-fashioned, talky, domestic drama, featuring an oppressed doll-wife, a nasty husband, an even nastier villain, and an avuncular family friend who secretly has designs on the doll-wife. But Henrik Ibsen was not only a good playwright; he was an extraordinarily gifted playwright, whose characters are complex, emotionally rich, textured with multiple motivations. The situation in the play between Nora the wife and Torvald the husband is subtle and complicated, as is the character of Krogstad, whose actions toward Nora come out of desperation and despair, and not from some sort of evil plot to oppress her. Nora and Krogstad actually share in the same back-story, and are more alike than they are different. And the avuncular Dr. Rank is a genuine friend to Nora, but his clumsy yet well-intentioned effort to help her fails, and she is left to solve her own crisis. My job as director was to manage a number of things: to work with designers to determine the nature and look of the physical theatre space; to work with the production team to manage the progress of the characters — and the audience’s gaze — through that space; and to work with the actors to help them come to a rich understanding of their characters and their moment-by-moment progress through their story.
What is your background in theatre? At Walterdale? I started in theatre in high school, by acting and singing roles in three Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, and I was exclusively interested in musicals for my first four years of theatre. Then in the Spring of 1965, I took a role as a “singing monk” in a production of the play Luther by John Osborne, at the MAC Theatre in Calgary — and I never looked back. I have been committed to non-musical theatre ever since. After studying theatre in university and graduate school, I have been in Edmonton since 1979, teaching drama at the UofA until my retirement in 2013. Since 2004, I have directed seven plays at Walterdale Theatre. For the past 13 years, I have been delighted to work in this wonderful community theatre, with so many talented and committed theatre workers — university/college students; Walterdale veterans; young people with an eye toward professional theatre; people from a wide variety of professions doing theatre at nights and on weekends; and many others. It is a rich, diverse, dedicated, talented, and skilled community. And the physical building, although somewhat small and unassuming, is extraordinarily well-equipped technically, with a wonderfully personal theatre space, and audiences that experience theatre close-up and intimate.
What do you hope that audiences will take away from the show? I wanted to deliver a well-known, but often misunderstood, modern classic play by one of theatre history’s greatest playwrights to an audience that I hope will see and appreciate the richness and complexity of the characters and their situations. I hope that audiences will be surprised at how relevant the play is to issues of class and gender conflict in our society today.
Meet the Cast of A DOLL’S HOUSE – Dave Wolkowski is Nils Krogstad
Announcing the Cast of SHATTER
Anna MacLean – SIAN GODSMARK
Jennie Maclean – YANIT TEREFE
Elsie Schultz – SAMANTHA WOOLSEY
Brian Davidson – BERKLEY ABBOTT
Ghosts: BRITTANY HINSE, DYLAN BRENNEIS, MIKAYLEE BOUTIN, VIKTORIA BRADLEY, STUART OLD, SYDNEY JINJOE
Shatter by Trina Davies
December 6, 2017 – December 16, 2017
Director: Josh Languedoc
Anna MacLean’s eye has been turned by all the handsome soldiers roaming about the streets of her hometown of Halifax. She feels the promise of something great is lingering on the horizon for her. Those feelings are as fleeting as a dream. With Anna’s mother, her best friend, Elsie Schultz are thrown into chaos when their world explodes around them. Based around the events of the Halifax Explosion of 1917, Davies’ intense and thought-provoking work paints a haunting portrait of the aftermath of tragedy.
Introducing the Cast of A DOLL’S HOUSE!
JOAN HAWKINS – Set Designer/ Master Painter
Geri Drittich- Costume Designer
Cassie Duval – Stage Manager
Pierre Valois – Master Builder
Alayna Hunchak – Props Master
Richard Hatfield- Technical Advisor/Lighting Designer
Meet the Cast of FOLLIES! Christina O’Dell is Young Heidi and Sound Op.!
What is your role in this production? I am doing double duty this show; onstage I am playing Young Heidi, the recollected self of a once famous operetta star, and then as soon as I am offstage I scoot down to the booth to take my place as the show’s sound operator. It’s my first time on the tech crew, which is very exciting! It’s also likely the first time a tech will be dressed a gown and tiara in the booth…