Theatre

Get That Hope: Alumna and former U of T Mississauga instructor premières latest work at Stratford Festival

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 29 Aug 2024 15:27:55 +0000

Get That Hope: Alumna and former U of T Mississauga instructor premières latest work at Stratford Festival

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 08/29/2024 - 11:27

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Andrea Scott says she wrote her latest play, Get That Hope, after seeing Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night, asking herself, “Why don’t we have plays like this about Black Canadian families?” (photo by Helen Tansey)

Kristy Strauss

Topic

Our Community

Alumni

Drama

Faculty of Arts & Science

Humanities

Theatre

U of T Mississauga

Subheadline

Andrea Scott's play tells the story of a Toronto family in the lead-up to a Jamaica Independence Day celebration

Andrea Scott has never forgotten the moment when her dreams of becoming a writer were quashed.

It was during a Grade 9 English class.

“I remember proclaiming something I felt was very literary and my English teacher shot me down so quickly,” says the ��Ƶ Mississauga alumna and former instructor at U of T Mississauga. “It killed my desire to be a writer and I’ve never forgotten her.”

The death of Scott’s writing ambitions would prove to be premature. She just wrapped up a contract writing for Disney and recently her play Get That Hope, which tells the story of a family in the lead-up to a Jamaica Independence Day celebration, made its debut at the Stratford Festival.

Scott’s journey to becoming an award-winning playwright and screenwriter began when she temporarily gave up on writing in high school, and turned her attention to the stage. She received an honours bachelor of arts degree in theatre and drama studies through U of T Mississauga’s joint program with Sheridan College, with a minor in English.

She later earned a master’s degree in drama through U of T’s School of Graduate Studies and the Faculty of Arts & Science. 

She recalls being “an annoying theatre kid” at U of T Mississauga, but says she had many professors who encouraged her and gave her a well-rounded theatre education.

“It is good to have a three-dimensional education regarding the ‘why’ of certain stories and the historical context,” Scott says. “I have a lot of those books still on my shelf because they inform how I write.”

Following graduation, she pursued an acting career in Toronto. As she auditioned for TV shows, she noticed a theme: Black characters often supported the protagonist – who was usually white – and didn’t have robust stories of their own.

When she auditioned for the role of a grieving mother who had lost her son to gun violence, she turned her attention back to writing.

“I was like, ‘Yeah ... I could write better than this,’” Scott says.

She wrote her first play, Damaged, a one-woman show that debuted at b current’s rock.paper.sistahz festival. Her second play, Eating Pomegranates Naked, was included in the SummerWorks Performance Festival.

It was a turning point for Scott.

“There were people lining up to see the play who did not know me and had never heard of me, and that felt very validating,” she says, adding that the play also earned her the RBC Arts Professional Award. “That was the moment where I realized, ‘Maybe I could do this.’”

Scott continued to achieve success with her plays, including Better Angels: A Parable, Don't Talk to Me Like I'm Your Wife (produced by her production company, Call Me Scotty Productions) and the award-winning Controlled Damage. She also taught playwriting to undergraduate students in U of T Mississauga’s department of English and drama.

In 2020, Scott worked in the writers’ room on the CBC/BET production The Porter. Following that, she worked on Murdoch Mysteries for three seasons and wrote four episodes.

“Murdoch Mysteries was a huge achievement for me,” Scott says. “I never assumed that I would ever get a job quite like that.”

Scott recently wrote for the upcoming Disney series High Potential, which stars Kaitlin Olson (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) with Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas as showrunner.

“The first time that I got to walk into the Disney lot, it just did not seem real,” she says. “It was a dream come true.”

On Aug. 10, Scott made her Stratford debut with the world première of Get That Hope. She says she was inspired to write the play after seeing Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night.

“All I kept thinking was, ‘Why don’t we have plays like this about Black Canadian families?’” she says.

Scott is working on a new play called Truthfully Jackie about Jackie Robinson’s time playing for the Montreal Royals in 1946.

While she has seen success throughout her career, Scott says she has also faced challenges – including not being taken seriously enough.

“I’m a woman, I’m a Black woman, and I’m really tiny – like five feet tall. But I have this voice, and I try to use it to make sure people take me seriously,” she says, adding that her advice for budding writers is to not take criticism to heart.

“Reacting emotionally to something that was maybe constructive criticism won’t help you,” Scott says. “Also, write and write and write – and don’t close off any kind of source material that you can be inspired by. You never know where it might come from.”

Get That Hope runs until Sept. 28 in the Stratford Festival's Studio Theatre.

U of T science historian's research on woolly mammoths comes alive in children's play

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 13:20:44 +0000

U of T science historian's research on woolly mammoths comes alive in children's play

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 10/13/2023 - 09:20

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The Last Mammoth, a children’s play, was developed by U of T science historian Rebecca Woods and her PhD student Alexander Offord (supplied image)

Cynthia Macdonald

Topic

Our Community

Faculty of Arts & Science

Subheadline

The Last Mammoth sees a young girl and her mammoth friend explore questions about climate change, extinction and environmental preservation

One summer day in 2022, a gold miner working in the Yukon came upon something even more valuable than what he was looking for: an almost perfectly preserved woolly mammoth, with skin and hair intact.

The baby female calf was thought to have been resting in the permafrost for more than 30,000 years.

It was among the biggest paleontological finds in Canadian history – and the latest milestone in a great tradition. Since the 18th century, frozen woolly mammoth specimens (usually skeletons or bones) have been periodically found in diverse locations around the world.

A science historian, Rebecca Woods shows how animals such as frozen woolly mammoths can teach us about the march of history (supplied image)

Such finds captured the imagination of Rebecca Woods, an associate professor in the ��Ƶ’s department of history in the Faculty of Arts & Science. Her current research focuses on the place of frozen woolly mammoths in the global history of science – work that is being transformed by Alexander Offord, her research assistant and a PhD candidate at the Institute for the History & Philosophy of Science & Technology (IHPST.)

Alongside his academic career, Offord and his partner Nicole Wilson are the artistic directors of Toronto theatre company Good Old Neon. Their new children’s play is called The Last Mammoth, which sees a young girl and her mammoth puppet friend embark on a journey to explore questions about climate change, extinction and environmental preservation.

Alexander Offord is a PhD candidate at the Institute for the History & Philosophy of Science & Technology and co-artistic director of Toronto theatre company Good Old Neon (supplied image)

Woods, who is cross-appointed to IHPST, says she first became interested in mammoths through her research on sheep.

“As a historian of science I find myself drawn to stories about animals and the ways in which they can help us understand different historical processes,” she says.

For example, in her 2017 book The Herds Shot Round the World: Native Breeds and the British Empire, 1800-1900, she illustrated how farmers in Australia and New Zealand created sheep breeds to serve British meat markets. In the early days of refrigeration, diners were mistrustful about eating meat that had been slaughtered six months previously – so vendors decided to allay their fears by pointing to the example of a famous woolly mammoth discovered earlier in the century in Siberia, which had been unearthed from ice and fed to dogs without harm.

“That story got me thinking about how the scientific and cultural meanings of mammoths have changed since that time,” says Woods. “For contemporary audiences, in a moment of great anxiety about global warming, frozen mammoths preserved by permafrost serve as a loud warning bell about a warming earth. It’s totally different than how they were first understood in the early 19th century.”

Indeed, recent reports suggest that as the planet warms and permafrost melts, ever more mammoth discoveries are being made.

Along with an impressive baby mammoth, The Last Mammoth’s animal characters include two mischievous raccoons (supplied image)

The idea for a children’s play was born out of a desire to showcase Woods’s research in schools – and Offord, not surprisingly, played a key role.

“We’d never made theatre for young audiences before,” Offord says, admitting that the subject matter did not immediately lend itself to a production for kids.

“A lot of children’s shows are very optimistic and shiny. And we said to ourselves, ‘How do we speak to some of the darkness that children will go through on this topic in a way that is respectful to them?’”

First workshopped in September, The Last Mammoth’s script continues to evolve (supplied image)

Offord says he feels an urgency to the project given the climate crisis.

“Mass species extinction is happening,” he says. “And because it’s new, adults don’t really have the language to talk about it, let alone in a way that kids will understand.”

He adds that he felt it was necessary to create a piece that made these concepts accessible to children in a fun and honest way.

With funding from a SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant and sponsorship by the Jackman Humanities Institute, The Last Mammoth was first workshopped in early September for an audience of elementary school students and caregivers. The feedback is being used by Offord’s company as it continues to develop the script.

Though in its early stages, the play offers ample proof that it’s not only possible, but necessary to translate academic research on serious issues that will affect future generations.

“To me it feels like an incredible honour,” says Woods. “What I appreciate so much about it is that a cross-generational audience from all walks of life can learn about my research – embodied in this incredibly evocative puppet, these gifted actors, and Alexander and Nicole, who’ve figured out how to make it all come alive.

“It’s a play that really gets at the emotional core of what’s at stake in the work that I do.”

'A very ornate, unique experience': U of T alumnus Kokichi Kusano debuts theatrical and musical performance

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 01 May 2023 18:23:17 +0000

'A very ornate, unique experience': U of T alumnus Kokichi Kusano debuts theatrical and musical performance

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 05/01/2023 - 14:23

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NAE, a theatrical and musical work created by U of T alumnus Kokichi Kusano, tells a story of life in Japan during a 13th-century famine (photo by Gak Tanaka)

Topic

Faculty of Art & Science

Theatre

��Ƶ alumnus Kokichi Kusano is preparing to debut his theatrical and musical work NAE, which translates to “The Rice Seedling,” at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre – a performance years in the making and inspired by his studies in the Faculty of Arts & Science.

NAE runs from May 5–7 and uses elements of traditional Japanese theatre, music and art to tell a story of life on the island nation during a 13th-century famine.

Kokichi Kusano (supplied image)

“It's going to be quite a costume spectacle and a very ornate, unique experience,” says Kusano, who earned his honours bachelor of arts degree from U of T as a member of Woodsworth College in 2005.

“I'm very excited to share that with Toronto.”

The story centres on a lonesome monk offering comfort to the dead as they float down a metaphorical river to the afterlife. The monk will soon discover the mysterious forces that hold the fate of humankind in the balance.

The monk’s character was inspired by a book Kusano read while studying in the department of East Asian studies: Hōjōki: A Hermit's Hut as Metaphor, by Kamo no Chōmei – one man’s chronicle of natural disasters and war in medieval Japan.

Many people and events in NAE are rooted in Kusano's studies and instructors at U of T.

“He was a great student,” says Ikuko Komuro-Lee, a linguistics expert and associate professor, teaching stream, in the department of East Asian studies. “He was very motivated, diligent and it was obvious he cared a lot about his Japanese heritage.”

Kusano earned a scholarship through the Dr. David Chu Program in Asia-Pacific Studies to study abroad at Kyushu University in Japan – on the same southern island his grandparents came from.

“I met a lot of musicians and artisans who were influential to my musical style and writing techniques,” he says. “U of T opened so many doors inside and outside the classroom.”

Kusano was born and raised in Toronto, but his grandparents came to Canada from Japan more than a century ago. However, those decades of distance couldn’t erode the connection to his ancestry – a nexus that grew even stronger when he started at U of T in the late 1990s.

Kusano felt welcome right away, surrounded by students with similar life experiences who celebrated Asian cultures, languages and traditions in stark contrast to his childhood experiences.

"In the 1980s, being Japanese in Toronto was something that incited disgust in other people,” says Kusano. “The idea of eating sushi was cringe-worthy back then, but by the time I was in university, there were sushi restaurants all along Bloor Street.”

Canada recognized May as Asian Heritage Month more than two decades ago after U of T alumna Vivienne Poy, who would later become a chancellor at the university, put forward a motion while serving in the Senate.

At U of T, Kusano noted a cultural shift. After a painful struggle, the Japanese community had found acceptance in Canada's largest city.

In first year, Kusano joined Toronto’s Nagata Shachu taiko drumming ensemble as a flutist. The group played many shows at Hart House and performed at Faculty of Music events, which prepared him for his post-university career as a professional composer.

Kokichi ramped up writing music and dialogue for NAE at the start of the pandemic, a time when he – and so many others – struggled with isolation and existential fears.

He was also dealing with his father’s terminal cancer battle. In the spring of 2020, Kusano’s family made the difficult decision to move his ailing father out of a locked down hospital, allowing him to spend his final days with loved ones.

“At the time, I had no control over outcomes or cancer treatments or symptoms, and some very key characters in the show are depictions of my father’s desperation as well as my own ups and downs,” says Kusano, explaining that NAE is about the struggle with uncontrollable forces.

"Several hundred years ago, people were at the mercy of nature because it was still very unknown and unconquered. Plays and stories from that time have a supernatural element; this belief that there are demons and ghosts around every corner and in every shadow.”

NAE marks the culmination of hard work, personal pain and virtual rehearsals with a cast across Canada that will be reunited just one week before showtime.

"We exercised great care as we took this from the original Japanese script and put it in English – all while we respected the shape of the traditions,” Kusano says. “We know our family, friends and the core Japanese community will come to support us, but we’re very excited to share this experience with a broader audience.”

U of T student's musical, based on an Oscar Wilde classic, to debut at Hart House Theatre

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 17 Apr 2023 13:22:32 +0000

U of T student's musical, based on an Oscar Wilde classic, to debut at Hart House Theatre

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 04/17/2023 - 09:22

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Anthony Palermo wrote and directed The Gray: A Wilde Musical in Concert, which explores self-expression, generational queer trauma and what it means to find home in LGBTQ+ spaces (supplied image)

Topic

Undergraduate Students

Months before graduating, ��Ƶ Mississauga student Anthony Palermo will stage a production of his play based on Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray – but with an edgy 1970s glam-rock twist

From April 20 to 22, Hart House Theatre will present an in-concert version of a new work titled The Gray: A Wilde Musical in Concert, a twist on the Wilde classic.

First produced as an audio version (currently streaming on Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube) last year by the Victoria College Drama Society, The Gray will make its onstage debut at Hart House.

The musical is the brainchild of Palermo, executive producer of the English & Drama Student Society (EDSS) at U of T Mississauga. Palermo is an actor, director, writer and composer who is graduating from U of T/Sheridan College’s theatre and drama studies program this spring. In addition to directing the production, Palermo also created the book, music and lyrics for The Gray.

“Hart House is very special to me – a wonderful platform, Palermo says. "It has been a place of connection – I’ve been able to network with so many theater professionals and artists.”

The Gray is only the latest work in a recent string of successes for Palermo. Last year, they were invited by the Musical Stage Company to compose and direct music for One Song Glory, a musical-theatre training intensive for youth, and also were a featured artist-in-residence for Soulpepper Theatre Company's Queer Youth Cabaret. Last June, Palermo wrote and performed a one-person musical that was reprised at the EDSS Performance Arts Festival in December.

In addition to The Gray, Palermo wrote and directed another musical, Mythic Women and their Cabaret to Save Humanity, at U of T Mississauga last year. They also directed Dog Sees God (Winter 2021) and Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Fall 2022) with the Victoria College Drama Society, and are currently directing Angels in America at St. Michael’s College.

Palermo’s television work includes the CBC series Workin’ Moms and Macy Murdoch, a spinoff of Murdoch Mysteries.

Informed by real events in queer history

Inspired by Wilde’s enduring story and set in David’s Disco – a nightclub that briefly existed in Toronto’s Gay Village in the late 1970s – The Gray follows Dorian, a young singer-songwriter determined to become a star. After his photograph is taken, he becomes obsessed with the image and the power it holds. With an original, glam-rock-inspired score, the musical explores self-expression, generational queer trauma and what it means to find home in LGBTQ+ spaces.

“The inspiration came from events in the queer history of Toronto, with which I've always been fascinated, as well as [journalist] Justin Ling’s book Missing from the Village,” Palermo says. “I became extremely engrossed with that past as well as the queer themes in Wilde’s novel, and they sort of blended together in my mind.”

“It's significant to have [The Gray] on stage and to have queer bodies performing. This is really special.”

From left: Nick Palazzolo, Nell Khayutin, Giustin MacLean, Stevie Hook, Jacob Moro, Anthony Palermo and Liam Peter Donovan (supplied image)

From audio to onstage

The Gray was first produced as an audio drama, picking up wins at the U of T Drama Coalition Awards last year. From there, Palermo was contacted by Doug Floyd, director of theatre and performance art at Hart House, who connected him with playwright and director Aaron Jan, who helped with the stage adaptation.

Palermo recalls how his connection to Hart House goes all the way back to when he was in high school.

“In Grade 11, I wrote my first musical for the National Theatre School Festival. We went to regionals and performed on the Hart House Theatre stage,” says Palermo, who also worked at the theatre as a U of T work-study student.

Palermo credits Floyd and the rest of the Hart House Team – including education and production coordinator Gillian Lewis and marketing assistant Lindsey Middleton – for their support over the years.

“They were such grounding forces for me – they helped me build confidence,” Palermo notes.

As Palermo looks ahead to graduation, they have some advice for other students who dream of the bright stage lights.

“Get involved everywhere – work as a producer for a theatre company at U of T, gain experience as a designer … There are many different facets," Palermo says.

"Try everything at least once, because we have such a rare opportunity at U of T and at Hart House to be able to participate in so many things.”

'A creative perspective': Neurologist Suvendrini Lena on her path to playwriting

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 21:12:38 +0000

'A creative perspective': Neurologist Suvendrini Lena on her path to playwriting

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 03/13/2023 - 17:12

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Suvendrini Lena, an assistant professor in U of T's Temerty Faculty of Medicine, bridges the gap between medicine and theatre in her work as a playwright (photo courtesy of Suvendrini Lena)

Tabassum Siddiqui

Topic

City & Culture

Temerty Faculty of Medicine

Women's College Hospital

Suvendrini Lena has a foot in two worlds: she’s a staff neurologist at Women’s College Hospital and an assistant professor of neurology and psychiatry in the ��Ƶ’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine – and a successful playwright.

After earning a B.A. in history and political science as an undergraduate student at Trinity College, Lena went on to a graduate degree in neurology at U of T – all while exploring her longstanding interest in theatre and writing.

But the path to writing her first play was a bit of a surprise – certainly to her neurology professors. Instead of presenting a final research project, she wrote a piece of theatre – The Enchanted Loom – that explored the experience of a patient with epilepsy. It was later produced by Toronto’s Cahoots Theatre and published as a book.

Since then, Lena has continued to work in both medicine and theatre – her latest play, Rubble, is currently on stage at Theatre Passe Muraille until March 18. A dramatic imagining of the works of Palestinian poets Mahmoud Darwish and Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, the play was inspired by Lena’s work in Gaza in 2002 while still a medical student. Years later, Tuffaha’s poetry reminded her of the struggles – and the rubble – she witnessed while there.

Including fellow U of T alumni Roula Said and Lara Arabian among the cast of five, Rubble unfolds in Gaza as a mother and her family receive a life-changing call: they have 58 seconds to leave their home before an explosion. Drawing on the poems of Darwish and Tuffaha, Lena examines the meaning of poetry amidst a state of siege.

Lena spoke to U of T News about how her university experience informed her path to bridging the gap between medicine and the arts.

You’re a neurologist by training but now also a playwright – how did you find your way from medicine to theatre?

I always wanted to be a writer. In the neurology program at U of T, you have to do a big research project in your last year of the program, but I realized my heart wasn’t really in research. I’m definitely interested in understanding things well and the arts are another way to do that – you get to interrogate something, but from a creative perspective. I ended up writing a play about a Sri Lankan patient with a complex case of epilepsy and all the difficult choices facing him and his family as a result of his illness. So that became the centre of my first play.

What was your professors’ reaction when you asked to submit a play as your final project instead of a research paper?

There’s an art to pitching – it’s about taking an idea that has legs and having people understand and feel invested. So, I think I did that convincingly and I had open-minded supervisors – I was very lucky that way. I had great support and supervision, and we presented a reading from that play at the research presentation at the end of the year. The audience gave it a standing ovation. I think there was something compelling for them because they could see themselves depicted in a very human way. Doctors are so often portrayed in a one-dimensional way in TV and film, so I try not to do that myself.

What inspired you to write Rubble?

I’m a lover of poetry – especially these two particular poets; their lyrical poems exist on many levels. You have to hear it out loud to be able to appreciate the meaning – the poems also give you a window into the humanity of people who might feel distant from you, but you can see that’s not the case. I felt like it was a doorway to explore and give voice to the Palestinian experience – in the last 60 years, they have been displaced and under occupation, and there’s been very little clarity about that historical experience; very few places for them to really tell their story. So, the play is trying to create that space as well.

Lara Arabian in Rubble (photo courtesy of Theatre Passe Muraille/Aluna Theatre)

When you think back to your U of T studies, were there any mentors or faculty who made an impact on your educational and career path?

In my neurology program, Marika Hohol [Unity Health] and Richard Wennberg [University Health Network] were people I learned a lot from and who supported me. And during my undergrad years, I took courses in English and modern drama, including with an amazing professor, Alexander Leggatt – that’s really where my love of theatre was nurtured. He opened up the world of drama to many, many people. He was interested in ethics, philosophy and poetry – and really made it all accessible to us.

Left to right: Roula Said, Lara Arabian and Sam Khalilieh in Rubble (photo courtesy of Theatre Passe Muraille/Aluna Theatre)

How did your time at U of T help shape the work you do today?

I first studied history and political science, but got heavily into theatre when I directed plays with the Trinity College Dramatic Society. Afterwards, I swore I would never direct anything again – everything was so complicated! But I got to understand that when you study a text as a director, it’s a completely different experience than reading it in class, right? You step into building a theatrical world – which is what playwriting and theatre-making is all about.

How does your work as a doctor intersect with your work as a playwright?

In medicine, we deal with a lot of very difficult things all the time – and there's a bit of trauma in there. If you empathize with your patients, then you can’t help but witness suffering. These are very moving things and you’ve got to stay open and alive to all that. I need an outlet – writing provides me with that outlet and theatre is special because you can explore human issues and relationships in a unique way. All kinds of writing can touch on that, but when something is written for the theatre and embodied by an actor, it gives an added dimension of reality.

What’s your approach to teaching?

I mostly do small-group teaching in the medical school curriculum and a seminar on medicine and the humanities. This semester, we’re doing a staging where we explore medical experiences and how physicians examine their own subjectivity. We also try to engage with issues of contemporary relevance, including issues of voice and representation in medicine and society.

U of T alumnus Mark Crawford back on stage for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 19:31:55 +0000

U of T alumnus Mark Crawford back on stage for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 08/31/2022 - 15:31

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Mark Crawford, a drama and theatre alumnus of U of T Mississauga, has hit the Toronto stage as a cast member of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (photo by Ann Baggley)

Negin Neghabat-Wolthoff

Topic

Mark Crawford, an alumnus of the ��Ƶ Mississauga, says he’s grateful to be part of the ensemble cast for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which is currently playing at Toronto’s CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre.

The acclaimed actor and playwright says being in the cast of Harry Potter offers some stability in a volatile industry that still hasn’t fully recovered from the pandemic (the CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre raised its curtain earlier this year for its first full season since 2020).

“The thing about being a theatre artist is that you’re a gig worker,” Crawford says. “This means that, most of the time, you’re working in five- or six-week intervals, piecing together contracts as you go.

“Apart from the opportunity to work on a fantastic play and as part of a wonderful team, being in Harry Potter has granted me stability, which is something I've learned not to take for granted.”

While Harry Potter is sold out every night, audience numbers at other theatres are still down, which affects budgets and creates challenges for those working in theatre arts.

“Many people I used to know and work with have, sadly, left the industry,” says Crawford. “That’s something that we can’t ignore in the aftermath of the pandemic.”

Mark Crawford as the Station Master in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child photo by Evan Zimmerman)

The early days of the pandemic were bleak for the theatre industry. A production of Crawford’s award-winning 2014 play Stag & Doe was cancelled in early 2020 and future productions were tentative at best. It was just one of many cancellations during a difficult time.

Despite the pandemic restrictions, the actor and playwright kept busy.

In 2020, Crawford wrote and produced Don’t Get Me Startered, a podcast production about a sourdough starter that gets out of hand that was commissioned for CBC’s Pandemic Chronicles. In 2021, he staged Chase the Ace during a tour across Ontario, playing all the roles in the one-man comedy about a big-city DJ forced to take a job at a small-town radio station during the pandemic.

Then, in March 2022, he debuted a short film Priya Tate: Super Taster, which centered around a picky eater with a unique gift.

Community, connection and understanding

The son of farmers from Glencoe, Ont., Crawford is well known for his observations of small-town life through themes of community, connection and understanding, as well as his skillful blending of drama and humour. His plays have been featured in theatres across the country and internationally.

Being in the cast of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has brought back many memories from Crawford’s student days at U of T Mississauga, where he studied theatre and drama.

“Harry Potter is a highly physical show with a lot of movement in it,” Crawford explains. “I've been reminded a lot of my movement classes from 18 years ago at UTM. It's amazing how long those lessons stay with you.”

Over the years, Crawford’s path has often crossed with others who attended U of T Mississauga. “We laugh and commiserate together about our work and the industry,” he says. “We have that immediate connection through our time at UTM.”

In addition to attending classes and making connections, Crawford’s advice for current students in his field is to cultivate other interests, hobbies and even career prospects.

“It’s important to be able to keep busy and be able to make a living when you are between gigs or when faced with something unpredictable like a pandemic,” Crawford says. “You must be able to do other things to support yourself at times. There's no stigma attached to that. In this industry, you can feel highly successful at times, but you can also feel the opposite. It is nothing short of a rollercoaster ride.”

Mark Crawford in Chase the Ace at Festival Players of Prince Edward County in 2021 (photo by Imagine Photography)

When he is not staying in Toronto for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Crawford lives in Stratford, Ont. with his partner and fellow actor Paul Dunn.

Birds, bees, and drag queens

Since the spring of 2022, Crawford’s plays have returned to stages across North America. His play, The Birds & The Bees, debuted with U.K.-based companies and will soon run in North American theatres.

Crawford works with other U of T alumni – including fellow actor Sara Farb and stage manager Jessica Severin, in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – which runs at least through December. But preparations for his newest play are already well underway. In 2023, The Gig, a play about drag queens and conservatives, will debut in Hamilton’s Theatre Aquarius.

“My new play, The Gig, is the biggest play I’ve written so far in terms of cast and theatre size,” Crawford says. “The scale of this project is exciting.

“I just want to keep telling stories and entertaining audiences. That's what keeps me happy and motivated.”

Early English drama resources offer insights on theatre from Middle Ages, Shakespeare

geoff.vendeville — Thu, 17 Dec 2020 20:50:44 +0000

Early English drama resources offer insights on theatre from Middle Ages, Shakespeare

geoff.vendeville Thu, 12/17/2020 - 15:50

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Illustration of the Rose Theatre (image courtesy of William Dudley, John Greenfield, C.Walter Hodges, The Museum of London and the Rose Theatre Trust)

Sean McNeely

Topic

Global Lens

Centre for Medieval Studies

English

Faculty of Arts & Science

Humanities

Shakespeare

Theatre

The Records of Early English Drama (REED) research collaboration has pulled back the curtain on two new online resources that bring a vibrant period of historical theatre performance, including the time of Shakespeare, to life.

Available on REED Online, the Hampshire and the Rose Playhouse Prototype provide valuable resources for teaching and research that are filled with surviving records and images of drama, music and other popular forms of entertainment in England from the Middle Ages (late 10^th century) to 1642.

An international scholarly project founded in 1975, REED is focused on researching and cataloguing the context from which the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries grew by locating, transcribing and editing historical documents that capture the history of drama, music and other forms of secular entertainment.

At the ��Ƶ, REED is associated with the department of English in the Faculty of Arts & Science, the Centre for Medieval Studies, the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies and the Poculi Ludique Societas.

And with REED’s latest resources, students, scholars and researchers can easily attain “a more vibrant understanding of the range and the dynamism of entertainment,” says Professor Emerita Sally-Beth MacLean of the department of English, REED’s director of research and general editor.

“Professors and students of drama and theatre, Elizabethan literature, early modern English history, language and manuscript studies could all make use of these resources.”

REED Online’s Rose Playhouse Prototype includes an interactive map of the London area that links to extensive records and images.

The Hampshire collection provides an extensive and varied collection of dramatic records, the largest digital edition made available by REED to date.

“It includes medieval and renaissance entertainment performed by local people and professional actors, minstrels, musicians, acrobats, jesters, even animals in towns, villages, as well as the cities of Southampton and Winchester and Winchester College School where the performance venue in the medieval dining hall remains intact,” says MacLean.

This collection also offers rare glimpses into the inner workings of performance, such as records of expenses for constructing stages and sets in Winchester College Hall, licences granted to acting troupes and details about the elaborate entertainment line-up for Queen Elizabeth in 1591. The records and documents are also linked to a geographic information system (GIS) provincial map of England, showing where they originated.

Edited by MacLean herself, the Rose Playhouse Prototype offers historical records and information relating to Philip Henslowe's Rose Playhouse. Constructed on the south bank of the Thames River in 1587, it may have been the first playhouse to ever stage a Shakespeare production.

This collection includes historic gems such as the deed of partnership for the Rose and the theatre inventories of the Lord Admiral’s Men, a famous acting troupe of the late 1500s.

“The Rose Playhouse Prototype is our first in a projected series of individual Elizabethan and Jacobean playhouse digital editions that could be used in classrooms where drama from the period is taught,” says MacLean. “It should be of particular interest for faculty teaching Shakespeare.

“For the first time, the dramatic records are linked with manuscript images and detailed interactive mapping of all London area locations associated with the theatre, as well as historical data available on other open access websites.”

Those websites include international databases such as the Henslowe-Alleyn Digitisation Project, which is part of the archives of Dulwich College in London.

This archive holds thousands of pages of manuscripts left to the college by its founder, actor Edward Alleyn (1566-1626) and makes up one of the largest archives of material on professional theatre and dramatic performance in early modern England, during the age of Shakespeare and his contemporaries.

“I hope the Rose Prototype will stimulate an expanding partnership of collaborators to research and edit all the Elizabethan and Jacobean playhouses for the REED series,” says MacLean. “If our research can lead to new collaborations with archaeologists, local historians, museums and heritage sites that would be terrific.”

In fact, MacLean hopes both new collections attract attention globally.

“I would like to see our outreach expanded to bring many more students, scholars and a wider public around the world to our work,” she says.

Theatre student at U of T Mississauga takes the show online amid COVID-19

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 19:58:21 +0000

Theatre student at U of T Mississauga takes the show online amid COVID-19

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 04/01/2020 - 15:58

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Muhaddisah Batool (bottom left) played the first servant in the recently streamed live performance of The Taming of the Shrew (screenshot via Zoom)

Undergraduate Students

Amid theatre closures and live show cancellations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, one theatre and drama studies student at the ��Ƶ Mississauga is finding new ways to connect with other artists to share their talents with a worldwide audience.

Muhaddisah Batool, a third-year student, recently took part in a live-streamed performance of The Taming of the Shrew, which is part of an initiative called The Show Must Go Online. Created by Glasgow-based actor, filmmaker and writer Robert Myles, The Show Must go Online consists of weekly readings of the complete plays of Shakespeare in the order they are believed to have been written.

The actors, each appearing from their own homes over the video-conferencing app Zoom, practised a few times before the live show, Batool says, adding that it was interesting to navigate the technology while performing, including lags in the video. There was also a lack of immediate feedback from the audience.

“I felt like I was performing in a void,” Batool says. “We didn’t have anything except our acting.”

The Taming of the Shrew was the second performance Myles streamed on YouTube, consisting of a cast of 22 actors from across the globe who volunteered their time. Batool, who plays the first servant, says she was “over the moon” when she first learned she landed a part in the performance.

With theatres closed due to the pandemic, U of T Mississauga student Muhaddisah Batool is finding ways to share her art online (photo by Miranda Wiseman)

Before the live performance started, the players, each plugged in from their own homes, introduced themselves to the audience. Most were professional actors. Flattered that she had been chosen to participate, Batool says she felt pressure to not only represent theatre students, but also Canada.

Being in separate spaces posed some challenges, especially for such a physical play. Handing props between characters required creativity. Batool says they deliberately changed the items to draw attention to the form. For example, a glass of red wine handed to one character changed to white wine when it showed up in the other frame. Batool says when she had to yank off Petruchio’s boot, the actor playing Petruchio (from his home in Los Angeles) showed his leg being pulled, and then she pulled her own boot into her frame before taking a whiff and commenting it smells terrible.

The performers had been told to be more emphatic or exaggerated to help match the energy levels they’d find in a room filled with 100 people. After the show, audience feedback was shared with the cast so they could see that people around the world enjoyed – possibly even needed – the performance.

After the show stopped streaming, the actors stayed online to chat with one another for about an hour, despite the difference in time zones.

“I was surprised … we felt such a connection to each other,” Batool says.

This is the second performance Batool has done online since the pandemic closed theatres. Recently she used Instagram Live to share an altered version of a solo performance project she had planned for her theatre class. That performance, she says, was for “personal artistic fulfillment.”

Now that she has been involved with The Show Must Go Online, she plans to put her name forward for their upcoming rendition of Antony and Cleopatra or Measure for Measure, two plays she’s long wanted to do. In the meantime, she will explore the digital medium further by adapting works of literature and presenting the characters as if they were YouTube stars.

A firm believer that live theatre needs to be accessible to a broad audience, Batool says there’s a need to share art with as many people as possible. She is heartened to see some of the larger theatres are finally putting their archival footage online. “I am glad this is happening,” she says.

Come From Away cast collects more than $16,000 for U of T Iranian Student Memorial Scholarship Fund

geoff.vendeville — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 15:50:08 +0000

Come From Away cast collects more than $16,000 for U of T Iranian Student Memorial Scholarship Fund

geoff.vendeville Mon, 02/24/2020 - 10:50

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The cast from Come From Away collected more than $16,000 from audience members for U of T's Iranian Student Memorial Scholarship Fund, which honours eight U of T community members who died in the crash of Flight 752 (photo by Cylla von Tiedemann)

Topic

Institute of Health Policy Management and Evaluation

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Almost one year ago, Dr. Allan Detsky welcomed a visitor in his office at Mount Sinai Hospital: a first-year medical student who was interested in pursuing a PhD in health economics.

He recalls the student making a particularly strong impression.

“He was very quiet, very humble – but very smart,” said Detsky, a professor in the ��Ƶ’s Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation and the Faculty of Medicine.

Tragically, the student – Mohammad Asadi Lari, who was in U of T’s MD/PhD program – would never get the chance to fulfill his potential. He and his sister, Zeynab Asadi Lari, who studied science at U of T Mississauga, were among the 176 people aboard Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 when it was shot down shortly after take-off from Tehran on Jan. 8.

In response, U of T established a scholarship fund in memory of the eight U of T community members who died in the crash, including six students, and pledged to match donations three-to-one up to $250,000. The needs-based award is meant to support international students from Iran as well as students from any background pursuing Iranian studies at U of T.

Moved by the tragedy, Detsky, who is also a producer of the hit musical Come From Away at Toronto’s Royal Alexandra Theatre, was supportive when Come From Away actors Ali Momen and Kevin Vidal approached Mirvish Productions about collecting money for the scholarship at the end of the show, as they had done for other charitable causes.

“For me, the choice of a scholarship for where the money should go made the most sense,” said Momen, who plays Kevin J and other roles in Come From Away.

“In addition to the lives lost, there was the lost promise of the six students and two members of the U of T family. Their promise – future doctors, scientists, architects, poets – is gone.”

Ali Momen and Kevin Vidal (photos courtesy of Mirvish)

Momen added that the U of T scholarship will help ensure future students don’t lose the opportunity to realize their own potential. As they have done for other causes, including the Australian wildfires and the Humboldt Broncos bus crash, the cast asked Come From Away audiences for donations after the show.

“The nature of this show is that actors rally together during big tragedies,” said Vidal, who plays Bob and others in the musical.

Over several shows, the cast raised $16,186 for the U of T scholarship, which will be matched through the 3-to-one matching program.

As of this week, the scholarship fund has raised more than of $96,000 from 371 donors.

Come From Away tells the true story of Newfoundlanders who welcomed thousands of passengers stranded in the small town of Gander after 38 planes were suddenly diverted to its airport on the day of the 9/11 attacks. The community of about 11,000 residents took in about 6,600 travellers – along with 11 dogs, nine cats and two Bonobo apes.

“Our show is very much about kindness and ultimately being there when one is called to serve,” Momen said.

When he stood by the door with a donation bucket, Momen said audiences were happy to contribute. “I really do think it resonated with people,” he said. “Everyone understood this is a big deal.”

The producers were also supportive, Detsky added, “particularly because of the nature of the show – because it’s about giving back.”

David Palmer, U of T’s vice-president, advancement, said the university is immensely grateful for the donations.

“It is a wonderfully generous gift to an important cause: to honour the memory of those we have lost and to establish a legacy that will support and encourage future generations of students to follow their inspiring examples of learning and leadership,” he said.

Learn more about the Iranian Student Memorial Scholarship

'It's a great honour': Eleven U of T faculty named fellows of the Royal Society of Canada

perry.king — Tue, 10 Sep 2019 13:53:13 +0000

'It's a great honour': Eleven U of T faculty named fellows of the Royal Society of Canada

perry.king Tue, 09/10/2019 - 09:53

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From left to right: Pamela Klassen, Kathleen Gallagher and Heinz-Bernhard Kraatz are three of 11 U of T researchers named fellows of the prestigious Royal Society of Canada (all photos by Perry King)

Perry King

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Pamela Klassen studies religion’s impact on the world at large. Kathleen Gallagher sees theatre as a way to understand students and their education. Heinz-Bernhard Kraatz is designing tools to detect biomolecules that cause cancer and other diseases.

They are just three of 11 ��Ƶ researchers named fellows of the prestigious Royal Society of Canada – considered a major achievement for scholars in this country.

The other new fellows from U of T are: Cheryl Grady, Eric Jennings, Sidney Kennedy, Zheng-Hong Lu, Locke Rowe, Kimberly Strong, Yu Sun and Michael Taylor. (See the full list below.)

“The ��Ƶ congratulates its newest Royal Society of Canada fellows on their achievement and looks forward to the outstanding work they will continue to produce as members of the national academy,” says Vivek Goel, vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives.

“These 11 researchers, representing a wide array of disciplines, are contributing to new knowledge, insights and innovations that impact the lives of Canadians and people around the world.”

Founded in the 1880s, the Royal Society of Canada recognizes scholars and their work in order to help them build a better future in Canada and around the world.

Fellows have made remarkable contributions in the arts, humanities and sciences and will be mobilized to contribute knowledge, understanding, and insight through engagement with the Canadian public.

They are nominated and elected by their Royal Society of Canada peers.

U of T’s 11 new fellows will join over 370 Royal Society of Canada fellows from U of T, and more than 2,000 active fellows overall.

Pamela Klassen

A professor in the department for the study of religion, Klassen seeks to understand how religion shapes our world – in the past, present and imagined future.

Since joining U of T in 1997, she has researched religion, gender and secularism in North America, the intersection of gender and medicine and the role of Christianity in Canadian colonialism.

“Religion is at the heart of some of the most challenging issues in the contemporary world,” says Klassen, adding that it plays an integral role in personal decision-making, social structure and politics.

The subject has led Klassen down several seemingly disparate roads of inquiry. They include: research into Mennonite women refugees during the Second World War; the role of religion in the home birth movement; and the history of medicine, including the role of medical missionaries.

She describes her work as “people focused.”

“I want to take care to reflect on what people have told me in interviews or from diaries and letters I’ve found in archives in a way that is respectful of their stories – but set those stories in a wider context so we can learn from them in a broader political, social way,” says Klassen, who previously won an American Academy of Religion award of excellence.

Such personal engagement laid the groundwork for Klassen’s 2018 book The Story of Radio Mind: A Missionary’s Journey on Indigenous Land. The book, which combined meticulous historical research and many conversations with Indigenous historians and knowledge holders, examines the life of Frederick du Vernet, an early 20^th-century Anglican archbishop who journeyed through Ojibwe, Ts’msyen and Nisga’a territory and came to condemn the devastating effects of residential schools run by his church.

Klassen’s work on the book also led to the Kiinawin Kawindomowin Story Nations project, an interactive website that Klassen and her students continue to work on in consultation with the Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung Historical Centre of the Rainy River First Nations. It focuses on a diary Du Vernet wrote on an 1898 visit to Rainy River, and includes many stories of Ojibwe women and men expressing strong resistance to the missionary presence.

“My work has always been animated by – this is more grandiose than I want to make it sound – questions of injustice that I see around me and how religion plays into various kinds of inequality, or how religion shapes the political world in which we live,” Klassen says.

She thanks her peers for nominating and appointing her as a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

“It’s a great honour to be nominated and accepted,” she says. “It’s a community of such a wide array of scholars – people from so many different fields – so to have the recognition of colleagues from across the humanities really means a lot to me.”

Kathleen Gallagher

A professor in the department of curriculum, teaching and learning at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Gallagher uses theatre to understand young people’s views on life in and out of the classroom.

Gallagher, who is interested in questions of pedagogy, artistic practice and the social contexts of schooling, sees theatre as a “mode of inquiry” that’s yielded important insights into young people’s views on democracy, civic engagement and inequality.

In order to conduct her global, ethnographic research, Gallagher has relied on collaborations with graduate students, who she calls her “most important intellectual community,” as well as the active participation of youth. Such collaborations are a “lifeblood,” she says.

“I can’t imagine operating as a researcher in any other way, frankly,” says Gallagher, who is cross-appointed at the Centre for Drama, Theatre & Performance Studies and won a U of T President’s Impact Award last year. “The richness and the contributions of young people in my research projects make it possible for me to do the work I do.”

Gallagher has also worked with playwright Andrew Kushnir on Towards Youth – a play Kushnir wrote that brings to life the concept of hope among youth in drama classrooms around the world that Gallagher’s research has explored. She describes the collaboration with Kushnir as “next level” because working with a professional playwright gave her an opportunity to communicate some of her research findings to a broad audience. It was also an opportunity to work with a professional playwright.

“To be able to be in a long-term, close dialogue with someone who brings a whole other set of professional skills, understandings and experience to that research, is a gift with untold value,” she says.

Gallagher hopes her Royal Society of Canada fellowship opens up more avenues for cross-disciplinary work.

“The idea that I’m going to walk into new intellectual terrain with researchers beyond my U of T network is enormously exciting to me,” she says. “It feels like a new beginning.”

Heinz-Bernhard Kraatz

A professor in the department of physical and environmental sciences at U of T Scarborough, Kraatz wants to prevent diseases by creating tools that can help spot their underlying causes.

Kraatz is focused on creating new sensor materials that allow him to detect biomolecules, such as DNA and proteins – and even biological processes – that play a role in everything from cell division to cancer and viral infections.

He’s also conducting research that looks at the underlying molecular causes for conditions like Alzheimer’s disease.

“We’re looking at identification of organisms at the genetic level, but we’re also looking at detection of pathogens in the environment,” says Kraatz, who is also U of T Scarborough’s vice-principal of research.

Finding ways to translate such research into real-world solutions can take decades – which is why Kraatz is grateful for his lab colleagues and students who have helped push ideas forward.

“You can have this crazy idea and a non-optimal model system to work it out,” he says. “But taking that next step to go to a model system that actually does allow you to answer that question in a definitive way – it’s really important.”

He hopes his passion for science rubs off on his students.

“I love discussing science with my students, first of all. This is fun, this is a dialogue. Students have ideas – I have ideas and we sort of bounce them off each other,” he says. “Students come up with brilliant ideas and offer some brilliant solutions to problems.”

In his role as vice-principal of research, Kraatz works to promote outstanding research and scholarship in all disciplines at U of T Scarborough while also advancing collaborations and enhancing the research environment for students.

He considers himself a role model at the university – a responsibility he takes seriously.

“Ultimately, [the fellowship] enhances visibility and you have an obligation to contribute to the Royal Society, but also to university life by mentoring young faculty and students,” says Kraatz.

“Making sure they’re on a productive path going forward is critical.”

Here is the full list of new Royal Society of Canada fellows from U of T:

Kathleen Gallagher, department of curriculum, teaching and learning
Cheryl Grady, department of psychiatry, and Baycrest Health Sciences
Eric Jennings, department of history
Sidney Kennedy, department of psychiatry, University Health Network, St. Michael’s Hospital
Pamela Klassen, department for the study of religion
Heinz-Bernhard Kraatz, department of physical and environmental sciences, U of T Scarborough
Zheng-Hong Lu, department of materials science and engineering
Locke Rowe, department of ecology and evolutionary biology
Kimberly Strong, department of physics
Yu Sun, department of mechanical and industrial engineering
Michael Taylor, departments of surgery and laboratory medicine and pathobiology, and the Hospital for Sick Children