Monthly Archives: May 2019

News Flash

Creative PEI Doors Open

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Alongside CreativePEI, Confederation Centre is hosting Doors Open on Saturday June 1, 2019.

An international festival that allows art, culture and heritage buildings, not generally accessible to the public, to open their doors for a day. And it’s completely free!

From 10am to 3pm join us in The Confederation Chamber Replica for The Story of Confederation that offers visitors the opportunity to experience Province House in Prince Edward Island National Historic Site and the Charlottetown Conference while Province House is closed for conservation work.

From 2:30pm to 3:30pm join us in The Homburg Theatre for a sneak peek at the set for Kronborg – The Hamlet Rock Musical and hear from our Festival team about the production before it opens!

From 3:30 pm to 4:30 pm c’mon in and design, create and make some wearable art with Kate Sharpley in the Art Bunker! Experience the Centre with a fun activity for children and adults: Button Pins!

PEI Professional Theatre Network

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PEI Theatre is the Guild, Harbourfront Theatre,
Confederation Centre for the Arts,
Watermark Theatre, and the Victoria Playhouse
News Flash

The New Young Company

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Introducing The 2019 TD Confederation Centre Young Company!

Youth theatre troupe bound for Halifax; will open Charlottetown season June 29

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The TD Confederation Centre Young Company returns this month, and are kicking off their 2019 season off with a bang. The youth performance, leadership, and training company officially opens their season at the Centre on Saturday June 29 at 12 noon in the outdoor amphitheatre.

The troupe will also be headed to Halifax, Nova Scotia in June for performances stemming from a well-receivedtouring appearance made by the 2018 Young Companyat the National Child Welfare Conference in Calgary, AB in October 2018. More information on this exciting, multi-day opportunity will be announced in the weeks ahead.

The Young Company is a long-standing pillar of arts education within the Centre’s Charlottetown Festival – sponsored by CIBC – and features 12 young artists from across Canada.

With a strong focus on all three performance disciplines–and on building storytelling and leadership skills–these artists from coast to coast to coast gather to share their life experiences and stories with each other and eventually, audiences as well!

This summer, the troupe presents Aqsarniit, (or, “the Northern Lights” in Inuktitut) daily at 12 noon from June 29 to August 17. This provocative and thoughtful musical weaves music and dance through stories of our collective histories from across Turtle Island.

The 2019 Young Company hail from all corners of Canada and collectively speak at least eight languages! Made up of returning members and new faces, the troupe includes: Ann Paula Bautista, Riley Bernard, Zachary Colangelo, Tatyana Doran, Matthew Joseph, Wahsonti:io Kirby, Alika Komangapik, Gunho Kwak, Callum Lurie, Emily McKim, Jocelyn Tsui, and Haneul Yi.

Aqsarniit is written by Mary Francis Moore and Adam Brazier. The Young Company’s creative team is composed of Matt Murray (director), Colleen Dauncey (music director), Sam McCue (set and costume designer), and Adam Sergison with Julie Pellisier-Lush (choreographers). The Young Company Stage Manager is Cole Vincent. 

Confederation Centre wishes to acknowledge the Department of Canadian Heritage, the Government of P.E.I., and the City of Charlottetown for their continued support.

PEI Professional Theatre Network

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PEI Theatre is the Guild, Harbourfront Theatre,
Confederation Centre for the Arts,
Watermark Theatre, and the Victoria Playhouse
State of the Art

First You See It Then You Don’t

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Split Images: Truth and Fiction

 

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Real and invented worlds clash or coexist in this selection of works from the collection.
Curated by Pan Wendt.

 

PEI Professional Theatre Network

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PEI Theatre is the Guild, Harbourfront Theatre,
Confederation Centre for the Arts,
Watermark Theatre, and the Victoria Playhouse

 

Music

Stomp Right In

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SATURDAY, JUNE 8TH, 7:00 PM at the Harbourfront Theatre
General Admission: $35.50 (fees included)

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Please contact Box Office (open Monday-Friday, 12 PM – 5 PM) to add your name to our wait list.
(Local: 902-888-2500 | Long Distance Toll-Free: 800-708-6505)

TRIBUTE TO STOMPIN’ TOM CONNORS – CHAD MATTHEWS
With special guest Katie McGarry

Sponsored by:
Trout River Industries
Mill River Resort | Alberton Fisheries Limited | Our Family Tradition Restaurant | Rooney Funeral Home

This tribute to Canadian icon, the late Stompin’ Tom Connors, is second to none, paying homage to one of Canada’s most beloved folk heroes.

Headlining the show will be Island singer/actor Chad Matthews, who portrays Stompin’ Tom at a dinner theatre in Skinners Pond PEI at the Stompin’ Tom Centre and who recently performed in Toronto with renowned tenor John McDermott.

Joining Chad for this special night of Stompin’ Tom songs, stories and laughs, is his band comprised of well-known Island musicians including fiddle sensation/singer/songwriter/step dancer Keelin Wedge, along with guitar extraordinaire Daniel Drouin fresh off his Music PEI award win and recently chosen for the 2018 Canadian Songwriter’s Challenge. On drums will be seasoned singer Rodney Arsenault, whose 35+ years in the business have seen him on stage with the legendary Eddie Eastman, with Catherine MacLellan in her show “If It’s Alright With You” honouring her late father Gene MacLellan, and many others. Last but certainly not least, on bass guitar, another veteran of the local music scene, singer Wade Carragher.

Also sharing the stage that night will be up and coming singer/songwriter from Charlottetown, Katie McGarry.  She has a country / Americana feel to her music, and a timeless voice. Her latest album “Waiting On” received four 2015 Music PEI Award nominations including Songwriter of the Year. She took home the award for Country Recording of the Year.

So much Prince Edward Island talent on the same stage for this memorable one night only event! Don’t miss out!

PEI Professional Theatre Network

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PEI Theatre is the Guild, Harbourfront Theatre,
Confederation Centre for the Arts,
Watermark Theatre, and the Victoria Playhouse
State of the Art

Mapping Your Own World

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Shuvinai Ashoona is best known for her highly personal and imaginative drawings, with imagery ranging from monstrous and fantastical visions to closely observed naturalistic scenes of her Inuit culture and home community at Kinngait, Nunavut.

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Opening June 8 at the Confederation Centre Art Gallery (CCAG), the exhibition Mapping Worlds features pencil crayon and ink drawings produced by the artist over the past two decades. Living in Kinngait on the southern tip of Baffin Island, Ashoona is part of Canada’s Inuit culture. She is best known for her highly personal and imaginative iconography, with imagery ranging from closely observed naturalistic scenes of her Arctic home, to monstrous and fantastical visions.

“This rich survey of Shuvinai Ashoona’s works will allow audiences to encounter a fascinating and unique world view by an award-winning contemporary artist,” says CCAG Director, Kevin Rice.

 “I also want to invite the public to a sneak preview of the exhibition with curator, Dr. Nancy Campbell, onFriday June 7 at 2 p.m. It will be an informal opportunity for Campbell to tour visitors through the exhibition while she is here for the installation.”

The artist’s work imagines the past and present fused into a prophetic future such as human-animal hybrid creatures, women birthing worlds, and mystical or other-worldly landscapes clearly inspired by the terrain of her northern home. Opposite to dystopic, Shuvinai’s brightly coloured drawings teem with life; and while her community occasionally clashes with the artist’s creatures, they often peacefully co-exist.

Today, TV series like The Walking Dead stimulate our fears of the unknown, the monstrous and the ‘other’ in a manner that risks increasing our xenophobia and provoking violence. Ashoona’s work speaks to these current anxieties, yet her artwork does not depict humans in opposition to the otherworldly. By appropriating images from her fascination with horror films, comic books and TV, Ashoona merges different imagery with everyday narratives to redraw the map of the boundaries between reality and fantasy, past and future.

The exhibition is curated by Nancy Campbell and Justine Kohleal and organized and circulated by The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto. Sponsored by TD Bank Group and supported by major donors The Schreiber Sisters and Anonymous, the Canada Council for the Art and the Ontario Arts Council.

 

PEI Professional Theatre Network

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PEI Theatre is the Guild, Harbourfront Theatre,
Confederation Centre for the Arts,
Watermark Theatre, and the Victoria Playhouse

News Flash

Riding the Rails

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Confederation Players Riding the Rails in Ottawa and Montreal

Confederation Centre of the Arts heritage program celebrates 30 years this summer

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The Confederation Players are marking two important milestones this summer: the 100th anniversary of their program sponsor, CN Rail, and the 30th anniversary of the Players program itself.

Founded in 1989 to mark the 125th anniversary of the 1864 Charlottetown Conference, the Players program have offered historic vignettes, guided walking tours, Victorian songs, croquet games with tourists, and improvised street encounters to thousands and thousands of visitors in Downtown Charlottetown.

More than 250 young people from across Canada have taken part in the youth leadership program to date. The troupe employs about a dozen young people from P.E.I. and elsewhere every summer and, since 2012, have been a key part of Confederation Centre of the Arts’ (CCOA) heritage and arts education offerings.

CN came on board as major program sponsor in 2017, launching special Canada 150 and rail-themed celebrations with the Players in cities across Canada. Now, to highlight CN’s own 100th anniversary, the troupe will return to Ottawa and Montreal in the weeks ahead to perform on Parliament Hill and participate in centenary celebrations.

CN came on board as major program sponsor in 2017, launching special Canada 150 and rail-themed celebrations with the Players in cities across Canada. Now, to highlight CN’s own 100th anniversary, the troupe will return to Ottawa and Montreal in the weeks ahead to perform on Parliament Hill and participate in centenary celebrations.

This year’s troupe includes a strong mix of new and returning college-age performers who will bring Canada and the Island’s histories to life all summer and into the fall. Led by artistic supervisor Cameron MacDonald, this year’s troupe includes: returnees Guy Brun, Dylan Gaudet, Grace Hickey, Jim McClean, Eden McFadden, Sam Rainnie, and Jacob Rollwage. New players are Connor Briggs, Hannah McGaughey, Mitchell McNally, and Alexandra Sorenson.

The Players launch their summer season at CCOA on Saturday, June 29, and will offer two enhanced public walking tours until August 18. ‘The Great George Experience’ guides tourists from the city’s stunning waterfront to Queen Square and includes historic vignettes and appearances from half a dozen different performers.

After years of public requests, The Ghost Tour returns this summer, hosted by ‘the Gravedigger’. This evening walk is offered every Friday and delves into the darker side of Island history, including tales of unsolved murders, ghost ships on the harbour, and even a famous execution.

All tours are family-friendly and the Great George Experience is available in French and English. For full program details, times, and to book walking tour tickets, visit the Confederation Centre website.

PEI Professional Theatre Network

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PEI Theatre is the Guild, Harbourfront Theatre,
Confederation Centre for the Arts,
Watermark Theatre, and the Victoria Playhouse
News Flash

Wherever You Are, There You Are

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Introducing Canadian Playwright Kristen Da Silva

Victoria Playhouse is delighted to produce Kristen Da Silva’s new play Where You Are as part of its 2019 Festival Season. Canada’s most produced playwright, Norm Foster calls Da Silva, “one of the brightest new comedic playwrights in all of Canada” and her plays have been shortlisted for and won the Stage West Comedy Award. Kristen Da Silva is a young Canadian playwright whose star is rising.

At once hilarious and heartwarming, Where You Are takes place in rural Manitoulin Island in Ontario. Rural settings are central to all Da Silva’s works and the playwright herself grew up in small-town Ontario, surrounded by farmland. It’s an environment she knows well and one that she says lends itself well to comedy.

“There’s no anonymity in the country. You really can know everyone in your community and that can lead to some pretty funny situations”.

Da Silva has the ideal combination of experiences to bring those funny situations to light. An early interest in performance led her to drama classes and improv in high school. Then, as a student at York University, she was a company member of Vanier College Productions and a founding member of the Vanier Improv Company, where she honed her comedy-writing chops. A career in theatre didn’t seem viable, however, so following graduation she went to work in the human resources department of an oil and gas company, a job which, it turned out, gave her ample opportunity to absorb the humour of human nature.

In 2016, she left the HR world to write and act full-time. She has since produced six full-length scripts and taken on the role of playwright-in-residence at Theatre Orangeville, while continuing to act, direct, and teach theatre both in professional and amateur companies.

Where You Are is her fifth play and her first to be produced in Atlantic Canada. The Victoria Playhouse production plays from June 25th to July 28th in Victoria.

PEI Professional Theatre Network

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PEI Theatre is the Guild, Harbourfront Theatre,
Confederation Centre for the Arts,
Watermark Theatre, and the Victoria Playhouse
State of the Art

Getting Up to Speed

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Fast Forward

This exhibition of short videos presents imaginings of the near future. The works share
both fantastic and troubling outlooks while exploring historical contexts and
technological shifts to better understand our current trajectory.

 

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Fast Forward is an exhibition of short videos that present imaginings of the future. Featuring works by six artists and filmmakers from across Eastern Canada, the works in Fast Forward use the durational and narrative mediums of film and video to project the artists’ own fantasies, speculations, and observations about their environments, offering insight into human existence.

The works investigate troubling and relevant current issues—political views are increasingly divisive, economic sectors prioritize profits before people, and the climate crisis continues to loom—while offering outlooks that range from bleak to hopeful. In the direst of outcomes presented in these works, society will follow a destructive and greedy path, turning to technology and automation to streamline ourselves towards our demise. In the more optimistic possibilities that are presented, we may find peace and healing through traditional knowledge, connecting to the land, and strengthening communities. The question we are left with: How did we get here and where are we going?

Lisa Theriault, Guest Curator

Participating Artists:

Dawn George

Bretten Hannam

Nelson MacDonald

Jeremy Sandor

Roberto Santaguida

Skawennati

PEI Professional Theatre Network

28660348_162333201093170_735205771249634989_n

PEI Theatre is the Guild, Harbourfront Theatre,
Confederation Centre for the Arts,
Watermark Theatre, and the Victoria Playhouse
State of the Art

Three Years in the Making

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Trilogy – 3 Years in the Making Opening Reception
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May 29, 2019 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm at The Guild 
Trilogy — 3 Years in the Making
Alison Storey, Helen LaRouche, and Juanita Glenn
Opening Reception May 29
On display until June 9 

This Art Exhibition is a visual journey of Three P.E.I. women that are close friends and have diverse backgrounds but similar interests. This Exhibition features over 75 chosen works that relate both directly to the Island and their own individual journey through life. They each have their own distinctive styles to convey their message to the viewers. Some artworks are scenes of the Island to interest tourists, some imaginative and dreamlike to interest the free thinker and some more realistic of life around them. The art works have been completed in the last three years and their goal in life is to inspire others.

PEI Professional Theatre Network

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PEI Theatre is the Guild, Harbourfront Theatre,
Confederation Centre for the Arts,
Watermark Theatre, and the Victoria Playhouse