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Lunchbox Theatre Blog

A Conversation About Super 8

Blog Entry — admin @ February 3rd, 2012

Note from Kathryn, Marketing at Lunchbox: I’ve asked Mark Hopkins and Charles Netto to write some blog posts for us! Here’s the first one, stay tuned for more! Apparently they had this conversation as a kind of draft for their playwright’s notes.

(Transcript from a conversation between Mark Hopkins and Charles Netto, authors of Super 8, on January 31, 2012.)

MARK

Wow. Charles, do you realize that someone – other than us – is producing one of our plays? An established, reputable theatre company, no less?

CHARLES

It’s like we fooled them, though I’m not sure how we did it exactly.

MARK

Also, did you know that Lunchbox Theatre has a blog?

CHARLES

I’ve heard rumour that this is the case.

MARK

For me, this was NEW INFORMATION. I am very excited!

CHARLES

Not as excited as I am about having a REVOLVE in our play. Am I allowed to give that away?

MARK

Tell me about this “revolve”. Is that some fancy theatre word that theatre people use?

CHARLES

Well, Mark, it is a stage that actually REVOLVES to reveal multiple sets. The last time I acted on a revolve was in Grade 12 for the production of Stalag 17. I played Schultz and spoken German badly.

MARK

Is Stalag 17 a German sci-fi, where aliens live in a Berlin ghetto?

CHARLES

You’re going to give away the aliens in Super 8 if you keep dropping hints like that.

MARK

At any rate, I’m happy that Super 8 will have AT LEAST the same production value as your high school play.

CHARLES

Hey, I went to private school. We had a pretty nice budget, let me tell you!

MARK

That’s a great segue way, Charles! I think the idea of this blog is to give people a “behind-the-scenes” look into Super 8. We just learned that one of the writers was a private school boy. Now, why don’t you tell the nice readers what Super 8 is about?

CHARLES

Even though we wrote it together, I see some themes that I often come back to: traveling, loneliness and simple human connections. Mixed, of course, with your love of meticulous research.

MARK

Oh, the research. Did you KNOW that Redfield, South Dakota, is the pheasant capital of… wait, the United States? The world? Let me look it up.

CHARLES

Wikipedia. Where would we (and really Mark) be without you?

MARK

Yup, pheasant capital of the world. A title that dates back to 1908!

CHARLES

Did they give that title to themselves or is there an official governing body?

MARK

I don’t think there’s fierce competition.

CHARLES

Should we bother explaining to people how we write? You know, how you write all of Will’s lines and I write Angie’s?

MARK

Really, Super 8 is just a transcript of how we first met. (pause) Oh man, there are so many pheasants on Google. I’m staring at this crazy picture of dozens of dead pheasants, strung up on, like… a clothesline.

CHARLES

Save it for the sequel, Hopkins.

MARK

People might not know that Super 8 was first written for the 10-Minute Play Festival, over a feverish 24-hour writing period. How did we manage?

CHARLES

The key to my success as a writer was energy drinks. LOTS of energy drinks. You?

MARK

I’m now trying to wean myself from energy drinks. People keep telling me about this video that shows what Red Bull does to your insides. I’m afraid to watch it.

CHARLES

You should be. I sometimes think, if you keep up your pace of energy drinks, that you’ll become a PSA warning to children. “Mark thinks he’s writing a play, but really he’s just hurting his friends and family. And his insides.”

MARK

And then there’s a picture of me, lying on the sidewalk, a can of Full Throttle in my hand, its neon green contents spilling around my prone, twitching body. I think it’ll be really effective.

CHARLES

True. Of course, you won’t play yourself in the PSA. So the question is: who will play you?

MARK

I think it should be Dave Trimble. That guy is just brimming with talent.

CHARLES

And you’re often mistaken for each other.

MARK

We should really work with him sometime. Hey, wait – did I hear that Dave Trimble is actually performing in the premiere production of Super 8? The WORLD premiere?

CHARLES

I believe he is, indeed, in the WORLD premiere. Of course, in the Mars premiere, Will was played by Zarlock Xegis, and the Jupiter production featured x3jdgu21C, but they’ve got nothing on our WORLD premiere crew.

MARK

(Behind-the-scenes factoid: Charles hates it when people use the term “world premiere”.) Did you know that, of the three Super 8 hotels in Calgary, not a single one has a Super 8 bar? It’s a good thing we didn’t set this play in Calgary, because the inaccuracies would be running rampant.

CHARLES

True. Also, setting it in Calgary might have led to more “hands-on” research than would have actually been helpful.

MARK

You mean, like, actually setting foot in a Super 8 bar? That sounds like a lot of work.

CHARLES

Your need to research everything would have forced us to research every beer. (Behind-the-scenes fact: Mark has never stayed at a Super 8.)

MARK

I can’t imagine that Super 8 bars stock very good beers. But, then, I get to imagine, don’t I? The joys of fiction!

CHARLES

(Behind-the-scenes fact: Mark is a beer snob.)

MARK

All this talk of theatre makes me want to have a beer.

CHARLES

I hear that.

[Mark opens a Red Wheat Ale from local brewery, Wild Rose.]

MARK

Take that, Super 8 bar!

[Mark donated blood today, so this beer may topple him. Also, Charles got a tattoo today. Apparently, a day for needles.]

MARK

You got a tattoo, Charles? What is it? Oh, on an unrelated note, I was thinking we should cut the epilogue for Super 8. It just doesn’t work.

[No reply.]

MARK

Charles? Charles, are you still there? … Charles?

Super 8 – Charles Netto’s Fantastic Tattoo

Blog Entry,Super 8 — admin @ February 1st, 2012

Charles Netto must be one of the most dedicated playwrights. To mark the premiere of Super 8, he got a tattoo! Of the epilogue of the play. Check it out to the right and below.

Charles posted it on Facebook earlier today and some of the reaction is absolutely priceless. The Calgary theatre community is now concerned about dramaturgs getting their hands on Super 8 at this point and insisting on edits to the last scene:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151193058420538&set=a.10150571329675538.663696.792075537&type=1&theater

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151193067790538&set=a.10150571329675538.663696.792075537&type=1&theater

Now this is dedication!

FFWD Review – The Ugly One

Blog Entry — admin @ January 27th, 2012

Matthew Thomas Walker as Lette, Adriano Sobretodo Jr. as Karlmann and Kate Lavender as Fanny in The Ugly One by Marius von Mayenburg, translated by Maja Zade. Photo by Benjamin Laird.

Fresh fixation

The Ugly One offers worthy twist on the beauty myth
Published January 19, 2012  by Allie Jaynes in Theatre

DETAILS

The Ugly One presented by Lunchbox Theatre
Lunchbox Theatre
Monday, January 16 – Saturday, January 28

Brazilian butt lifts. Grapefruit diets. The mysterious fame of the Kardashians. Folks, we live in a twisted, shallow, beauty-obsessed society.

And, like, we know it already.

So in 2012, can you say anything fresh about our fixation with looks?

Halifax’s DMV Theatre Collective would like to think so.

Their production of The Ugly One, by German playwright Marius von Mayenburg, playing at Lunchbox Theatre as part of the High Performance Rodeo, is a darkly comedic satire that takes an over-the-top look at beauty and its effect on success, love and happiness.

Lette (Matthew Thomas Walker) is a brilliant engineer who is baffled when his lowly assistant Karlmann (Adriano Sobretodo Jr.) is assigned to replace him at a conference showcasing his new invention. His boss (Brian Heighton) has to break the news which, somehow, no one has ever told Lette before: he is unbearably ugly.

Back home, his wife Fanny (Kate Lavender) fesses up: it’s true, he’s got an excruciatingly unfortunate mug, and she never looks at his face, only his left eye. Despite her assurance that she’s grown used to it, and that she loves his personality, Lette is tormented. He turns to a plastic surgeon for help, who insists that Lette is so hideous that the only option is to give him a completely new face.

Lette, to everyone’s surprise, emerges the most beautiful man in the world. Suddenly, he’s gaining credit for his invention, and his once-indifferent wife can’t keep her hands off him — one in a long line of women, including a sexy, nipped-and-tucked 73-year-old CEO who has a creepy Oedipal relationship with her son (who’s also in love with Lette).

The fun doesn’t last long. Lette becomes cocky and overconfident, sleeping around and bragging to his wife, assured that she would never leave such a handsome husband. Soon, the surgeon realizes he can make big bucks by giving men everywhere Lette’s perfect face — suddenly Lette’s value is dropping faster than Greek bank stocks.

While critiquing the beauty myth may not be a new theme, director Pamela Halstead says the game has changed in the 21st century.

“We live in an era of made-to-order appearances,” she says. “Last year, when we were doing the show in Halifax, the big news was that the most popular new plastic surgery was to get your toes shortened. Where does it stop?”

Still, I’ll admit I walked into The Ugly One expecting a cute little piece that would get a few laughs and that would moralize on a theme that’s already been talked to death.

I was wrong. This ain’t no after-school special. It’s a surreal, surprisingly raunchy dark comedy, with a dizzying number of scene changes and a physical comedy that maintains the play’s energy throughout. The acting is witty and pushes the play’s absurdity, particularly Sobretodo Jr. as Karlmann, whose comic timing made the piece for me. By the end, I couldn’t care less if the beauty theme was cliché or not.

Besides, says Halstead, the play is really more about identity and perception. “We grow up and into our self-esteems and our sense of identity over a lifetime,” she says. “What does it do to us when that changes overnight?”

This play on identity is compounded by having multiple characters share the same name (Lette’s wife and the 72-year-old CEO are both named Fanny; both Lette’s assistant and the CEO’s socially inept son are called Karlmann). And there are no costume changes, so characters look exactly the same before and after surgery — leaving us to imagine how beautiful or hideous they might be.

Halstead adds that it’s no accident that von Mayenburg’s play is about a man. “We’re so accustomed to the idea of women doing that — we don’t even see it anymore. When it’s a man, it seems that much more ludicrous.”

Read More: http://www.ffwdweekly.com/article/arts/theatre/fresh-fixation-8680/

Calgary Sun Review – The Ugly One

Articles and Reviews — admin @ January 23rd, 2012

 Nothing Ugly about this One

BY LOUIS HOBSON ,CALGARY SUN

FIRST POSTED: | UPDATED: 

 Marius von Mayenburg’s The Ugly One is a vicious little satire that is as hilarious as it is biting.

Playing at Lunchbox Theatre as part of this year’s One Yellow Rabbit High Performance Rodeo, The Ugly One looks at society’s obsession with physical beauty.

Lette (Matthew Thomas Walker) is a brilliant inventor who is shocked when his boss (Brian Heighton) refuses to let him unveil his latest invention at a prestigious conference choosing to send Lette’s eager apprentice Karl (Adriano Sobretedo) instead.

The ugly truth is that Lette’s face is hideously disfigured which, until this moment no one including his wife, Fanny, (Kate Lavender) has had the courage to tell him.

To save face when confronted, Fanny explains she has always loved Lette for his inner beauty but inner beauty doesn’t count in a material, image-obsessed world.

Off Lette goes to a plastic surgeon who gives him a face so perfect every woman wants him and every man wants to be him.

As directed by Pamela Halstead, this exposition unfurls at breakneck speed inciting an avalanche of laughter.

Mayenburg is a clever writer who keeps twisting his plot piling one absurdity upon another until Lette develops a narcissus complex that threatens to destroy him. Eventually we must ponder which of the two Lettes is the ugly one.

Without the aid of makeup, Walker captures Lette’s remarkable physical, emotional and psychological transformations.

The many supporting characters Heighton, Sobretedo and Lavender play are the kind of heightened caricatures that would be at home in a Monty Python skit.

The Ugly One is a high-wire act that cast and director walk with confidence and bravura.

 

The Ugly One - 4.0 stars

Directed by:
 Pamela Halstead
Studio: Lunchbox Theatre

Duration: Until Jan. 28

 

Read More: http://www.calgarysun.com/2012/01/18/nothing-ugly-about-this-one

Calgary Sun preview of The Ugly One

Blog Entry — admin @ January 5th, 2012

HIGH PERFORMANCE RODEO

This could get Ugly …

BY  ,CALGARY SUN

FIRST POSTED: 

Lunchbox Theatre is saddling up for its first entry into One Yellow Rabbit’s High Performance Rodeo.

It has long been one goal of OYR’s Michael Greene to rope all Calgary’s major theatre companies into participating in the Rodeo.

Lunchbox’s artist director Pamela Halstead knew she had just the play to bring her company into the 2012 Rodeo. Last January, Halstead directed Marius von Mayenburg’s internationally acclaimed satire The Ugly One for Halifax’s DMV Theatre.

The production became an instant darling of critics and audiences alike.

“It’s what’s happened everywhere The Ugly One is peformed. It’s a real word-of-mouth show. People can’t help spread the word that this is a really entertaining show,” says Halstead, who is bringing her original Halifax cast to perform The Ugly One at Lunchbox Theatre Jan. 16-28.

The Ugly One has been called a scalpel-sharp comedy about society’s obsession with appearance.

Lette, a successful electrical engineer, wants to present his latest findings at an international congress, but his boss tells him he is much too ugly to make such a public appearance. Disbelieving, Lette confronts his wife, who admits he is one of the ugliest people she has ever seen.

What happens next is as absurd as it is shocking.

Matthew Thomas Walker, who plays Lette in Halstead’s production, saw the first English-language version of this German play at the Royal Court Theatre in London and worked feverishly to get the rights for the Canadian premiere.

It has since enjoyed a successful production in Toronto.

“Marius von Mayenburg is the golden boy of German theatre and The Ugly One has made him just as popular abroad wherever it has played,” says Halstead, who advises people to start booking tickets early as possible.

“This is as cutting edge as theatre gets these days.”

Walker is joined in Lunchbox’s production by Brian Heighton, Kate Lavender and Adriano Sobretedo Jr. who all play multiple roles. Anton de Groot has adapted DMV Theatre’s original set design by Tom Evans and Jess Lewis for this Lunchbox version.

Tickets for The Ugly One are on sale at 403-265-4292 or at tickets.lunchboxtheatre.com.

Read More: http://www.calgarysun.com/2011/12/29/this-could-get-ugly-

Calgary Herald Review: Last Christmas

Articles and Reviews — admin @ December 28th, 2011

Share Christmas with likable cast

By Bob Clark, Calgary Herald December 3, 2011

There’s nothing pushy or forced about the comedy in Last Christmas.

And that’s what predisposes us early on to a new play by Neil Fleming in which four family members take a game of give and take – and the important choices that go with it – to heart.

The cast members, directed by Pamela Halstead, work especially well together in Fleming’s wellwritten, nicely structured piece about a widowed grandpa who gets together over Christmas with his two intermittently sparring daughters Paula and Debbie, and the rebelwithout-a-cause senior teen who is Paula’s son, Riley.

Gramps, played by well-known former Calgarian Tim Koetting, lets a health bomb drop early in the play that gives him an edge when it comes to playing a variant of the white elephant party game that he initiates later in the show.

Predictably enough, both mothering daughter Debbie (Nicole Zylstra), a social worker and closet author, and her high-powered exec of a sister (played by Karen Johnson-Diamond) – who has a crisis of her own to bear – don’t take well to their dad’s sudden news, but take it their own way once the family fun begins.

For video game enthusiast Riley (newcomer Miles Ringsred, who has the advantage of being only a little older than the guy he portrays), the get-together with mom, aunt and the granddad he doesn’t know very well becomes a dream come true.

Fleming’s trim script has the sound of carefully observed reallife talk between people who know each other well – or else not, but want to. We feel we know these folk. We like them and feel comfortable with them – and so the laughs come naturally and easily.

For her part, director Halstead lets the dialogue “breathe.” Nothing is rushed – so that when we do reach the end of Last Christmas, it really does feel we’ve come full circle, and we’re delighted at how lightly, yet poignantly, emptiness has been filled.

And speaking of filling space, mention should be made of Terry Gunvordahl’s funny surprise of a set. Let’s just say there’s more to it than first meets the eye – in itself an aptly humorous touch.

bclark@calgaryherald.com

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/entertainment/Share+Christmas+with+likable+cast/5806991/story.html#ixzz1hrl1mIhz

Calgary Sun Preview: Last Christmas

Articles and Reviews — admin @ December 28th, 2011

 

Skater speeds to Lunchbox stage

 

BY  ,CALGARY SUN

FIRST POSTED: 

It wasn’t the allure of grease paint and stage lights that coaxed Miles Ringsred from his home in Minnesota in 2005.

It was the reputation of the glistening ice at Calgary’s Olympic Oval that had the young speed skater packing his bags and heading north.

“Calgary’s Oval is tops in the world because it has some of the fastest ice in the world. My older sister had already moved to Calgary for speed skating when I decided to come up here,” says Ringsred who, when he was not practising his skating six hours a day, took classes in calculus and physics at the University of Calgary.

He still doesn’t remember exactly why, but in 2008, he took an acting class.

“In was an introductory class but my professor suggested I audition the next year for a senior class,” says Ringsred, who found himself performing in such plays as The Mob, The Liar and King Lear at the university and in Transit Theatre’s production of I Am I at the Motel Theatre.

On Monday, Ringsred opens opposite Tim Koetting, Karen Johnson Diamond and Nicole Zylstra in Lunchbox Theatre’s holiday production of Calgarian Neil Fleming’s comedy Last Christmas.

Last Christmas looks at what happens to a family when the patriarch decides to break with the traditions, which had guided them through so many previous precarious holidays.

“(Fleming) told us some of the things which are autobiographical and pointed out some of the lines that are actually from his family Christmases.

“In our family we try to stay away from politics otherwise things go pretty smoothly.

“I can identify with the teenager I play in Last Christmas even though we don’t have that much in common.

“He was shipped off to boarding school so he feels a bit alienated. I was always very close to my family.”

Last Christmas runs at Lunchbox Theatre at the base of the Calgary Tower from Nov. 28 through Dec. 23.

Calgary Herald Preview: Last Christmas

Articles and Reviews — admin @ December 28th, 2011

Playwright Neil Fleming worked as a set designer before writing his first play. Photo courtesy Neil Fleming Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/Last+Christmas+heartwarming+holiday+misfits/5769537/story.html#ixzz1hrkfaydV

Play ‘a bit darker’ than usual holiday offerings

By Stephen Hunt, Calgary Herald November 26, 2011

Neil Fleming wants his relatives to know Last Christmas is not about them.

The Calgary playwright – one of seven being produced during Lunchbox Theatre’s 2011-12 season – whose holiday comedy opens on Monday, has experienced just as many rocky holiday sea-sons as the rest of us.

However, when it came time to put pen to paper and write a holiday story, he thought hard about how to come up with an alternative to the autobiography card.

“There’s some of that (my family) in there,” he says, “but I tried really hard to come up with a (fictional) family that didn’t resemble either mine or (wife) Jane’s because those are the people that I have to live with for the rest of my days.

Flemind says he pulled bits and pieces from friends’ Christmas stories “and come up with a new (dysfunctional) family that I’ve mashed together into a (single) family. So they’re almost entirely fictional.”

Even if it’s not pulled straight from the pages of Fleming’s own family journal, Last Christmas will have a few familiar echoes for anyone who has ever found family holiday gatherings to be equal parts heartwarming, infuriating and bizarre.

There’s several generations of a family including a granddad who smokes medical marijuana (which he shares with his grandson), all of which leads to a holiday gathering that Fleming says is equal parts funny, heartwarming – and sometimes quite dark.

Just the way more family Christmases turn out than Disney – and Jimmy Stewart – would have us believe.

“It’s a bit darker (than a traditional holiday comedy),” he says. (Lunchbox artistic director) Pam (Halstead) kind of nudged me in that direction, just to be a little bit more real to (the) tensions people can have (between each other at that time of year).”

Last Christmas is one of a pair of plays Fleming has on the go during the holidays. The other is a January workshop production, at Mount Royal University, of Man of the North, an epic set during the fur trade that was read at Fuse, Theatre Calgary’s annual reading series, several years back.

All of it is unlikely, considering the unconventional route Fleming took to becoming a playwright.

While a historical drama fit the scope of the sort of play that Theatre Calgary likes to produce, Fleming’s play ran into a double whammy: the global recession, combined with Theatre Calgary’s production of Beyond Eden, a musical that explored similar aboriginal themes, combined to put Man of the North up on blocks for a while.

“I had some success (in the early 1990s) as a set and lighting designer,” he says, “and then I was just becoming less and less enamoured of the projects I was working on, so I challenged myself and said, maybe I could write some-thing that I would want to work on. Then a friend of mine had a fringe spot in Vancouver, so he said ‘We’re going to do your play that you’re writing.’ Oh, you mean that thing that I have 10 pages of?”

Now, thanks to Mount Royal’s theatre department (and director Glenda Stirling), Fleming’s taking it out of the shop and giving it a new coat of paint.

Undaunted by the pressure of being a first-time writer, Fleming sat down and wrote Now What?, a play he describes as “this whole insane, absurd romp through the space-time continuum.”

“That’s what I’m working on right now,” he says. “There’s a lot of narrative monologues that tell the story – and my work right now is to try to make the story a little bit more active so he’s (the show’s narrator and protagonist) not just being the (fur trade equivalent of the) Stage Manager from Our Town telling the story. He’s in the story, because it’s him, right?

“So I finished writing it,” he adds, “and directed it, which I haven’t done before or since, which was an insane experience – because I don’t really speak ac-tor, like a normal director does. He’s telling his own story.”

“It was very silly,” he continues. “People weren’t sure what to do with it, but the people who came (to see it) really liked it. We got Pick of the Fringe, sold out the rest of the run, and I was hooked (on writing).”

shunt@calgaryherald.com twitter.com/halfstep

© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/Play+darker+than+usual+holiday+offerings/5771570/story.html#ixzz1hrFJoQZB

Swerve Magazine: Jake’s Gift

Blog Entry — admin @ November 21st, 2011

Lunchbox Theatre’s Jake’s Gift

BY SHELLEY ARNUSCH, CALGARY HERALD NOVEMBER 11, 2011
If you’re going to see one play this Remembrance Day weekend, the clear choice is Jake’s Gift. Presented by Lunchbox Theatre, the one-woman show, created and performed by Julia Mackey, tells the story of an aging veteran’s return to Normandy on the 60th anniversary of the D-Day invasion to visit the grave of his brother.

Having long been interested in military history, Mackey says she was workshopping material related to the idea of brothers going to war as far back as 2002. When she heard about the commemorative events surrounding the 60th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy in 2004, she recognized an invaluable opportunity for research. She called Veterans Affairs and arranged for access, then spent a week there interviewing former soldiers, visiting cemeteries and attending memorials. Those experiences would become the inspiration for Jake’s Gift.

She remains in touch with a dozen or so of her interview subjects, who range from 87 to 97 years old. “The guys I’ve met are so appreciative when people do acknowledge the sacrifices they made and what they went through,” she says. “But at the same time, they’re such a modest generation. Nobody’s willing to take credit for anything.”

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/Lunchbox+Theatre+Jake+Gift/5695088/story.html#ixzz1eNFk39mY

FastForward Article: Jake’s Gift

Articles and Reviews — admin @ November 7th, 2011

A gift stemming from tragedy

Julia Mackey in Jake's Gift, photo by Benjamin Laird

Production explores war and redemption
Published November 3, 2011  by Andrew Torry in Theatre

DETAILS

Jake’s Gift presented by Lunchbox Theatre
Lunchbox Theatre
Monday, October 24 – Saturday, November 19

Jake’s Gift has modest roots. Since starting as a tiny production at Intrepid Theatre’s Uno Festival in Victoria, B.C., it has grown into a cult theatre phenomenon. Playwright and performer Julia Mackey and director Dirk Van Stralen have toured the show across Canada to fringe festivals, schools, legions and other small venues, garnering critical acclaim, honours and awards across the country. Now, Lunchbox Theatre is hosting the critically acclaimed play’s 500th performance.

The production tells the story of Jake, a Canadian Second World War veteran who reluctantly returns to Normandy, France for the 60th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. While wandering the shore of Juno Beach, Jake meets Isabella, a very forward and intelligent 10-year-old girl from the local village. Her curious and endearing nature provokes Jake to face some of the skeletons in his closet — particularly the wartime death of his older brother.

The play was conceived in a rather remarkable way. In 2003, Mackey was participating in a mask and character workshop in Vancouver and felt drawn to the mask of an old man. She created a character with unique body language and voice and called him Jake. At the time, she didn’t know Jake would be a war veteran, but her intuition told her he felt guilty for not visiting the grave of his brother in Normandy. When an opportunity arose to attend the 60th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, Mackey took it.

“I didn’t know what to expect,” she says, “but something told me I needed to go and see this for myself.”

It proved to be a life-changing experience. She walked the shores of Juno Beach, spoke with numerous veterans who shared their stories, and attended an emotional ceremony on the beach. Before long, Mackey knew the character Jake needed to be a war veteran and soon the story of his journey back to Normandy took shape.

“I walked away from the ceremony very moved and I knew that this was a story I needed to share with other Canadians. I just wanted to thank that generation of Canadian soldiers for what they did.”

Director Van Stralen points out that young Canadians may find it difficult to appreciate the sacrifice of war veterans because the war didn’t happen in their country, but he hopes they realize the importance of remembrance.

“The legacy of remembrance isn’t so concrete for young people in Canada,” he says, “but for the people of France and other European countries, it’s far more real. Their lives were directly affected by the war and the young people there realize that.”

Mackey stresses that Jake’s Gift is more than a war story and she wanted to show the importance of human connection.

Partners in work and life, Mackey and Stralen developed the show together. With their visions united, they created a show of simplicity rather than spectacle. The power, according to them, is in the authenticity of the story, not in fancy light and sound.

Jake’s Gift is a one-person show, and Mackey plays all four characters herself. The duo spent a lot of time determining each character’s unique physicality and voice. Their hard work paid off. Since the first production in 2007, Jake’s Gift has been a full-time job for each of them.

“It was never our goal to accomplish anything,” says Stralen. “We’re delighted to tour the show and we’re thrilled that the show has won so many awards, but we’re mostly interested in the purity of performing the show itself. We love touring together, we love performing the show, and that’s where our heart is.”

Read More: http://www.ffwdweekly.com/article/arts/theatre/a-gift-stemming-from-tragedy-8329/

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