Full FemFest 2013: Revelation & Revolution Lineup!

We are thrilled to present this year’s FemFest 2013: Revelation & Revolution lineup!

This year’s festival includes an exciting mix of artists who are using performance to see the world in a different light and explore notions of revolution. It will be an amazing showcase of talent from across the country as well as a celebration of local female artists.

We’ve already given you a sneak peek at some of our exciting pieces, but here’s a more comprehensive overview of what you can look forward to:

FULL PRODUCTIONS

Harold and Vivian Entertain Guests by Jessy Arden
Harold and Vivian married out of spite. The absurd world they have created for themselves is disrupted when new neighbours, newlywed Mike and Janet, come to say hello

Flood Control by Marilyn Anne Campbell
Lonely Ray stands on a bridge, building up the nerve to end his life, when he’s interrupted by Gina, a highly-organized woman who has come to kill herself simply because she has nothing left to do.

DEVELOPMENTAL WORK:

Bake-Off Coordinated and Directed by Cairn Moore
Selected playwrights are given a list of ingredients and have two weeks to mix up a script!

Giving Voice with VOICES
This new play will be developed in the Forum theatre method with workshop sessions with youth in foster care.

Perfect Love by Talia Pura
An exploration of the role gender plays in relationships. If the sexual orientation continuum is a sliding scale, is relationship-based dialogue any different for male and female characters

SHORTS:

The Exchange by Katherine Koller
Shauna doesn’t know Molly, but Molly knows Shauna by appearance, by reputation, and by name. Molly has come to trade lives.

Short-List
As fillers throughout the festival, we will offer audiences the chance to hear excerpts from scripts from the FemFest shortlist

TOURING PIECES:

Dreaming in Autism by Christine Rodriguez
La Tigressa Productions (Montreal)
Enter the world of a mother who has high hopes for her new baby boy but soon learns that he has autism. Sad, funny, but mostly full of love.

pomme is french for apple by liza paul and bahia watson
paul watson productions (Toronto)
Comprised of fast-paced series of vignettes, this vaudevillian two-woman show is a fresh, funny, irreverent and distinctly west indian look at womanhood in all its glory: its perils, its pleasures and all kinds of madness in between.

The Aftermath by Lisa Codrington (Toronto)
After an unexpected tragedy, Jane a reclusive yet outspoken middle-age woman prepares for an impending apocalypse by lecturing the audience on the important of emergency preparedness.

Cabarets
Plus our exciting opening and closing cabarets featuring women artists in all disciplines!

For our complete lineup and more information on FemFest, go to http://femfest.ca!

---

Giving Voice to Youth in Foster Care

FemFest is just under three months away and our offices are buzzing with work to make FemFest 2013: Revelation & Revolution an amazing festival! Next month we will be starting an exciting process to develop our latest in a series of youth based plays and we will be showcasing the work in development at FemFest. Giving Voice is a new forum theatre piece that will be developed by youth with experience in foster care. As we have in the past with shows like Ripple Effect, No Offense… and Diss, we will begin with workshops in the community. The final product will be interactive, allowing the audience a chance to stop the action of the play and step in to try out more positive solutions to the problems addressed. The resulting work will explore the issues that youth in foster care have had to deal with, from the stigma of being in care to the transition to adulthood after care.

VOICES, Manitoba’s Youth In Care Network , is part of the Boys and Girls Club of Winnipeg. Its mission is to empower and support youth in and from care. We are very excited to be partnering with this important organization. In fact the idea for Giving Voice actually came from youth in the VOICES program who saw our plays Empty and Diss and wanted to create a play to tell their stories. This will be a great opportunity to give them a voice and let them be heard. We will be participating in their M.A.S.S.I.V.E. conference from July 15-19 as the first step.

According to a recent article in the Winnipeg Free Press, Manitoba has the highest rate of youth in care in Canada. It also stated that a First Nations youth is four times more likely to enter into foster care due to abuse and neglect. We hope to begin a conversation about the state of Manitoba’s foster care system from the perspective of someone who has, or is currently experiencing it.

It has also been our tradition to tour a youth show every two years. This will be the first step towards a play that will hit schools for a full tour in the fall of 2014. Audiences will have a chance to get a sneak peek at FemFest!

We are just starting to approach youth agencies, organizations and possible collaborators. If you know an organization or individual who should be involved have them contact Marianne at development@sarasvati.ca .

Volunteer Some Time, See Great Theatre!

As we dive head first into FemFest 2013 preparations, we thought this week’s blog would be a good opportunity to thank our amazing volunteers who helped us throughout our 2012-2013 season. We couldn’t do it without you and we are incredibly grateful for your hard work!

With our season launch and FemFest 2013 quickly approaching, we will have several upcoming volunteer opportunities. Here are 3 reasons why you should consider volunteering with us:

1.Sarasvàti Productions is known by theatre artists and community groups alike as the only Winnipeg theatre company with a mission to serve social change, we have managed to use our art to positively impact the lives of thousands of individuals over the years.

2.Through ongoing partnerships we provide a voice to the disenfranchised. Our extensive community outreach has allowed us to bring theatre to communities lacking positive outlets for expression, including corrections centres, women’s shelters and inner-city high schools.

3.Our volunteers get a chance to see great theatre!

One of our amazing current volunteers is Wren Hookey. Wren is a recent U of W theatre graduate and a regular volunteer with us for the past four years. Why does she choose to volunteer with Sarasvàti Productions ?

Wren Hookey

“I volunteer with Sarasvàti because I think that the company is filling an important position in our theatre community by creating and supporting pieces which bring forward the stories of diverse voices. In addition, volunteering is a great way to see even more theatre while on a budget!”

We are gearing up for another ambitious season so will be in need of additional volunteers. Whether you are interested in ushering for shows, working behind the scenes or joining our Board of Directors, we’d love to hear from you. For more information on the organization check out website at the link below or send us a message and we’ll be happy to reply with upcoming opportunities for involvement.

http://sarasvati.ca/get-involved/volunteer/

FemFest 2013 Sneak Peek!

It is hard to believe that June is here! We’ve wrapped up our amazing run of Jail Baby and have quickly turned our attention to FemFest 2013: Revelation and Revolution. We have all the shows confirmed and are just putting the schedule puzzle together for our big brochure release later this month. We just can’t wait to share a few juicy tidbits though.

We have another amazing line-up of touring shows coming to Winnipeg for FemFest! What is really exciting is that some of them feature former Winnipeggers returning home to share their work. Lisa Codrington is one such former local gal now based in Toronto. She has been doing amazing work as a performer and playwright. Her play Cast Iron was nominated for a Governor General Literary Award and she will be presenting her latest play The Aftermath at FemFest.

Lisa Codrington

bahia watson will also be returning to Winnipeg from Toronto. She and co-creator liza paul will be performer their widely popular pomme is french for apple.

liza paula & bahia watson – pomme is french for apple

Finally we will welcome Christine Rodriguez from Montreal to perform her powerful and inspiring play Dreaming in Autism.

Christine Rodriguez – Dreaming in Autism

Of course we will also be showcasing local talent once again. Last year we included our first Bake-Off in the festival, where female playwrights were given ingredients and two weeks to write a piece incorporating these elements. Staged readings were then presented and the audience voted on which piece they most wanted to see as part of FemFest 2013. Based on demand we will be producing Jessy Ardern’s new play Harold and Vivian Entertain Guests. Last year’s reading from the piece had the audience in stitches so you won’t want to miss the world premiere of the full play at FemFest.

Stay tuned for the rest of the line-up, including other local productions, readings of new works in development and our popular cabaret evenings!