November is shaping up to be a big month for Fredericton theatre lovers with five companies performing seven works.
Matt Carter
Looking to enjoy some live theatre this fall? There are at least five productions happening in Fredericton this November plus a workshop and at least one open audition. With so much going on, we thought it would be helpful to put them all together into a single post.
Let’s take a look at what November has in store. Here they are in the order they’re happening:
PIG and Fruit Machine – two works in development. Solo Chicken Productions’ the coop will present a public performance of two new works in development. PIG is a new physical/visual cross disciplinary collaboration between Solo Chicken Productions’s founder Lisa Anne Ross and visual artist Danielle Hogan that aims to foster beauty from the cesspool of hateful anti-feminist rhetoric guided by the theme – beauty from shit.
Fruit Machine is a new work created by coop artists Alex Rioux and Samuel Crowell. Using physical theatre to interpret historical text and quotes, this new work focuses on the questionable practices of the RCMP that targeted the LGBTQ+ community in the 50’s and 60’s. One such questionable practice was the fruit machine,which was said to be capable of determining if an individual was interested in homosexual activity. Fruit Machine strives to shine a light on the unfair treatment of queer individuals in Canadian history.
PIG and Fruit Machine | November 1 | Open Space Theatre | 7:30 p.m. | View Event
New Moon Theatre perform Michel Tremblay’s Albertine in Five Times. St. Andrews New Brunswick’s New Moon Theatre are hitting the road this fall for performances in St. Andrews, Fredericton and Eastport, Maine with their six-woman production, Albertine in Five Times.
Albertine in Five Times is about a woman at 70 facing her past. Master Canadian playwright, Michel Tremblay, hits on a painful reality that an older woman has more years behind than in front of her. Memory has a way of disguising the truth, but Albertine comes to terms with the drama of her history through her younger selves. We meet not one Albertine, but five Albertines, each one representing a successive decade along the path that is her life. The play opens with Albertine at 70 entering a home for the elderly. Albertine at 30, 40, 50, and 60 appear, each with a story to tell.
Albertine in Five Fives | November 3 | Open Space Theatre | 7:30 p.m. | View Event
Nasty Shadows return with a two play performance. Under the banner Ohio House -Two Plays, Two Playwrights, 1 Night, company founder Scott Shannon and longtime collaborator Michael Holmes-Lauder will perform Samuel Beckett’s Ohio Impromptu and Daniel MacIvor’s House for audiences in Fredericton, Moncton and Saint John.
Ohio Impromptu written by Samuel Beckett. The Reader reads, turning the pages, while the Listener listens — intently. One and the same, fighting the ‘old terror of night’ to retell a story from his life, the Listener hears the Reader’s words about a departed loved one, a haunting memory.
House written by Daniel MacIvor. “My mother is possessed by the devil. My father is the saddest man in the world. My sister is in love with the dog. The one I love does not love me … and I’ve got nowhere to live.” House is a stand up sit down one man comedy nightmare about Victor, a man on the edge.
Ohio House | November 7-8 | Memorial Hall, UNB | Fredericton | View Event
Norm Foster’s Come Down From Up River at the Fredericton Playhouse. Theatre New Brunswick welcomes the return of Norm Foster’s work to the Fredericton Playhouse with his latest play, Come Down From Up River. Presented as part of TNB’s 50th anniversary season, this world premiere production by The Foster Festival made its debut at the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre in St. Catherines, Ontario in July of 2018.
Come Down From Up River tells the story of Shaver Bennett, a logger from the woods of northern New Brunswick. One day Bennett arrives at the doorstep of his estranged sister’s daughter, whom he hasn’t seen in 20 years. The niece, Bonnie Doyle and her wife Liv Arsenault welcome him into their lives in this sweetly moving tale. Set in Saint John, New Brunswick, Come Down From Up River explores family and forgiveness with a healthy dose of laughter sprinkled with tears.
Come Down From Up River | November 8-10 | Fredericton Playhouse | 7:30 p.m. (Saturday matinee at 2) | View Event
The Life of Galileo at Theatre St. Thomas. The first of two productions planned for Theatre St. Thomas this season finds the group starting things off with “one of the twentieth-century’s greatest observations on the challenges that free thought and scientific inquiry pose to unchecked power and popular belief.”
This model example of “Epic Theatre” was written by Bertolt Brecht in the years before and after World War II, begun when he hid from Nazi authority and then revised as he reflected on its consequences before fleeing American McCarthyism and the “red scare” in 1947.
Padua. 1609. Galileo Galilei, a part-time professor and researcher of mathematics and philosophy has invented a new instrument that allows him to view the universe in greater detail and to pay his rent where his teaching stipend falls short. Through his telescope, he confirms that the earth and the planets revolve around the sun while attracting the interest and ire of a Catholic Church afraid of losing its grip on the faithful masses.
The Life of Galileo | November 21-24 | Black Box Theatre – STU | 7:30 p.m. (Saturday matinee at 2) | View Event
Extras, add-ons and last minute additions:
Audition Notice: Next to Normal. Harmony Productions is excited to launch their company with the captivating hit show Next to Normal. This show will run from May 9th – 11th 2019 in partnership with New Brunswick’s Canadian Mental Health Association Mental Health Week. All proceeds from the show will be donated to this cause.
“Next To Normal” is an emotional powerhouse of a musical about a family trying to care for each other and survive with their spirit intact, while dealing with the pain that cripples their family at its core. The story concerns a mother, Diana, a suburban housewife who struggles with a worsening bipolar disorder. This, coupled with hallucinations that stem from trauma, and the intense rounds of psychotherapy she must undergo, affects her compassionate but frustrated husband, Dan and their alienated daughter Natalie, both of whom suffer by comparison to the superhero image she has created for her son Gabe. “Next To Normal” vividly dramatizes the lengths two parents will go to keep their family intact.
Due to the mature nature of the show, we are seeking individuals who are aged 18+
Auditions – Next To Normal | Harmony Productions | Nov. 18 | TBD | View Event
Blindside at the Fredericton Playhouse. In a feat of riveting comedy, one-eyed storytelling champion Stéphanie Morin-Robert recounts her life as a feisty seven year old who wields her glass eye as a superpower. The one-woman play Blindside describes how a prospector’s recent diamond discovery forces his daughter, a young and sheltered cancer patient with a prosthetic eye, to change schools in the middle of Grade 3. While her family members are distracted by their luxurious new lifestyles, she struggles to find the confidence to face the tormenting bullies at her new school. With the help of her cat, a pair of sunglasses, and an undesirable superpower, she soon discovers she has what it takes to fight back and come to terms with her disability.
Blindside | Fredericton Playhouse | Nov. 14 | 7:30 p.m. | Pay What You Wish | View Event
Workshop: Groundworks presents Contact Improv with Sally Morgan. In this workshop participants will uncover the fundamental principles of Contact Improvisation. They will move towards opening and sharpening their senses, deepening awareness of the body and those we dance with. Participants will use developmental movement patterns and contact dance as the foundation and explore yield, tone/support, touch, falling, rolling, giving/taking weight, leading/following, and most importantly…listening.
Contact Improv with Sally Morgan | Nov. 14 | Beaverbrook Art Gallery | 7-10 p.m. | View Event
Players & Pints at Unplugged: A Board Games Cafe. Players & Pints is a liveplay Dungeons & Dragons comedy show where actors and improvisers weave tales of high adventure and high fun in front of a live audience. While P&P features a reoccurring cast and loose continuity, each episode is a self-contained adventure, making it easy to drop into the story at any point!
Players & Pints at Unplugged: A Board Games Cafe | Nov. 5 | 7:30 p.m. | View Event
