Theatre Professor Judith Rudakoff continues her long-time collaboration with her former student Nina Arsenault (BFA Spec. Hons. ’96, MFA ’00), a transgendered playwright/performer, with TRANS(per)FORMING Nina Arsenault, a book set to launch May 4 at Toronto’s Buddies in Bad Times Theatre.

As editor, Rudakoff brought together a diverse group of contributors, including artists, scholars and Arsenault herself, to explore beauty, image and the notion of queerness through the lens of Arsenault’s highly personal brand of performance art. York University contributors include theatre Professor Eric Armstrong, political science Professor Shannon Bell and Professor Frances Latchford from Women’s Studies, plus Fine Arts alumni J. Paul Halferty (BFA ‘98), Benjamin Gillespie (BA ‘09, MA ‘10) and former student Todd Klinck.

Illustrated with photographs of Arsenault’s physical transformation over the years through more than 60 plastic surgeries, the publication includes the full script of Arsenault’s critically acclaimed stage play The Silicone Diaries, which Rudakoff dramaturged (see story).

Music professor and composer Stephanie Martin

Two ambitious compositions by music Professor Stephanie Martin were recently premiered in connection with one of Canada’s foremost oratorio choirs, the Pax Christie Chorale, which Martin has led as artistic director and conductor since 1996. Her new cantata, “Winter Nights”, is a four-movement piece for choir, chamber orchestra and tenor soloists, set to poems from various sources including her sister, Cori Martin. Pax Christie debuted the works last December at the Grace Church on-the- Hill in Toronto.

In January 2012, the Windermere String Quartet premiered Martin’s composition “From a Distant Island”, a piece she wrote on her recent sabbatical in England, during a stay at a convent on the Isle of Wight. The performance, a fundraiser for Pax Christi’s 25th anniversary season, was hosted by the law firm Fasken Martineau DuMoulin in its offices on the 24th floor of the Bay Adelaide Centre in Toronto’s financial district.

Martin’s music department colleague, Professor Dorothy de Val, provides a lively biography of one of the chief collectors and scholars of the first English folk music revival of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in her new book, In Search of Song: The Life and Times of Lucy Broadwood. Drawing on an array of primary sources including the diaries Broadwood kept throughout her adult life, de Val’s account sheds light on Broadwood’s early years and chronicles her later busy social, artistic and musical life. De Val has a longstanding interest in traditional English folksong, with a number of publications on the subject to her credit as well as many performances as pianist with the band Playford’s Pleasure.

Looking at art within a more political arena,  art history Professor Hong Kal’s  Aesthetic Constructions of Korean Nationalism: Spectacle, Politics and History (Asia’s Transformations) examines the role of visual culture at particular moments in both colonial and postcolonial times, drawing links between concepts of spectacle and urban space to governmentality. The book interprets the politics behind the culture of displays and shows both the continuity and the transformation of spectacles as an important tool of governance in 20th-century Korea.

Eschewing history for a fictional future, Governor General’s Literary Award-winning playwright and York film Professor Colleen Wagner paints a chilling dystopia in her latest play, down from heaven, published by Playwrights Canada Press. The story follows a girl who must navigate a world immersed in a new class struggle while trying to balance her morality with the realities of survival when a viral pandemic and food crisis challenges everything she holds dear. Pat Donnelly of The Montreal Gazette praised the scripts: “…there is rich text to feed on, a psychological thriller element, and some scathing observations about high culture and traditional religion.”

Two faculty members in the Department of Visual Arts have recently published exhibition catalogues. Anna Hudson is part of the team behind Fugitive Light: Clark McDougall’s Destination Places and Michel Daigneault is featured in Peindre dangereusement.

"Orange" by Michel Daigneault

Hudson co-curated the McDougall show for the McIntosh Gallery in London, Ontario. The hard cover catalogue is richly illustrated with many of the artist’s striking portrayals of Southern Ontario urban and rural life from 1950s to the 1970s. In her essay “Stepping into the light of Clark McDougall’s landscapes”, Hudson discusses the artist’s deep attachment to his home town of St Thomas and how it inspired him.

Daigneault’s arresting abstract paintings are showcased in the publication peindre dangereusement, produced by Montreal’s Galerie Trois Points.  The catalogue includes an essay by James D. Campbell titled “Dancer Man: Polycentrism and Semiotic Erotica in the Paintings of Michel Daigneault.” Campbell says: “Daigneault’s paintings thrive on semiotic excess and exotica, iconographic multiplicity and delightful combinatorial play; effortlessly, they draw the viewer inwards.”

The stellar career she’s established since that time is a testament to that sure instinct, and her immense gifts as a theatre artist. As founding artistic director of Newfoundland’s acclaimed Artistic Fraud and an enthusiastic collaborator with other theatre companies, Keiley has a string of compelling productions to her credit.  Her accolades include the prestigious Siminovitch Prize for Directing in 2004, an honorary doctorate from Memorial University, and the Canada Council’s John Hirsch Prize.

York theatre alumna Jillian Keiley, incoming artistic director, English theatre at the National Arts Centre, Ottawa

Now she is set to scale new heights as the next artistic director of the English theatre division of Canada’s National Arts Centre (NAC).

“Jillian Keiley is a brilliant theatrical artist who is rooted in Newfoundland, but also has a wonderful sense of the country,” said NAC President & CEO Peter Herrndorf. “She’s worked with artists and theatre organizations in every part of Canada, and we’re thrilled she’s chosen our ‘national stage’ for the next chapter of her extraordinary career.”

Keiley has directed and taught across the country and has worked internationally. She staged the internationally touring children’s opera Ann and Seamus for Shallaway and a production of Orpheus at the Cork Opera House in Ireland, and has created new works with Crows Theatre in Toronto, Ghost River in Calgary, and Teatro Soterraneo in Florence, Italy.

Her collaboration with Governor General’s Award-winning playwright Robert Chafe in the creation of Tempting Providence resulted in a decade-long run of the beloved production across Canada. The play,  produced by Theatre Newfoundland Labrador, explores the courage and strength of a London-born nurse who was among the first British settlers in Newfoundland. As an outport nurse on the island, Myra Bennett endured the region’s bleak weather to travel by foot, horse, dogsled and boat to deliver babies and care for people who lived along 320 kilometres of rugged coastline.

Currently, Keiley is restaging another creative collaboration with Chafe:  Artistic Fraud’s production of Oil and Water, a dramatic retelling of the real-life story of 1942 shipwreck survivor Lanier Phillips, opening for its Toronto premiere at Factory Theatre April 18.

“There are very few jobs in Canada which I would be prepared to leave home for,” Keiley said. “The position at the National Arts Centre is one of them, because I believe that, as the NAC’s artistic director of English theatre, I’ll have the chance to do work that will reverberate across the country. The NAC offers the opportunity to bring together the most brilliant creative minds in our field.”

Alongside the NAC’s national reach, its potential capacity to nurture emerging theatre talent is prime attraction for Keiley.  “I would really love the opportunity to create a young company of actors at the NAC, ” she said. “It’s certainly one of my goals during my tenure. To see new theatre and young careers take flight would be very exciting.”

During her first season at the NAC, Keiley will be directing Metamorphoses, a play she guest-directed for Theatre @ York in 2008 (see story). Adapted by American playwright Mary Zimmerman, Metamorphoses re-imagines ten classical myths based on the epic work penned two thousand years ago by the Roman poet Ovid.  Set around a giant swimming pool, this splashy theatrical event plays out the consequences of humanity’s timeless,  deepest desires.

Keiley joins the NAC Orchestra’s music director Pinchas Zukerman, dance producer Cathy Levy, the artistic director of French theatre Brigitte Haentjens, northern scene producer Heather Moore, and NAC Presents producer Simone Deneau in forming the artistic leadership team at the National Arts Centre.  She takes up her position with the NAC this summer.

Yan Long (China) - set and costume design for "The Good Woman of Sezuan"

The book covers set, lighting and costume design for all forms of performance, from theatre and dance to opera and spectacle. Encompassing material from hundreds of contributors, it highlights some 430 significant works from more than five dozen countries.

Josef Svoboda (Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic) - set and costume design for "Odysseus"

Co-editors Peter McKinnon, professor of stage design and production in the Department of Theatre, Faculty of Fine Arts at York University, and Eric Fielding, professor emeritus of scenic design at Brigham Young University, Utah, led an international team of researchers and associate editors for the project.

The editors point out that, notwithstanding its extensive reach, the publication is neither encyclopedic nor a collection of ‘greatest hits’.  The intent, they say, is to showcase, contextualize and document for posterity “designs that mattered, that made a difference”: seminal designs that had a major impact on the development of the art form, its practice and reception.

Ground-breaking productions cited in World Scenography 1975-1990 include the political puppetry of the American Anti-Bicentennial Pageant at the University of California (1975); English director Peter Brook’s Mahabarata (1985), which was staged in quarries in France and Australia as well as theatres in the US and Spain; and the opening ceremony for the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland, New Zealand.

Robin Don (UK) - set and costume design for "The Midsummer Marriage"

Notable designers featured include Tony and Drama Desk Award-winner Maria Bjornson of France/UK (Phantom of the Opera, 1988); German designer Achim Freyer, winner of the Prague Quadrennial’s lifetime achievement award (Woyzek, 1989; The Magic Flute, 1982); Sun-Hi Shin of Korea (A Bicycle, 1983; An Encounter, 1990); Canadian designer André Caron (Cirque Réinventé, 1987,  for Cirque du Soleil); veteran Broadway designer Robin Wagner (A Chorus Line, 1976; On The Twentieth Century, 1978; Dreamgirls, 1981); and York University theatre professors Teresa Przybylski and Phillip Silver.

World Scenography 1975-1990 is the first publication in a projected three-part series. It builds on the foundation established by Stage Design Throughout the World, a four-volume series edited by René Hainaux that concluded in 1975. McKinnon and Fielding are already planning volumes 2 and 3 of World Scenography, to span 1990-2005 and 2005-2015 respectively. When complete, the World Scenography series will be the largest, most comprehensive scholarly work on theatrical design ever created.

Alvaro Apocalypse (Brazil) - Puppet design

McKinnon notes that the motivation and passion behind this epic endeavor is the transitory nature of design for live performance. “Theatre design work is as ephemeral as the work of the actor,” he says. “Once the show is over, it disappears. If we don’t photograph, catalogue and preserve our design work, we run the risk of losing it forever.”

The editors of World Scenography are themselves leading contributors to the field.

York University Theatre Professor Peter McKinnon

McKinnon has served as lighting designer for some 450 shows, principally dance and opera, across Canada and internationally, and has produced shows off- and on-Broadway and in Edinburgh, Scotland. A past president of Associated Designers of Canada, he was an organizer of the Canadian exhibit at the 2007 Prague Quadrennial for Performance Design and Space. His editorial credits include the international lexicon Theatre Words, and One Show, One Audience, One Single Space by Jean-Guy Lecat.

Fielding has designed scenery and/or lighting for more than 250 productions for stage, film, television and special events. He designed the gold medal-winning American exhibit at the 1991 Prague Quadrennial and created the World Stage Design exhibition, directing its premiere showing in Toronto in 2005. He is a 30-year member of United Scenic Artists 829, a Fellow and former vice-president of the United States Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT), and former editor of the journal Theatre Design &Technology (TD&T).

World Scenography 1975-1990 is designed by Randal Boutilier, an alumnus of York’s visual arts program. The series, to be published both in print and online, is an official project of OISTAT, the International Organization of Scenographers, Theatre Architects and Technicians. Both McKinnon and Fielding are long-serving executive members of OISTAT, a UNESCO-recognized organization that draws together theatre production professionals from around the world. The long list of international supporters of the World Scenography project includes the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

McKinnon and Fielding will be in attendance at a reception marking the Canadian launch of the publication on Thursday, April 5, 7 to 10pm at TheatreBooks, 11 St. Thomas Street, Toronto.

For more information about the World Scenography series, visit www.worldscsenography.org

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 York University’s Department of Theatre is the largest and most comprehensive in eastern Canada, offering in-depth academic studies and hands-on professional training in all aspects of theatre. The graduate program includes a specialized MFA in Design for Performing Arts and master’s and doctoral programs in performance studies and practice as research. The department is the editorial home of the six-volume World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre, the largest international cooperative project in the history of cultural publishing (Routledge 1995-2000), and the Canadian Theatre Review, the leading journal of record for Canadian theatre.

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Media:
For preview pages from World Scenography 1975-1990 or to request a review copy, contact:
Amy Stewart, Communications, Faculty of Fine Arts, York University
416-650-8469  |   amy.stewart@yorku.ca

Bond’s bitingly witty play strips away the genteel veneer of life in 18th-century England to expose the brutal truth beneath. The plot centres on a guileless servant named Bob and his devotion to his cynical and irresponsible master, Lord Are. Bob’s unquestioning acceptance of traditional social strata and aristocratic privilege has a tragic outcome, as he loses everything to a class struggle of which he had no idea he was part. Throughout the play, the characters must work to realize what freedom means, and what it takes to become free.

When Restoration premiered in 1981, Britain was in the midst of social and political turmoil. Rising unemployment, racial tensions and an increasing backlash to Thatcherism led to protests and riots across the nation. In this climate of unrest, a play warning against blindly complying with the demands of the ruling class was a daring slap in the face of the powers that be.

As the show’s student assistant directors point out, similar warnings appear on  placards at the Occupy demonstrations that have been cropping up across the globe.  “Restoration is a call to arms for Everyman, and a reminder that authority only exists as long as we accept its power.”

"Restoration" director David Storch

Storch has worked across Canada as a director, actor and educator. His recent directorial credits include Metamorphoses (Globe Theatre), Glengarry Glen Ross (Soulpepper), The Palace of the End, A Number, Sunday Father, Twelfth Night, Misery (Canadian Stage),  How I Learned to Drive (Manitoba Theatre Centre, Belfry Theatre) and Einstein’s Gift, The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, The Beauty Queen of Leenane (Citadel Theatre).

The music director for Restoration is undergraduate student Samuel Sholdice, who studies composition and classical performance in York’s Department of Music. He composed original scores set to the lyrical texts found throughout Bond’s script. In keeping with the theme of class politics, Sholdice wrote his music to be played on found instruments with interesting stories: a banjo from a dumpster, a toy keyboard, a battered 45-year-old electric guitar. His previous composition credits for Theatre @ York include Marat/Sade and Ti Jean and his Brothers.

Storch directs a lively young cast drawn from the Undergraduate Acting Conservatory in York’s Department of Theatre. A creative team of undergraduate students is handling all aspects of the production design and execution.

Established in the Department of Theatre at York University in 1969, Theatre @ York has been the springboard for a generation of outstanding Canadian theatre artists. Each year it mounts a challenging and entertaining slate of plays, featuring some of Canada’s most promising performance and production talent. Theatre @ York alumni include stage and screen actors Rachel McAdams, Thom Marriott, Deborah Hay, Patrick Galligan, Melody Johnson, Tara Rosling, Maurice Dean Wint and Christine Horne; playwrights Djanet Sears and Diane Flacks; and directors Weyni Mengesha, Richard Rose and Jillian Keiley.

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What:  Theatre @ York presents Restoration, directed by David Storch
When: March 18 – 24
Previews March 18 and 19 at 7:30pm, opens Tuesday, March 20 and runs to March 24 at 7:30pm nightly, plus matinees March 21 and 23 at 1pm.
Where: Joseph G. Green Studio Theatre, Centre for Film and Theatre, York University, 4700 Keele St.  Toronto | Map
Admission: $17 | students & seniors: $12 | Previews and March 23 matinee: $5
Box Office: 416.736.5888 | www.yorku.ca/perform/boxoffice

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Media Contact:
Amy Stewart, Communications, Faculty of Fine Arts, York University
416-650-8469 | amy.stewart@yorku.ca

PhD student Katie McMillan, Theatre Criticism & Engagement Intern with World Stage

McMillan’s first blog contribution – a informal, personal response to the opening night performance of the Wayne McGregor | Random Dance production Entity – is now live on Upfront, Harbourfront Centre’s World Stage blog.

McMillan’s article, Dancing on the Brain, includes her experience of a master class held by Antoine Vereecken, rehearsal director for Entity, in the Department of Dance at York University on March 1.

McMillan’s internship is just one component of a lively, ongoing partnership that the Faculty of Fine Arts and Harbourfront Centre launched in 2010 to nurture a vibrant and thriving arts ecology in Toronto (see story). Along with residencies and workshops held on campus by renowned guest artists from World Stage shows (see story), the collaboration has also led to the establishment of production internships on-site at Harbourfront Centre, extending experiential learning opportunities for York’s undergraduate fine arts students (see story).