Give It Up – May 2012

Give It Up by DM St. Bernard

Yolanda and Adanma are two different girls in the same difficult circumstance.  Out of options, they join the rebel army only to find themselves captured and confined in a small room.  In a best case scenario only one of them will ever leave.  Will the larger looming threat overshadow petty conflicts?  A story drawn from the experience of girl soldiers in Angola and inspired by the music of Tracy Chapman.  Featuring original music by Pamela Gilmartin and Belladonna.

Director: clare preuss

Musician: Pamela Gilmartin

Cast: nisha ahuja, Christian Feliciano, Virgilia Griffiith

BUZZ Festival

May 2, 2012 @ 7pm

Theatre Passe Muraille

Toronto, ON

SPRINGWORKS FESTIVAL

May 18, 2012 @ 1:30 pm

May 19, 2012 @  5 pm

Stratford, ON

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This piece has been developed with moral and material support from:

Obsidian Theatre Company through the Ontario Arts Council’s Theatre Creator’s Reserve Program

Cahoots Theatre’s Hothouse Playwrights Unit

Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s 2011 Playwrights Retreat

Gas Girls up for the GG Award

Artistic Director DM St. Bernard’s Gas Girls has been nominated for a 2011 Governor General’s Literary Award for English Drama.  Check out the stiff competition as well as nominees in other categories at the Canada Council site here.  Pick up your copy of Gas Girls (and three of the other four nominees) at Playwrights Canada Press, here.

The ‘winner’ will be announced November 15, 2011.

Congratulations, everybody!

Cake in Uganda

After successsful showings in three Canadian festivals, the team at NHP shipped the show off to Kampala, Uganda to fulfill the next step of the piece’s collaborative development.  Our companions on this leg of the journey include director Clare Preuss, actors Neema Bickersteth, Ash Knight and Jeremiah Sparks and producer Sandra leFrancois.

Our partners, Dynamo Theatre Company have offered us generous support and we were thrilled to begin incorporating actor Musa Luswata into the process in preparation for our presentation.

On Sunday, September 18, 2011 we unveil the outcomes of all this hard work courtesy of our presenters at the Bayimba International Arts Festival.  The festival also features a performance by our own Belladonna the Virtuous, backed by Uganda`s incomparable Janzi Band.

Come Monday we will find ourselves in Gulu with Dynamo Theatre members to conduct youth arts workshops and count our many blessings.  Our thanks for travel support provided by Cahoots Theatre, TAPA`s T.R.I.P. Program, and the Canada Council for the Arts as well as Toronto Arts Council for their support of the Toronto portion of the workshop.  We are grateful for the artistic contributions of Lisa Karen Cox, Jamie Robinson, Awaovieyi Agie and Nana Boateng Frimpong, as well as design work by Michelle Ramsay (lighting), Kevin Centeno (sound) and Isidra Cruz (set and costumes)

NHP A.D. nominated for TAF’s RBC

Artistic Director DM St. Bernard has been nominated for Toronto Arts Foundation’s RBC Emerging Artist Award 2011.

See a list of other finalists and nominees in other categories here.

Click here to see NOW Magazine’s beautiful array of TAF nominee portraits by Denise Grant Photography.

Outcomes announced at the Mayor’s Arts Awards lunch on October 20, 2011.  Whatever shall I wear?

On the Hill – May 8, 2011

Dancemakers Centre for Creation

 55 Mill Street, Building 58

The Cannery, Studio 313

May 8  @ 7pm

pwyc

 

Choreographers: Vivine Scarlett and Pulga Muchochoma

Featuring: Salé Almirante, Roney Lewis, Mafa Makhubalo, Tawiah M’carthy, Gabriella Parson, Nawa Nicole Simon, Sodienye Waboso

Musicians: Kobena Aquaa-Harrison, Achilla Orru and Gein Wong

 Designers: Alaina Perttula (lighting), Isidra Cruz (costumes)

Writer: DM St. Bernard

 

This presentation is the culmination of two weeks creation and development with the ensemble and guest facilitators.  Creating a convergence of story, movement, voice and body percussion, the result is a critical narrative accompanied by imbira, djembe and erhu.  On The Hill speaks to all of those who have gone away and some of those who have returned. 

Cake at Springworks & Mayworks – May 2011

 

SPRINGWORKS FESTIVAL – STRATFORD, ON

Factory163, 163 King Street, Stratford

May 11 @ 11am

May 11 @ 9pm

May 13 @ 2pm

 

 

MAYWORKS FESTIVAL, TORONTO, ON

Theatre Direct Christie Studio, 601 Christie Street, Toronto

May 14 @ 8pm

 

Being developed in collaboration with Ugandan company Dynamo Theatre, Cake humanizes the dynamic between Niger and Iran. A scathing allegory that examines Niger’s complicit dealings in uranium, international aide and Iranian interests, Cake presents a critical assessment of the oppression imposed by conditional assistance.  This play is being developed with support from Cahoots Theatre Projects, Summerworks Festival, MT Space and Obsidian Theatre with funding from the Ontario Arts Council.

Director: Clare Preuss

Playwright: DM St. Bernard

Featuring: Neema Bickersteth, Nana Boateng Frimpong, Ash Knight, Jamie Robinson

Designers: Michelle Ramsay (lighting), Kevin Centeno (sound), Isidra Cruz (set and costumes)

REFRACTED: February Photography & Performance

 

New Harlem’s first photography exhibit runs from February 3 – 18, 2011 and is all done up in NHP’s typical multi-disciplinary style.

7 photographers

3 musicians

5 playwrights

1 book launch

1.2 million awesome moments

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Refracted: a look at how the light strikes us all differently…

Taking place at Ben Navaee Gallery in Leslieville, the exhibition features the work of seven photographers over the course of three weeks accompanied by the works of diverse performing artists.

Thursday, February 3 – 8pm
Exhibition launch with featured photographer Nir Bareket.
Launch of Playwrights Canada Press Anthology Refractions:Solo with readings from Tara Beagan, Lisa Codrington, Sky Gilbert, Colleen Murphy, Erin Shields and host Yvette Nolan.

Saturday, February 5 – 7pm
Featured photographers Keith Barker and qr5 photography
Performance by Matthew Maaskant

Saturday, February 12 – 7pm
Featured photographers Ian Grant and Raj Sohi
Performance by Quincy Bullen

Friday, February 18 – 7pm
Featured photographers Beth Kates & Scott Benesiinaabandan
Performance by Ronen Segall

There is no admission for these events.

For more information, email newharlemproductions@gmail.com

Cake @ the FOOT Festival – February 4-6, 2011

join us for a reading of

 

CAKE* by Donna-Michelle St. Bernard 

on February 4

at 6:30pm

 

Directed by: Clare Preuss

Assistant director: Aura Carcueva

Featuring: Lisa Karen Cox, Ash Knight and Jamie Robinson

 

Oba holds together the last shreds of his dignity with trembling hands.  He is a nominal barrier between his companion Femi and colleague Aarif; a paragon of past triumphs sucked dry; a man torn between pride and need.  Cake is the latest contribution to the 54-ology, a series that looks at regionally specific issues across the African continent.

this reading is part of

 

Festival Of Original Theatre 2011: Performing Back

A Conference devoted to Post-Colonial Theatre

February 4 – 6, 2011

Robert Gill Theatre, Graduate Centre for Study of Drama,                        

University of Toronto 

3rd Floor, 214 College St.

(north-west corner of St. George and College – use St. George entrance)  Toronto, Ontario                

visit the FOOT 2011 website for stimulating discourse and new performance works, including

 

TWO OLD WOMEN by Yvette Nolan  

on February 4

at 12:30

*Cake’s development is supported through the Ontario Arts Council’s Theatre Creator’s Reserve Program, recommender: Summerworks Theatre Festival.

Oh Sudanah at BUZZ Festival – Dec. 15, 2010

Join us on December 15 @ 7:30pm for Oh Sudanah

by DM St. Bernard

Directed by Ulla Laidlaw

Featuring Ben Sanders & Simone Saunders

as part of Theatre Passe Muraille’s BUZZ Festival

16 Ryerson Ave

Oh Sudanah synopsis: When we are removed from what’s going on we can talk about it with distance, clarity, vision.   What do we say if we are in the middle, in the nucleus?  Maybe nothing.  Maybe nothing several times.  In several ways.

This period of development is supported by Theatre Passe Muraille,  Nightwood Theatre and Native Earth Performing Arts.

An earlier version of Oh Sudanah was presented at bcurrent theatre’s rock.paper.sistahz festival in under the direction of Joan Kivanda, featuring Ryan Field and Sabryn Rock.

 

Oh Sudanah is a part of the 54-ology.

Supernova at LabCab Festival 2010

Check us out at the LabCab Festival with

Supernova
Created by: Donna-Michelle St. Bernard & Isidra Cruz
Featuring: Alex St-Denis Yow Foo and Tawiah M’Carthy

This design-driven piece of theatre follows one man’s virtual quest for actual human contact.

FACTORY THEATRE
Rehearsal Hall

September 18 & 19 @ 4:30pm (20 minutes)