Ghost River Theatre has been blessed with a full year of connecting, recentring, and art making. As we’re approaching the end of our “season” (we’re using the term loosely because we don’t follow a typical theatre season schedule), we wanted to update you all on where we’ve been, where we’re at, and where we’re going. There’s been a lot of talk with words like “unprecedented” and “these challenging times” and although we agree that these words are suitable to describe the last 12 months, something a bit different resonates for us here at Ghost River Theatre. To be honest, we’re still doing what we always do. Yes, we’re wearing masks. Yes, we’ve been working from home. Yes, we’re grappling with systemic changes. But we’re still doing our best to make theatre and art for our community. We’re supporting and paying local artists. We’re striving to fulfill our mission and we’re sticking to our values, the things that matter most to us. Mostly, we’re flowing down the river of these strange times. And we’re happy you’ve been along with us for the ride.
So, what have we been doing in the last year?
Where has the last year gone? It’s seemed to have flown by! Last summer we shot a proof of concept for our upcoming climate thriller So Dark the Sky, which received funding from the Canada Council for the Arts and CBC. More on this very exciting project below.
Because of decreases in COVID-19 restrictions at the time, we were able to present SensoryBox, the most recent installment in our Six Senses Series, as a hybrid in-theatre and online experience in September and October 2020 at the West Village Theatre. You can read our wrap up from that show on our website: www.ghostrivertheatre.com/news/wrapping-up-sensorybox
Last November, we needed to cancel our regular education intensive but instead were able to meet for a week with local Black, Indigenous, POC, and Trans artists to explore new devising methodology. It was a rejuvenating, enlightening, and inspiring experience and we’re grateful to have been able to hold that space in our theatre. To wrap up 2020, we were also very pleased to have our Executive Director, Kate Stadel, recognized as one of Avenue Magazine’s Top 40 Under 40!
In early 2021 we began workshopping our upcoming production of STRUCK, written and directed by Artistic Director Eric Rose. The full workshop was, unfortunately, cancelled due to COVID-19 restrictions, so we pivoted to present a reading of the in-progress work to a small group online. In the spring of 2021 we began to develop a new deaf-led devised theatre production with deaf artist Landon Krentz and continued our ongoing development of Laura Anzola’s Blue Borders project, which explores how whale communication and migration studies can create a path to understanding the complexity of immigration, the concept of borders, and our relationship to the world that we inhabit.
SensoryBox was translated and produced in French at L’Uni Theatre in Edmonton while, simultaneously, a TYA version of the show was being developed through Toronto Young People’s Theatre’s Shifting Stages program. We’re so excited our little sensory boxes are being experienced all around the world and in so many different ways and by so many different people!
Where are we now?
This month (June 2021) we’ve been deep into phase two of the workshop development of our upcoming show Makambe Speaks, collaborating with Dora-Award-Winning artist Makambe K. Simamba. The show is continuing to grow and we’re excited to explore the new direction it evolves in.
A Black Woman. A prairie sky. The Ponoka County Fair. An adventure. A fantasy. A WHOLE LOTTA JOKES. Makambe Speaks is an exploration, a provocation, and a deconstruction of the age old question, “Where are you from?”
We’ve also hired a new administrative assistant, Grace Donner, who is going to be joining us in our home at the West Village Theatre to help support our administrative work this summer. She’s been hired through the Canada Summer Jobs program and we’re very pleased to have her with the GRT family. We’re also going to be hiring another position, an artistic associate and we’re looking forward to that as well.
GRT has also been doing some strategic planning over the last few months as well and during that we’ve updated our values a bit. If you haven’t seen them already, we recommend you check them out: www.ghostrivertheatre.com/company.
We have a lot of exciting projects coming up in the next year. And we mean a lot. First, the staff are going to be taking some time off in the summer to take a breath, reconnect, and spend time with family. Then in August we are jumping right back into things by workshopping some new works and developing new collaborations. We’re very pleased to have reached so many new audience members and collaborated with so many new artists this year. And we’re looking forward to doing the same for the rest of 2021 and into 2022 as well. The future is coming and we are delighted to dive into it!
What’s coming up?
We have a special surprise planned for September and October that we aren’t ready to announce yet. So keep your eyes and ears peeled for that! In the meantime, there are more projects we have coming down the river.
In January, we have our rescheduled development time of STRUCK, which is an examination of our Artistic Director Eric Rose’s true story of being struck by lightning as a teenager and the ripples of that event into his adult life. We’re going to be exploring ways to combine in-person audiences and live-feed video capturing with livestreaming for a digital audience in a new hybrid, multimedia artistic style.
After spending so long away from artists in our community we’re eager to return to our educational and outreach initiatives. After our Artists-in-Residence project was delayed because of health restrictions, we decided to carry the same project forward into 2022. So we’ll be working with Janelle Cooper and the Ellipsis Tree Collective to host a project during Black History Month in February 2022.
In the fall we’re going to be returning to our in-person intensives! We have our 4-day Devised Theatre Intensive in November. And looking farther forward we have our famous 3-Week National Devised Theatre Intensive happening in June 2022. We can’t wait to see all you artists back under our roof at the West Village Theatre. Honestly, it’s going to be such a joy to have the creativity and energy of artists working in our space again after it’s been empty for so long.
What else? We’re still developing other shows including Blue Borders with Colombian artist Laura Anzola, Extinction Song with Downstage Theatre and Bucket Club (UK), and Boxes with Montreal’s Jon Lachlan Stewart. It will be quite a while until they’ll be seen on stages here in Calgary, but if you know us you know this is part of our M.O. We develop and mount original productions through a significant investment in imaginative research and development. We know things take time, and we’re okay with that.
Last but not least in our upcoming projects is our climate thriller So Dark the Sky. You thought we were just a theatre company, didn’t you? Well, thanks to funding from the Canada Council for the Arts and CBC, we’re going to be producing an episodic short-form series being developed for an online streaming service. We know we’ve been saying we’re excited about a lot of things but we are really excited about this project!
We have so many projects in development right now! It’s an exhilarating time. We’re looking forward to reconnecting with all of you in person soon. Whether you’re artists, audience members, community folks, family, or friends, we want to see you soon. We want to gather with you in an audience. We want to play with you and make art. We want to share. We want to learn. We want to grow. Together. And that’s all going to happen in this upcoming year. Thank you for being part of the Ghost River Theatre family. So buckle up, stay tuned, and let’s get going on this crazy adventure together.
Here we go!
