NAC Foundation
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Attending pre-rehearsal chats and open rehearsals are one of the many benefits donors receive when they support performance, creation and learning across Canada through the National Arts Centre Foundation.
On Thursday, March 26, members of the Donors’ Circle were treated to a Q&A between English Theatre’s Associate Artistic Director Sarah Garton Stanley and Managing Director Nathan Medd. Nathan asked Sarah a variety of questions about Take Me Back to Jefferson (which donors were going to see after the Q&A) and English Theatre’s work across the country.
Sarah explained that Take Me Back to Jefferson, a Theatre Smith-Gilmour (Toronto) production is physical theatre. Based on William Faulkner’s great novel As I Lay Dying, the actors animate the bare stage through movement. Sarah professed that the actors are so skilled in aiding the audience’s imagination that after seeing the play it is hard to believe that one didn’t observe actual scenery.
When Nathan asked Sarah about English Theatre’s work across Canada, Sarah described the projects with great enthusiasm. The Collaborations, for example, invest in productions coast to coast. One such collaboration is Alice Through the Looking-Glass, an NAC production in association with Stratford Festival which Artistic Director of NAC English Theatre Jillian Keiley reinvigorated and directed. This whimsical play is set to tour Charlottetown, Winnipeg and Edmonton under Jillian’s directorship, and will use the same set and props from her original creation. Local actors from each city on the tour will form the cast.
Sarah then went on to describe The Summit/Study. The purpose of The Summit, which took place at the Banff Centre for three days last April, was to create a vital conversation that could lead to informed choices about how to approach a larger, longer, and more involved investigation of Indigenous work, The Study, which will take place on Manitoulin Island in May 2015. You can read more about this exciting initiative here.
A special thank you to our Open Rehearsal and Preview Sponsor, Rob Marland, Royal LePage Performance Realty who makes these sessions possible for NAC Foundation donors.
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