Red Riding Hood Meets a Green Wolf

Graham Porter and Jane Smythe in Red Riding Hood and the Green Wolf

Red Riding Hood met the wolf of her dreams at the Clay and Paper Theatre's summer celebration of love in all its forms -- Day of Delight, held June 19th in Dufferin Grove Park. Amid wonderful bicycle puppeteers, stilt walkers, dancers and a old-fashioned telegraph office, Red (Jane Smythe) tamed a vegetarian Wolf (Graham Porter) with broccoli, carrots, and honey from her basket. Flocks of child followers offered the Wolf handsful of grass, threw hummus at the basket, and tried on Red's cloak.

The Blackcurrant production was designed and photographed by Margaret Nieradka, using a secret candy wrapper technique, and directed by Kathy Bischoping.

Graham and Jane, Happy Together

Sonnets on Stage

Sitting room, Montgomery's Inn

Each May, the Humber River Shakespeare Company puts on The Sonnet Show -- a five-play homage to five Shakespeare Sonnets, set among the candlelight and ballroom, bellows and bedsteads of five rooms of the historic Montgomery's Inn. 

This lyrical event involves a behind-the-scenes scramble, since each of the five writers has only 14 days to write their play. Inside Toronto explains the details.

On May 27, Kathy Bischoping was among the playwrights, contributing The Shallowest Help, a tale of spirits, fainting, and foulest murder set in a sitting room, in response to Sonnet 80, O! how I faint when I of you do write. Picture a St. Lawrence Market Ouija board find on the table above...

Many thanks to Kevin Hammond, Humber River Shakespeare Company's artistic director, for the opportunity to participate, to director Catherine McNally, and to the four actors!

An all-night Ibsen slam!

The title page of Ibsen's play, A Doll's House.

With a door slam, a marriage ends. 

In our October 2010 Nuit Blanche exhibit with Laluque Atelier Gallery, artists working in four media examined the enduring significance of Henrik Ibsen's 1879 A Doll's House. Nora, the protagonist of this Norwegian masterpiece, leaves Torvald, her husband of eight years, with the famous "door slam heard 'round the world."

Handle With Care (detail) by N. Laluque;  Chris Cornish and Jane Smythe perform Auditioning for Nora; and Maelstrom, by M. Nieradka.

Visual artist Margaret Nieradka (Maelstrom image top right) set Nora and Torvald amidst the fringes and dust, spangles and rigid gender roles of an idealized Old West. In her haunting mixed media works, Nora is marked 'outlaw' in rhinestones, leaving a desperate Torvald behind to face the maelstrom.

South African film-makers Nadine Hutton and Myer Taub suggested parallels between Nora's relationship with Torvald and that of Africa with colonialism in the remarkable short Nora Leaves A Doll's House (image below).

Chris Cornish and Jane Smythe (top center) gave seven performances of Auditioning for Nora, an Ibsen adaptation by Katherine Bischoping, in which a demanding doll, insisting on being cast in the coveted role of Nora, turns the play's metaphors absurdly literal. Michael Scott was assistant director, and David Nash, the stage manager and master of ceremonies for the evening.

In her Handle With Care installation (top left), Natalia Laluque, the exhibit's peacemaker, commented in clay -- with amazing movable parts! -- on the universality of endings, on the last, fragile moments of contact with a world to be left behind.

We thank the 251 audience members who joined us throughout the nuit, Kent Lam for his photography, Kirill Stepanenko for computer genius, Urban Fare for the chairs, the Ontario Arts Council for the grant to Natalia Laluque, and, especially, the Royal Norwegian Embassy who honoured us with their support!

Schedule for Nora, Leaving Torvald

Chris Cornish & Jane Smythe in Auditioning for Nora (photo: D. Katz)

Until midnight, the 30-minute program of the film Nora Leaves A Doll's House + brief intermission +  the Auditioning for Nora theatre work will begin at: 7:00, 7:45, 8:30, 9:15, 10:00, 10:45, and 11:15.

After midnight, Nora Leaves A Doll's House will be shown every 20 minutes. Our location: Laluque Atelier Gallery (1362 Bathurst, a few minutes south of St. Clair, near St. Clair West TTC).

Have a great nuit!

Constellation St. Clair returns in 2010!

Constellation St. Clair poster (design: Natalia Laluque

Seven projects will  light up the St. Clair and Bathurst neighbourhood on October 2, the night of Scotiabank Nuit Blanche:

The westmost exhibit is All Night I Mourned Myself, at St. Matthew's United Church (729 St. Clair West), features the coffinphone. Lie in a church pew and hear yourself mourned as if at your own funeral!

Next stop, Wychwood Barns (601 Christie Street), for Mirage, a dance performance by Australia's Theatre Direct, exploring the experience of having a phantom limb.

Your Story Begins At The Barns, also at Wychwood Barns (601 Christie) features storytellers, singers, musicians telling folktales...and you as the hero of every tale.

Obsolescence asks: What if an antique upright piano and stereo speakers traded roles? You can also see this adventure in sound art at Wychwood Barns (601 Christie).

Midway from the Barns to Casa Loma Stables, Nora, Leaving Torvald interprets Ibsen's famous scene in film, visual arts, ceramic installation, and -- till midnight -- theatre.

Cabin in the Woods at Casa Loma Stables plays with the iconic image of the log cabin, turning it from a benign retreat into a mist-surrounded house of horrors. Be afraid...

The eastmost project, Under the Surface, wends through the grounds of Spadina Museum (285 Spadina Road), with diorama, installation, digital and other arts.

Near at hand to all, the St. Clair West TTC station is open all night long.

A door slams, a marriage ends: Our Scotiabank Nuit Blanche exhibit

A door slams, a marriage ends. What is the enduring significance of the final scene of Henrik Ibsen's 1879 play, A Doll's House?

Nora, Leaving Torvald answers this question in film, visual art, ceramic installation, and ('til midnight) theatre. The exhibit, a joint project of Laluque Atelier Gallery and Blackcurrant Productions, features works by: Natalia Laluque; Margaret Nieradka; Katherine Bischoping, Chris Cornish, Jane Smyth, David Nash & Michael Scott; and the North American premiere of Nora Leaves A Doll's House (pictured), a film short by South Africans Nadine Hutton and Myer Taub.

See it in Scotiabank Nuit Blanche at Laluque Atelier Gallery, 1362 Bathurst!

We thank the Royal Norwegian Embassy for their generous support.