Merger sees Live Bait and Performers’ join forces to make ‘one big happy theatre family’
Live Bait Theatre’s annual New Works Festival kicks off this week with workshops, readings, and performances, running through to March 28.
But this year’s festival will be a swan song of sorts for the longstanding theatre company. Live Bait and Performers’ Theatre have announced a merger to create a new theatre company for the Tantramar region.
CHMA dropped by the Performers’ Theatre space on Fairfield Road to meet Ryan Slashinki, a local performing arts teacher who is taking on the role of managing director for the new theatre company during the transition.
Slashinsky is heading up a transition team which also includes Live Bait artistic director Ron Kelly Spurles who is continuing in that role for another year. The founding director of Performers’ Theatre, Steven Puddle, had previously stepped back from the helm of the community theatre group.
Slashinsky says the time was right for the merger. In recent years both companies were populated by the same people, says Slashinski, which meant “we were finding that we were burning out people that wanted to work in the theater.” While Live Bait is a professional company with a 35-year history, the productions coming from Performers’ had grown to become “of similar quality,” says Slashinski. “Over the past 15 years, Performers’ has kind of grown up… So the time was right, to just get together and make one big happy theatre family for the people of Tantramar.”… Continue
Play commemorates people who struggled with homophobia, disease at the beginning of HIV/AIDS crisis
The director of a new community theatre production hopes the play will help commemorate the people who struggled with disease and homophobia at the outset of the HIV/AIDS crisis.
“It’s very easy at times to forget that behind it all are individuals… loving human beings with families,” said Stephen Puddle, founder of the Performers’ Theatre Company.
He’s the director of a new production of The Normal Heart, which opens on Saturday. The play, written by Larry Kramer, is set in early 1980s New York City, at the beginning of the HIV/AIDS crisis.
“I think a play like this helps bring that [humanity] out and show the reality of those individuals, and it’s also a tribute to those who fought hard and long,” Puddle said.
The World Health Organization estimates that HIV has claimed the lives of about 40 million people since the first known outbreak, in 1981, of what would eventually become known as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.
The main character of the play is a writer and activist named Ned Weeks, a gay man who is the founder of an HIV advocacy group. The play was first produced in 1985.
Puddle also sees parallels between the HIV/AIDS crisis and COVID-19, notably a sense of extreme negativity against people trying to implement public health measures.… Continue
Theatre student presents online workshops for kids
Second-year theatre student Ashlyn Skater is providing an opportunity for kids to participate in theatre during COVID-19.
Skater received a Crake internship grant through Mount Allison University to provide online theatre workshops free of charge.
Ashlyn Skater: We’re going to go over like basic theater concepts. I have some themes set up from now until Christmas, but it will carry on after Christmas as well. So theater basics, characterization, basic theater history. In the winter term, I’m looking to do a reader’s theater project. Whether it’s a project or we do it in a workshop, I’m not sure yet. Basically, that’s what I’m looking to get into.
The workshops are available to kids between grades five and nine on a drop-in basis.
Meg Cunningham: Why did you choose the age range that you did?
AS: I chose that age range because I want to go into education, and that’s kind of the age range I want to teach when I’ve done my undergrad. Also, when I was in high school I helped with the middle school drama club, so I’ve always just liked working with an age group.
MC: Do you anticipate any obstacles due to having to offer the workshops online, since a lot of theater is physical? Or are you prepared for that? What are your thoughts?
AS: I do anticipate some obstacles.… Continue