About the project

Initially written to be a stage production for the recently postponed 2020 Montreal Fringe Festival, this solo bio-drama will take you on a journey with the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin. Experience Gargarin’s world view change as he goes from Soviet loyalist to global icon. In this time of growing nationalism, his story is both a celebration and a warning about the power of community. This is the rise and fall of Yuri Gagarin.

This playful retelling explores what it means to be a theatre creator in the age of COVID-19. It has been directed, rehearsed, and designed, entirely through video conferencing.

This work-in-progress was developed with Playwrights’ Workshop Montreal through the Young Creators Unit.

IG and FB: @RubberTreeMedia
Twitter: @Rubber__Tree

This project received financial support from the National Theatre School of Canada via the Art Apart program, an emergency fund for emerging artists who are affected by physical distancing due to coronavirus (COVID-19).

About the artists

Director: Olivia Woods

Olivia Woods is a recent graduate of Concordia’s Theatre Performance program. Olivia aims to create connection and community through her acting, teaching and directing work. She is curious how we can nurture these values while we practice physical distancing. Acting credits include: Cause and Effect (Hey Lady Productions), When Memories Have Us (The Segal Centre), The Blood Countess (Revolution They Wrote), Linge Sale (Other Coast Theatre), and The Riot Ballet (Jump Current + Working Group Theatre). Assistant directing credits include: Encore (Tableau d’Hôte), Blue Stockings (Persephone Theatre), and Lion in the Streets (Concordia University). This is Olivia’s first time directing over Zoom!

Performer and Playwright: Calder Levine

Calder Levine is an actor/producer who runs Rubber Tree Media, an emerging company. Part theatre group and part film producer, its recent short film Sin Eater was nominated as a finalist in the 100-Hour Film Race. Calder Levine’s notable acting work includes performances in Mathias et Maxime (Xavier Dolan); Rock On, Dude! (Best Foreign Film – Chicago Reel Shorts); and Genius, a podcast play adaptation of Sherlock Holmes. Levine says, “I was initially drawn to the elements of the Gagarin story that read like a legendary myth. After endless hours of research about this oft-forgotten icon, I wanted to explore a fictionalized retelling that spoke to today’s audiences about the themes of vocation, social identity, and life’s lift-offs and landings.”

Production design: Annalise Peterson-Perry

Annalise Peterson-Perry is a Montreal-based theatre practitioner and recent graduate from Concordia University’s Theatre and Development program. Having worked in theatre and film for close to ten years, Annalise is interested in multiple avenues of creating and supporting great storytelling. Recent credits include: Stage Manager for Blue Stockings (Persephone Productions), Assistant Sage Manager for It’s A Wonderful Life (Geordie Theatre Gala), Apprentice stage manager for Measure for Measure, and Much Ado About Nothing (Repercussion Theatre), Stage Manager for Underbelly (Concordia Collective Creation), Assistant Director for Learned Ladies (Concordia), Wardrobe Mistress for Mamma Mia!, and The Hobbit (Globe Theatre Regina), Wardrobe Dresser & Stitcher for Shrek the Musical (Globe Theatre Regina), and Assistant Designer for Becket Shorts (Concordia One Act Festival). Annalise is having tremendous fun exploring what it means to design while social distancing and could not be more grateful to be working with such a wonderful and dedicated team! Annalise is ready to blast off!

Production design: Joanne Kinnear

Joanne Kinnear is new to the behind-the-scenes theatre… uh … scene. Her experience includes going to plays in which Calder is involved and making Halloween costumes for Calder and his sister Emmy. She has been known to sport her own creations as well. She enjoys creating things out of her hoarded stash of craft supplies. Her hobbies include collecting things that other people see as trash and actually collecting other people’s trash. But seriously, she works as a daycare educator.

Light Design: Caite Clark

Caite Clark is a community engaged theatre artist working in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal. She is the coordinator and resident lighting designer of the Acts of Listening Lab; a centre for oral history performance bringing to life stories that matter into the public sphere. Theatre and circus work in Montreal includes directing TOMORROW (Hooks and Crooks for Centaur’s Wildside Festival/Montreal Fringe), as well as lighting design for Specktacle avec un <<K>> (dir. Maja Maletković and Anna Vigeland), Blue Stockings (Persephone), Seminar for Contemporary Circus Creation (Concordia University), and The One (Hopegrown Productions). She has also been an artist in residence with the VAV Gallery, creating puppets from repurposed materials with Concordia’s Centre for Creative Reuse. Caite holds a BFA in Theatre & Development from Concordia University.

Sound Design: Marc-Antoine Legault

Marc-Antoine Legault is a Montreal-based sound designer and musician. Concordia graduate (BFA major in Electroacoustics and minor in Human Rights), the comrade has had the privilege of being involved with several productions performing at Montreal’s Centaur Theatre including Spring Awakening and Punk Rock. He is thrilled to be collaborating with so many talented artists and fellow John Abbott College Professional Theatre graduate Calder Levine on Cosmonaut No. 1.

With support from Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal through the Young Creators Unit.

About the project

Manic Valerie is the goddess of violin playing. Depressed Valerie is most certainly not. Stable Valerie… maybe could have been, at some point. After BUYING A MUSIC SCHOOL during a manic episode, Valerie looks back on all the ways her bipolar disorder has impacted her music career and documents it all through music, anecdotes, and some good ol’ oversharing on the internet 😉 A Joy that’s Mine Alone is the result of that documentation, a celebration on the road to recovery, and a reminder that it is never too late for all the tiny pieces that make up a life to realign after they scatter.

This project received financial support from the National Theatre School of Canada via the Art Apart program, an emergency fund for emerging artists who are affected by physical distancing due to coronavirus (COVID-19).

About the artist

Violette Kay is a playwright and multidisciplinary performer from Gatineau, Quebec. She studied violin at the Conservatoire de Musique de Gatineau before making the transition to theatre at John Abbott College. She then participated in Imago Theatre’s ARTISTA and Playwrights’ Workshop Montreal’s Young Creators Unit. Past projects include Adoration (Tantalus/Studio Porte Bleue), The Order of The Poor Ladies (Revolution They Wrote) and Fridge Horror (Little Black Rain Cloud). You might also find Violette behind a desk at Geordie Theatre, puppeteering various household objects, or busking at your local metro station.

You can also follow the creative process on Instagram: @wemake.otherhearts

About the project

l00k1ngl4ss is a new puppet-centric performance piece based on isolation and new methods of interaction. Other HeArts members Yousef Kadoura and Harri Thomas are building puppets from miscellaneous art objects, and everyday materials found around their apartments. These puppets which reflect the material aspects of the lives they lead will be brought into existence and interact with each other digitally. With editing and cinematography by Stefne Mercedes, the piece will use the aesthetics of our modern digital lives to share a silent narrative meditating on the nature of isolation, distraction, connection and transformation in death.

In addition to the final filmed product, Other HeArts will also be sharing process photos and videos of the process on social media, to provide a guide to others on improvised construction and digital art making.

This project received financial support from the National Theatre School of Canada via the Art Apart program, an emergency fund for emerging artists who are affected by physical distancing due to coronavirus (COVID-19).

About the artists

Yousef Kadoura: Creator/PerformerProducer

Yousef Kadoura was born in the Midwestern United States and raised in Ottawa, Ontario, he is a Lebanese Canadian actor, writer, producer, and curator as well as a right leg below knee amputee. Yousef is a graduate of the Acting (2017) program at the National Theatre School of Canada. Since moving to Toronto from Montreal in 2017, he has worked as the curator in residence at Tangled Art + Disability co-curating the Flourishing series in 2018. He was also the producer and creator of the podcast series Walking the Space (2017) a three-part podcast exploring disability in Canadian theatre. Yousef is also a founding company member of Other He/Arts a new performance collective which came together initially as a producing vehicle for Yousef’s show, One Night, in Aluna Theatre’s Caminos Festival (2019). As an artist Yousef seeks to draw from a plurality of experiences and disciplines to expand the boundaries of performance in pursuit of accessibility, presence and shared experience.

Harri Thomas: Creator/performer/co-director

Harri is a director, dramaturg, and performance maker based between rural and urban Ontario. Founding artistic director of Toronto’s Desiderata Theatre Co, their previous works as a director have included adaptations of classic texts, as well as world play premieres and live art creations. Their work emphasizes the body as the site of both trauma and forgiveness, in relationship to love, the earth, the spirit and society. They are a recent graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada’s Directing program. Recent Credits: Director/Dramaturg One Night (Other He/Arts, Caminos 2019), Creator/Perfomer Flower Machine v2: Paiseu (Other He/Arts, York Lane Art Collective), Director/Dramaturg Mad Ones (Tangled Art + Disability), Director/Dramaturg Slaughter Bros. Dime Circus (Baby Monster Productions).

Stefne Mercedes: editor/co-director

Stefne is an actor, writer and producer whose work spans several genres including theatre, film/TV, music, visual and performance art. She is a graduate of the Interlochen Arts Academy, MI and the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, NYC. She has lived all over North America and is currently based in Toronto, Ontario. Performance credits include: Mad Ones (Tangled Art + Disability), Lil Red (Stirling Festival Theatre), Visitations at the Drake Hotel (The Mission Business), Murdoch Mysteries (CBC), Call Me Fitz (HBO Canada).

About the project

This first draft of WasherWomen is an attempt to begin to explore the idea of women in the role of laundress: delving into the term ‘fallen women’, the history of Magdalene laundries, and the myths and legends around supernatural laundresses, such as Les Lavandieres from Celtic mythology, the Bean-nighe from Scottish folklore, or the Moura-lavadeira from Portuguese and Galician legends.

This project received financial support from the National Theatre School of Canada via the Art Apart program, an emergency fund for emerging artists who are affected by physical distancing due to coronavirus (COVID-19).

About the artist

Creator/Performer: Emma Houghton

Emma Houghton is an actor, emerging director, mover and shaker, and theatre creator. She received her BFA in Acting from the University of Alberta in 2017 and since then has worked with a number of professional theatre companies throughout Alberta including Alberta Theatre Projects, The Citadel Theatre, Theatre Calgary, Shadow Theatre, Fringe Theatre Adventures, and Tiny Bear Jaws. She is passionate about work that crosses artistic disciplines and in the development of new work from new voices. In addition to acting Emma has recently begun to chart a path in directing, serving as assistant director on productions with Shadow Theatre and Alberta Theatre Projects, and has also been pursuing playwriting and collective creation work.

Voice of WasherWoman: Emily Howard

Original Compositions: Scott Steneker

Additional Sound+Music: Epidemic Sound

Discover the Rex Project online

About the project

In a futuristic world, where the integration of human memories and computer cores has created artificially intelligent androids, companies are mass-recruiting employees to fast-track production. You, the listener, are hired to be an integral part of the quality-control in the emotional development sector. The Rex Project workshop presentation is an immersive, virtual, bite-size theatrical experience that takes place in real time (over 11 days), and is presented entirely through audio-recordings and online platforms.

This project received financial support from the National Theatre School of Canada via the Art Apart program, an emergency fund for emerging artists who are affected by physical distancing due to coronavirus (COVID-19).

About the artist

Howard Dai (project leader) is a theatre maker based in Vancouver, BC. He recently obtained his BFA in the Theatre Performance program at Simon Fraser University (SFU) School for the Contemporary Arts. Recent stage appearances at SFU include Dig: Dance Mainstage (choreographed by Rob Kitsos), Bombogenesis (directed by Steven Hill), They Don’t Pay? We Won’t Pay! (directed by Pedro Chamale and Derek Chan), and Topophilia (directed by Steven Hill and Rob Kitsos). He has recently made his directorial debut with Itamar Moses’ Love/Stories at SFU. He is also a sound designer, technical director, producer, and composer that has worked extensively throughout the Greater Vancouver area. More of his works here: howarddai.com

Tiger Xu (original concept, writer) is a Neuroscience PhD candidate at Johns Hopkins University. Together with Howard, they were the co-founders and co-producers of Two Gents of New West since 2013, which had been their vehicle for a catalog of artistic initiatives and community-engaged events in New Westminster, BC. twogentsnw.weebly.com

About the project

A performance of Smashcut: Int. Changing Room, an original monologue exploring non-binary gender and an exploration of dysphoria in an entirely private world, and performitivity of gender in the absence of an audience, Smashcut: Int. Changing Room is re-tooled to be shot in Fanny Dvorkin’s apartment with an additional consideration and focus on the current isolation caused by the COVID-19 crisis.

This project received financial support from the National Theatre School of Canada via the Art Apart program, an emergency fund for emerging artists who are affected by physical distancing due to coronavirus (COVID-19).

About the artist

Fanny Dvorkin is a 29 year old actor and writer/poet. Having previously studied Literatures in English both at Concordia and York in the UK, she now resides in Montreal with her wife and dog. Focusing on gender identity and expression, and Shakespeare (not always at the same time), she aims to make theatre more accessible physically and mentally not only for the audience, but for the performers and technicians alike.