2007 - 2008 SERIES

Save us!! [Hamletown] painting by Tasha Aulls

Save us!! [Hamletown]

Surprise Performance

Surprise Performance is a performance company dedicated to creating new works by merging classical text, original writing, music, video, and dance. Save us!! [Hamletown] is the company's first presentation, a performance combining all of the above with Shakespeare's Hamlet, aspects of the Jonestown Massacre story, blissed-out meditation, explanation, failure, redemption and a party. Save us!! [Hamletown] explores the transformation and ultimate destruction of a group of artists who dreamed of creating a utopian world free of capitalism. As the collective disintegrates into complete chaos due to disorganization, drugs, lack of proper food and water, the situation goes from utopia to nightmare.

... we are all waiting ...

Written and directed by Chad Dembski
Performed by Ulysees Castellanos, Michael Challenor, Andrea Davis, Evan Webber, Michael Wheeler, Eve Whylen and Chad Dembski who also performed in something about a river, the winner of the 2004 Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Independent Production
Co-design by Sherri Hay
Cover painting by Tasha Aulls Save Us!! [Hamletown] was presented March 7 - 9, 2008 in the Studio Theatre.

Weathering Architecture

Filiz Klassen

Architecture is the protagonist in this performance that brings theatre, film, art and design together within the context of Toronto's built spaces and natural/urban environment. Sound, video projections and spoken word all reside within the context of a play that captures the interaction between architectural creations, people and the atmospheric conditions and thus attempts to generate a debate about how architecture should weather the elements; snow, rain, light, wind, heat, smog etc.

Conceived and created by Filiz Klassen, Associate Professor, Ryerson University, Toronto
Creative Team: Chris Aimone (prototype designer), Dan Browne (filmmaker), Chad Dembski (performer), Dan Goldman (sound composer), Brendan Healy (dramaturge and staging consultant) and Laird Macdonald (lighting/stage designer).

Funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Research/Creation Grant. Weathering Architecture was presented as part of digifest 2008 at Harbourfront Centre, March 28 - 30, 2008 in the Studio Theatre.

Weathering Architecture

The Misfit

The Misfit

Pull'it out

Inspired by the true story of a South-Asian Vancouver, B.C. woman who was killed for marrying outside of her caste, The Misfit is a dark comedy that focuses on a group of young Indian wedding dancers who perform classical dance to English MTV music. Each dancer has met with unfortunate circumstances that make them ineligible to marry ever again. But one girl challenges rules of honour, confronts why the respect of a family rests on a woman’s shoulders, and dares to ask, “What did we ever do that we had to be punished our whole lives?”

The Misfit premiered at Vancouver's PUSH International Performing Arts Festival in January, 2008.

The Misfit brings multi-Dora nominated & Siminovitch Prize short-listed director/dramturg Mark Cassidy, renowned Kathak dancer/choreographer Joanna De Souza, and writer/performer Anita Majumdar together for their first collaboration. The Misfit was presented April 3 - 5, 2008 in the Studio Theatre.

The Vertical City

The Vertical City Project

What happens when the horizon becomes an endless series of vertical lines ...? Welcome to our city.

The Vertical City is an exploration of the burden and liberation that is gravity. A collaboration between actors, aerialists, musicians and animators, The Vertical City examines the repetitions, routines and rituals of contemporary urban life as the city constantly grows, changes and alters its maps and routes.

The Vertical City was presented April 19 - 20, 2008 in the Studio Theatre.

The Vertical City

2006 - 2007 SERIES

Wide slumber for lepidopterists

Theatre Commutiny

The Russian Plays

Company Theatre Crisis / Absit Omen Theatre

HATCH Alumni

2007 - 2008 SERIES

Save us!! [Hamletown]

Surprise Performance

Weathering Architecture

Filiz Klassen

The Misfit

Pull'it out

The Vertical City

The Vertical City Project

2006 - 2007 SERIES

Wide slumber for lepidopterists

Theatre Commutiny

The Russian Plays

Company Theatre Crisis / Absit Omen Theatre

Dedicated to the Revolutions Part Three: The Gutenberg Revolution.

Small Wooden Shoe

The Girl in the Picture Tries to Hang Up the Phone

Optic Heart Theatre

2005 - 2006 SERIES

Stori Ya

Stori Ya Collective

Days of Mad Rabbits

Blue Ceiling Dance Projects

Down the Main Drag

End of the Road Productions

She Said Saffron

GirlCanCreate Productions

2004 - 2005 SERIES

Fish Eyes

Pull'it Out Theatre

Wash Me Clean

definition:blood

Klank

Babes In Chains Collective

2003 - 2004 SERIES

richardthesecond

Nation of Aslan/Players by Nature

not for all this

emergency.exit

The Trials of John Demjanjuk

Theatre Asylum

Be Wearing Wolf

Suitcase In Point