Did you miss out on the incredible early bird discount? Well, hurry up or you will miss out on the regular priced passes too – as they are selling extremely fast.
Single tickets are officially on sale. Plan on buying 4 or more shows? For your convenience we have both public and cultural passes in packages of 4 and 8 shows. You do not want to miss this incredible experience of seeing shows from all across Canada in one city - it’s like going on vacation, without leaving home.
Have you booked your room for while you are in town for Magnetic North? Deadlines for early bird pricing are fast approaching and some of the more affordable accommodations are booking up. Click here for a full list of our partner hotels.
CULTURAL OLYMPIAD 2010
The Vancouver Olympic Committee announced the First 20 Projects of Cultural Olympiad 2010, and three of the featured productions have had their origins at the Magnetic North Theatre Festival. We'd like to take a moment to congratulate and celebrate these artists, both past and present.
Fear of Flight – Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland: A workshop version of Fear of Flight was featured at Magnetic North in 2006 in St. John’s. A pitch at the Magnetic North Industry Series in 2007 resulted in three producing partners and a tour to Toronto’s Factory Theatre.
Nevermore: The Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe– Catalyst Theatre: This new work from Edmonton’s award-winning Catalyst Theatre has been especially commissioned for the 2009 Magnetic North Theatre Festival to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe. The commission resulted in a co-commission from the Luminato Festival and several bookings across Canada.
Where the Blood Mixes – Playhouse Theatre Company & The Savage Society: Vancouver audiences will remember emerging Canadian playwright Kevin Loring's sensitive portrayal of survivors of the residential school on his local reserve in Lytton BC: particularly because the Vancouver premiere occurred on the very same day that Prime Minister Harper formally apologized for the government's role in the Aboriginal residential school system. Wednesday’s Cultural Olympiad announcement came the very day that Pope Benedict XVI expressed his sorrow for the events that transpired at Catholic run residential schools.
The Cultural Olympiad is a series of multi-disciplinary festivals and digital programs showcasing the best in Canadian and international arts and popular culture. Launched in 2008, the program culminates with the 60-day Cultural Olympiad 2010 (January 22 to March 21, 2010), which begins before and continues throughout the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. The extensive program will include more than 600 ticketed and free performances and exhibitions in 50 venues in Metro Vancouver and British Columbia’s Sea to Sky corridor.
Do you have a Magnetic North Alumni success story of your own? We'd love to hear it! Send us an email at info@magneticnorthfestival.ca
TRUDEAU STORIES
Brooke Johnson, the creator/performer of Trudeau Stories joined us in Ottawa for the media launch of the festival in March, where she performed an excerpt about her first outing with Trudeau. It was a fitting setting, as the media launch took place in the Chambers of the Speaker of the Senate, on Parliament Hill.
Here Brooke shares some of her thoughts on the origins of her play:
When Pierre Trudeau died, the grief I felt was in part shared by most of Canada, and in part it was desolately private. He was, for all intents and purposes, a private friend (My Invisible friend, The Right Honourable). When I started to write what would become Trudeau Stories, it was out of necessity. It was not at that time for a play or a book or even an article, but for remembrance, pure and simple. I needed to revisit that magical time in Montreal, and move out of my head what had been intensely private. After the funeral, I started to sift through the memories, culling from scribblings in old notebooks and on napkins, on cardboard coasters and paper place-mats; writing the tales of visits together as I rediscovered them. I found in my journals so much that I had forgotten.
In the winter of 2000, I asked Ross Manson [director of Goodness, which took Vancouver by storm at Magnetic North 2008] if I could read something at his Short Stuff for Hot Writers, and that spring I shakily read the first drafts of two stories, "The Shoes" and "The Long Black Car". In 2004, Theatre Columbus asked if I had anything to show at Mayhem (their fundraising evenings of works-in-exploration) and so having done nothing with them since Short Stuff, I dusted off the stories and rewrote them.
As an artist, I can’t think that I had ever been more terrified than when I read those pieces aloud. I hadn’t before expressed myself publicly as a writer; rather, I’d explored other people’s writing, as an actor. I was also afraid that, because of the subject matter, sharing these memories would appear to be merely an exercise in self-aggrandisement. (It was that very concern, in part, that had made me keep this friendship to myself all these years.) The response I got at Mayhem was as much encouragement about the writing as the subject matter. It encouraged me that I had found a way to share my specific history in a way that seems to have resonance.
But how to make it a play? That came through the collaborative directing of Allyson McMackon who, through her particular genius, is able to grab hold of a shrugged-off impulse or mine what might seem to be a casual passing thought and, without too much polishing, reveal a sparkling insight. She deftly coaxes and elicits movement and gesture, raising the words off of the page to heighten this world of memory.
Theatre and memory are entwined in so many ways. For me, now, in that wondrous conjuring way of Live Theatre, by sharing with an audience the Pierre Trudeau that I knew, I get the chance to visit with my friend again.
MAY 1 | Single Tickets go on sale MAY 15 | Is it Time to Tour Workshop JUNE 3-13 | Magnetic North Theatre Festival JUNE 6 -10 | Presenters Window JUNE 8-10| Industry Series JUNE 8-12 | Compass Points Student & Emerging Artist Symposium
