Our New Website

The Roles 4 Women blog has relocated to our very own URL! Please change your bookmarks and head over to our new site at:

WWW.ROLES4WOMEN.COM

World Theatre Day Message 2015

Happy World Theatre Day to all of our colleagues, friends and associates around the globe!

WTD highlights and celebrates the theatre every year on March 27th. World Theatre Day is also the anniversary of the founding of Roles 4 Women. Against all odds - Today Roles 4 women is ten years old!

Every World Theatre Day begins with an important message. The author of this year's Message of World Theatre Day 2015 is the Polish director Krzysztof Warlikowski.

World Theater Day Message 2015
The true masters of the theater are most easily found far from the stage. And they generally have no interest in theater as a machine for replicating conventions and reproducing clichés. They search out the pulsing source, the living currents that tend to bypass performance halls and the throngs of people bent on copying some world or another. We copy instead of create worlds that are focused or even reliant on debate with an audience, on emotions that swell below the surface. And actually there is nothing that can reveal hidden passions better than the theater.

Most often I turn to prose for guidance.  Day in and day out I find myself thinking about writers who nearly one hundred years ago described prophetically but also restrainedly the decline of the European gods, the twilight that plunged our civilization into a darkness that has yet to be illumined. I am thinking of Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann and Marcel Proust. Today I would also count John Maxwell Coetzee among that group of prophets.

Their common sense of the inevitable end of the world—not of the planet but of the model of human relations—and of social order and upheaval, is poignantly current for us here and now. For us who live after the end of the world. Who live in the face of crimes and conflicts that daily flare in new places faster even than the ubiquitous media can keep up. These fires quickly grow boring and vanish from the press reports, never to return. And we feel helpless, horrified and hemmed in. We are no longer able to build towers, and the walls we stubbornly construct do not protect us from anything—on the contrary, they themselves demand protection and care that consumes a great part of our life energy. We no longer have the strength to try and glimpse what lies beyond the gate, behind the wall. And that’s exactly why theater should exist and where it should seek its strength. To peek inside where looking is forbidden.

 “The legend seeks to explain what cannot be explained. Because it is grounded in truth, it must end in the inexplicable”—this is how Kafka described the transformation of the Prometheus legend.  I feel strongly that the same words should describe the theater. And it is that kind of theater, one which is grounded in truth and which finds its end in the inexplicable, that I wish for all its workers, those on the stage and those in the audience, and I wish that with all my heart.

Krzysztof Warlikowski
Translation: Philip Boehm
Supported by Theatre Communications Group and the U.S. Center of ITI

 

Screen shot of Liz and Jenny from "Missing You" installation, Odyssey Simulator, by Liz Solo. Photograph of Janis Spence and Mercedes Barry by Kent Barrett.

Burnin' Down the Kitchen Pilot Webisode gets green light

Roles 4 Women are stoked to announce that our project Burnin' Down the Kitchen has received funding from the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council - we are gearing up to produce our first half hour comedy webisode! Created by Liz Solo and Amanda Batten this pilot comedy show will feature standup, sketch comedy and music starring an all women lineup.

Burnin' Down the Kitchen by Liz Solo and Amanda Batten with Jenny Naish, Colleen Power, Irene Duma, Charlotte Reid and the bands TrixXxie and The Sauce - Coming for you in 2015.

Stay tuned to this blog for more details - real soon!

TrixXxie Killin' It at Pope Party

TrixXxie were thrilled to play the annual Pope Productions Party during the 2014 St. John's Women's Film and Video Festival. The band had the best time ever slaying the room. Getting to play in a store window was an extra bonus and a great band setup! Pope Prodcutions were a great host for the event and it is fair to say that a good time was had by all.
Stay tuned for more shows from Tallulah, Marilyn and Scarlet, coming in December!

photos by Mike Kean

The Women of BDK

Here are a few shots from Burnin' Down The Kitchen Comedy Cabaret, taken by Eugene Leger. Along with TrixXxie and Colleen Power these women are the regulars at every cabaret. You can never be sure what is going to happen at a BDK Cabaret, but we guarantee you will never forget a show.

Our next dates - for our 6th and 7th shows - will be announced very soon. Also - stay tuned for some video releases, coming up in the next month!

THE WOMEN OF BDK

Tallulah Fucque sharing her difficulties interacting with the young hipster culture.

Amanda Batten - our lovely and hilarious host for every show, reviewing a recent Harlequin Romance novel.

Jenny Naish in the middle of her ukelele version of Bryan Adams' "Straight From the Heart".

Irene Duma explaining the perils and pitfalls of antiquing.

Liz Solo talking politics and panic attacks.

photos by Eugene Leger.

Burnin' Down the Kitchen Cabaret

At this year's TrixXxiefest R4W produced a comedy night at Scanlan's Lounge. It was a huge success and Liz Solo and Amanda Batten have taken the ball and run with it - creating a regular stand up comedy event twice a month called Burnin' Down the Kitchen Cabaret.

Every show features an all woman lineup, a musical guest, an open mic section and an appearance by the infamous punk band TrixXxie.

Our FIFTH Burnin' Down the Kitchen Cabaret is coming up on Saturday October 11th at the Annexe. 9 PM. we will be taping this one live for an upcoming broadcast of our first webisode! Stay tuned. Photo of Amanda Batten left by Liz Solo. Photo of Amanda right - submitted photo.

TrixXxie About Town

Scarlet, Tallulah and Marilyn have been having a blast playing around the city and are looking forward to their next big performance at the Burnin' Down the Kitchen Cabaret at the Annexe on Saturday October 11th. That is followed by a show at this year's annual Pope Party at the St. John's International Women's Film and Video Festival.

The show on the 11th features some powerful standup by an all woman lineup with musical guest Colleen Power and TrixXxie. The show starts nice and early at 9 PM and we will be taping live for a future webisode. Stay tuned after the comedy for a Dance Party featuring 90's hits with Dance Master Scarlet O'Whora.