Naish Takes the WTD Trophy

Jenny Naish of Roles 4 Women Theatre Company takes home the trophy at the World Theatre Day celebrations at the LSPU Hall.

Happy World Theatre Day! As part of the day's festivities Jenny Naish participated in the theatre trivia showdown hosted by Resource Centre for the Arts at the LSPU Hall. Theatre Companies around the province sent in trivia questions and four teams of two competed in the event, Jenny was paired with Brian Marler and the two won in a very close race.

Created by UNESCO in 1961, World Theatre Day is celebrated around the world on March 27th. It is also the day that Roles 4 Women Theatre Company was formed in 2005. So happy birthday to us! Each year a prominent figure is asked to deliver a message for World Theatre Day. This year's message is from actor John Malkovich:

I'm honored to have been asked by the International Theatre Institute ITI at UNESCO to give this greeting commemorating the 50th anniversary of World Theatre Day. I will address my brief remarks to my fellow theatre workers, peers and comrades.

May your work be compelling and original. May it be profound, touching, contemplative, and unique. May it help us to reflect on the question of what it means to be human, and may that reflection be blessed with heart, sincerity, candor, and grace. May you overcome adversity, censorship, poverty and nihilism, as many of you will most certainly be obliged to do. May you be blessed with the talent and rigor to teach us about the beating of the human heart in all its complexity, and the humility and curiosity to make it your life's work. And may the best of you - for it will only be the best of you, and even then only in the rarest and briefest moments - succeed in framing that most basic of questions, "how do we live?" Godspeed.
- John Malkovich

"InWorld" opens next weekend!

InWorld

Roles 4 Women Theatre Company is proud to present the first show of its inaugural season - Liz Solo's multi-reality performance piece “InWorld”, live at the LSPU Hall Second Space,Thursday November 24 to Sunday November 27 at 8:30 PM.

A stand up comedienne has given up “the life” and taken to gaming full time. She now lives alone with her puppets and spends her days reliving old comedy routines and leveling her Frost Mage. Merging large-scale projection with live action, video and sound, InWorld is a multi-dimensional exploration of online media culture.

Created by and Starring Liz Solo. Directed by Charlie Tomlinson. Featuring online appearances by members of The Third Faction, Odyssey and The Second Front and puppet appearances by Newf the Baby Harp Seal and Pinky the Bra. Sunday night’s performance will be followed by an Artist's Talk.

One-act comedy/drama. Mature themes and language. 45 minutes.
Tickets $10 (except: Thursday's Preview show is PWYC)

Tickets available only at the door.

poster by Jimmy Rose

"In-World" coming in November

Roles 4 Women Theatre Company - in collaboration with the Black Bag Media Collective are preparing for our first production of the season - "In-World" by Liz Solo, directed by Charlie Tomlinson premieres at the end of November at the LSPU Hall Second Space.

A stand up comedienne has given up “the life” and taken to gaming full time. She now lives alone with her puppets and spends her days reliving old comedy routines and levelling her Frost Mage. Merging large-scale projection with live action, video and sound, In-World is a multi-dimensional exploration of online media culture.

Starring Liz Solo and featuring online appearances by The Third Faction, members of Odyssey and The Second Front and puppet appearances by Newf the Baby Harp Seal and Pinky the Bra. Stay tuned for details coming soon.

Publicity photo of Liz Solo and Newf, the baby Harp Seal by Rhonda Pelley

Liz Solo wins Newfoundland Joy Award

Roles 4 Women would like to congratulate co-artistic director Liz Solo for winning this years Newfoundland Joy Award at the Atlantic Film Festival. The prize provides support towards the production of Liz Solo's multi-media project "the machine".

"'the machine' represents a new generation of media arts production and makes use of extremely current creative techniques like machinima, which have grown out of contemporary virtual art movements" - the Linda Joy Media Arts Society said in a release. Read more about it on the Linda Joy Website.

The project goes into production early in 2012.

photo from the virtual set of "the machine" by Fau Ferdinand

A Reading of "Melody Neglected"

Amy House (RCA Artistic Animateur), Megan Coles, Emily Bridger, Colin Furlong, Geraldine Hollett, Liz Solo, Nicole Rousseau, Neil Butler, Didi Gillard-Rowlings. photo by Peter Rompkey.

This month Resource Center for the Arts hosted a live reading of Liz Solo's Melody Neglected in the newly opened LSPU Hall Second Space. Melody Neglected is a full length script that has been developed both through Roles 4 Women Theatre Company and Resource Center for the Arts Theatre Company. After one little polish this script is ready for production.

Roles 4 Women love the new Hall! It is, as always, an excellent space for making theatre and it was very exciting to present new work there. Pictured above: Amy House - RCA Artistic Animateur - welcoming audience, with actors getting ready to rock.

World Theatre Day Message

This year's World Theatre Day Message 2010 by Judi Dench: World Theatre Day is an opportunity to celebrate Theatre in all its myriad forms. Theatre is a source of entertainment and inspiration and has the ability to unify the many diverse cultures and peoples that exist throughout the world. But theatre is more than that and also provides opportunities to educate and inform. Theatre is performed throughout the world and not always in a traditional theatre setting. Performances can occur in a small village in Africa, next to a mountain in Armenia, on a tiny island in the Pacific. All it needs is a space and an audience. Theatre has the ability to make us smile, to make us cry, but should also make us think and reflect. Theatre comes about through team work. Actors are the people who are seen, but there is an amazing set of people who are not seen. They are equally as important as the actors and their differing and specialist skills make it possible for a production to take place. They too must share in any triumphs and successes that may hopefully occur. March 27 is always the official World Theatre Day. In many ways every day should be considered a theatre day, as we have a responsibility to continue the tradition to entertain, to educate and to enlighten our audiences, without whom we couldn’t exist.

R4W in 2010

After a fabulous whirlwind year in 2009 Roles 4 Women have a busy 2010 planned, from a full production of Jenny's Naish's Ersa, (in collaboration with the Open Actor's Studio), to the development of three new performance art projects to a new Open House for Women Playwrights coming up in the Summer of 2010. We are stoked. R4W will be making an appearance at the upcoming Chromatose Anymation Festival - April 30th to May 2nd in St John's.

Thanks to all of those who participated in our programs over the last year - Shout Out to our super talented Script Development Program participants - Megan Coles, Bryan Hennessey, Melanie Caines, Luke Major, Anne Troake, Bridget Wareham, Marthe Bernard, Phil Churchill, Jody Richardson and Roger Maunder.
Pictured above - Curtain Call, (left to right) Melanie Caines, Bridget Wareham, Jenny Naish, Luke Major, Liz Solo, Bryan Hennessey at Scenes From..The Ship

photo by Jai Me.

Roles 4 Women Theatre Company gratefully acknowledges the support of the: