Downstage’s Stage It Festival
Date posted: Wednesday, May 10, 2023
The last few days leading to Stage It Festival have been spent on finalizing the schedule and the technical aspects of live theatre. The weekend festival to highlight the work of emerging artists starts Thursday, May 11 and goes until Sunday, May 14.
Downstage Theatre has been working with the theatre artists all season to creating the concepts and writing the scripts. Along with the four main theatrical performances, there will also be musical performances interspersed throughout the 4-day festival.
Kindling is a play by University of Calgary theatre students. Stephanie Alexandre and Keith Beniol are the co-creators of the play. They perform in it along with Kat who performs as Lyla, and Joyce Kabengele who performs as Shawn. The play is about two strangers who meet and end up being roommates.
“I play a character who is hard-working and driven, but doesn’t deal with the roots of an issue,” Kabengele says. “It was great getting to perform together and it was nice to give creative perspective.”
Working with a director helped bring the show together.
“It was good to have a directorial eye to see what makes sense,” Kabengele says,
The last week of preparation for the Kindling ensemble involved walking through the show in the performance space, and taking inventory of the props and how they will be used throughout the production.
“It is creating meaning and motive to the actions we take,” Kabengele says.
Islay Mckechnie and Ciarán Volke are co-creators and performers in Secret Saloon. It is an improvised show where each night will be different. They are queer artists who will be bringing music in their performance including a banjo.
Good Grief! Is a performance where Dana Prather and Rosemary Morrison explore grief. The performers and creators are at a funeral, and they must find a way to move on from their loss. There will be sardonic humour throughout the play.
Finally, in Ride or Die, Tara Beagan has created an audio play where Win and his grandmother are camping out, dealing with climate change and how to keep going through hard times. She recently directed a play which she wrote, The Ministry of Grace, presented by Making Treaty 7 at the Grand in Calgary.
Additional artists who have performed at other stages and venues in town include drag performers, as well as Sinzere, a rap and funk artist, as well as the improv troupe The Kinkonauts. All the performances will be at Motel Theatre in Arts Commons. For more information and tickets visit www.downstage.ca