6 Guitars by is a one-man, six-character fun and uplifting tribute to music with plenty of laughs and lots of heart. The one-man standing on stage playing six characters and six different styles of music is Chase Padgett. Chase is a multi-talented musician, actor and storyteller who switches effortlessly between this cast of diverse characters as they tell their stories and play their kind of music.
Chase Padgett as Rupert
There’s 87-year-old blues guitarist Tyrone; heavy metal rocker Michael; country-loving Rupert; jazz guitarist Wesley; classical guitarist Emmanual; and Peter who just loves to sing and play folk music.
Who wouldn’t want to see that show? I’ve seen it twice. Once at the Calgary Fringe back in 2013 and then again in 2015 when Chase performed his show at the Bert Church Theatre in Airdrie. And now, I’m happy to report, 6 Guitars will be at Lunchbox Theatre in Calgary from January 9 to 28th as part of One Yellow Rabbit’s High Performance Rodeo.
The good news is I don’t have to wait until the show opens to recommend it. Like I said, I’ve already seen it – and I’ll be seeing it again. In fact, I’ve already got my tickets and I’ve been hounding some of my friends about going to see this show for some months now because – well – it’s just that damn good!
And I’m not the only one who thinks so. Since 6 Guitars premiered at the Orlando Fringe in 2010 it’s been winning awards, getting rave reviews and selling out.
Jim Murchison of the Charlebois Post said, “The writing is terrific. The storytelling is personal and brilliant. It is great fun. With a shift in posture or a change in the eyes Padgett becomes a completely different character in an instant and he can capture the soul of music in his guitar and voice as well.”
Brad Oswald from The Winnipeg Free Press said, “Talk about hitting all the right notes — this energetic and exhilarating solo show by Portland, Ore., musician-actor Chase Padgett is a jaw-dropper on every level. The acting is superb, the stories are smart and funny, and the music is flat-out stunning. All the right notes, indeed.”
Chase Padgett as Emmanuel
So if you want to see a terrific show that will make you feel good about life I can’t think of a better way to start 2017 than going to see 6 Guitars with Chase Padgett at Lunchbox Theatre.
Well, winning the lottery would be a pretty cool way to start 2017 too, but next to winning the lottery I can’t think of a better way to start 2017 than going to see 6 Guitars at Lunchbox Theatre from January 9th to 28th.
Unless, of course, you could build a functioning fusion reactor and solve the world’s energy problems. I mean that would be an amazing way to start the new year, but still – next to winning the lottery or building a functioning fusion reactor I can’t think of a better way to start 2017 than going to see 6 Guitars at Lunchbox Theatre during the High Performance Rodeo.
Andy Curtis, Devon Dubnyk, Arielle Rombough, Kevin Rothery, Katherine Fadum. PHOTO CREDIT: Benjamin Laird Arts & Photo
Gather up the family and invite your friends, coworkers and neighbours to come experience the true spirit of Christmas at Lunchbox Theatre’s production of It’s a Wonderful Life. Presented as a radio play from the 1940s this production is a fun, energetic and inventive retelling of the classic story.
The Lunchbox production features an outstanding cast, brilliant direction, a beautiful set and an amazing mix of sound – both recorded and created live – to bring the story of George Bailey and the town of Bedford Falls to life.
I give it two thumbs up. Although I went to see the play with my sister, her husband, my niece, her boyfriend, and his mom and we all gave it two thumbs up so that’s twelve thumbs, right? How can you argue with twelve thumbs? That’s got to be as good as, if not better than, four stars or five sugarplums.
It’s a Wonderful Life asks the question: Does your life matter? Can one man or woman make a difference?
Devon Dubnyk, Arielle Rombough. PHOTO CREDIT: Benjamin Laird Arts & Photo
I think there’s a fundamental human need to live a meaningful life. When we reach the end we want to feel, in some way, that we’ve made a difference – that we’ve made the world a better place.
But of course sometimes when we face a crisis in our life we feel lost. We feel like nothing matters. We feel like we don’t have a friend in the world, and if you’ve ever felt like that then you can relate to George Bailey as he stands on a bridge thinking about jumping into the icy waters below and ending it all.
Luckily for George he has a guardian angel. An angel named Clarence. And Clarence shows George what the town of Bedford Falls would be like had George never been born. Let’s just say that George made a big difference in the lives of a lot of people.
That’s the story in a chestnut shell and the Lunchbox Theatre production does an amazing job of telling that story. I love the fact that we’re transported back to a Christmas Eve in the 1940s to hear and be a part of a “live” radio broadcast.
Katherine Fadum, Arielle Rombough, Devon Dubnyk, Andy Curtis. PHOTO CREDIT: Benjamin Laird Arts & Photo
The production stars a talented and versatile cast that includes:
Kevin Rothery as Freddie Filmore playing Clarence & others
Devon Dubnyk as Jake Laurents playing George Bailey
Arielle Rombough as Sally Applewhite playing Mary Hatch
Katherine Fadum as Lana Sherwood playing Violet Bick & others
Andy Curtis as Harry Heywood playing Uncle Billy & Others
Connor Pritchard as the Studio Assistant Edward Irvine
The entire ensemble captures beautifully the feel and energy of a live radio show while bringing humour and warmth to a classic Christmas story.
And if you like Vertigo Theatre then you’ll be familiar with Craig Hall and his inventive staging of noir thrillers from the 40s and 50s. His affinity for that time period shines in this production and even though it’s a “radio play” there’s never a dull moment. The actors are kept moving as they participate in creating the story and jumping from character to character.
Kevin Rothery. PHOTO CREDIT: Benjamin Laird Arts & Photo
The script for It’s a Wonderful Life is an adaptation of the original 1946 film written and directed by Frank Capra and starring Jimmy Stewart. And even though this version of the story is less than half the length of the movie playwright Joe Landry manages to skillfully keep much of the plot without losing any of the heart of the original film.
The costumes by Deitra Kalyn and the set and the lighting design by Anton de Groot only add to the nostalgia and drama of the story.
And the sound design by Aidan Lytton – much of it created live on stage by Connor Pritchard and the rest of the cast – is a marvel to watch and experience because – as this production proves – you can build an entire world with sound. You can be transported to any time or place. And the Lunchbox Production of It’s a Wonderful Life not only transports us to Bedford Falls but it takes us on a journey where we are reminded about the truly important things in life and the real spirit of Christmas.
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After you see the show you can help spread the word by Tweeting about it, sharing an update to Facebook, posting about it on Instagram or writing a blog post. At the end of every Lunchbox Theatre Show the cast poses for photographs so you can add a photo to your social media shares. It’s a great idea and one that more theatre’s should be doing. Here’s my photo from when I saw the play:
Connor Pritchard, Andy Curtis, Devon Dubnyk, Kevin Rothery, Katherine Fadum, Arielle Rombough.
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And one final thought, that I have contemplated long and often on many a Christmas Eve as I’ve sat waiting for Santa to arrive: Why on earth did George and his wife Mary name their daughter Zuzu?
Every year on March 27th the International Theatre Institute celebrates World Theatre Day. On that day a figure of world stature is asked to share his or her reflections on the theme of Theatre and a Culture of Peace. Past contributors have included John Malkovich, Edward Albee, and Eugéne Ionesco.
Art makes us look in the mirror. It reflects who we are as a people a culture and a society. The mirror does not hide the scars and neither should our art. We should reflect on the whole: both the good and the bad.
And one of the ways we reflect on who we are as humans is through story and one of the ways we present story is on stage. And that’s why we still gather in groups to experience the comedy and tragedy of life. Theatre has a place in society. It always will. It will not die. We are social creatures and theatre is one of the original social medias.
I thought it might be interesting to dive into the archives, beginning with the first World Theatre Day message delivered by Jean Cocteau in 1962, and see whether or not these messages from the past still have relevance in today’s world.
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“It is the nature of the theatre to breed this paradox: that history, which as time goes on, becomes deformed, and mythology, which, as time goes on, becomes established, have their only true moment of reality upon the stage.”
“In a time when diplomacy and politics have such terribly short and feeble arms, the delicate but sometimes lengthy reach of art must bear the burden of holding together the human community.”
“The theatre and its sister arts cannot aim high enough in their responsibility towards society. Our effectiveness is great, and transcends national boundaries. We invite people to our theatre to present to them an image of reality in an entertaining, wise and agreeable form, thus enabling them to recognize reality. We, the people of the theatre, try with our work to make our planet at last fit to live: and that still means above all, that we must create a theatre for a peaceful present and a friendly future, in which man is a helpmate to man.”
“Art, as the saying goes, knows no frontiers. The theatre should have no frontiers either. Transcending ideological divergencies, caste, race, national outlook and individual countries, the theatre should be a universal country, the meeting place of all men who share the same anguish and the same hopes revealed by the imagination, and should be neither arbitrary nor realistic but an expression of our identity, our continuity and our oneness.”
“The theatre taught man to face himself honestly, with infinite scrutiny; to confront his guilt and assume responsibility for himself; it taught him to consider and rise to what he could be rather than bow to limitations he has been led to accept. It taught him equality through protest and how one man alone is an entire universe.”
“…not a day goes by without learning of increasingly cruel acts of violence and terror, of dangerously tense situations and armed conflict. Every day we witness the growing hatred of one human being for another, mutual intolerance and brutal violations of human rights which, in the field of international relations become transformed into threats of catastrophe.
A self-destructive fever seems to have humanity in its grip. In our attempt to prevent these catastrophes we have resorted to a tragic and paradoxical form of therapy; struggling to maintain life we undermine its roots; declaring peace we accelerate the insane arms race, protecting people’s freedom we violate their sovereignty; solemnly proclaiming the Charter of the Rights of Man we trample human dignity underfoot. The UNESCO Constitution asserts that wars begin in the minds of men and that it is in their minds that peace must be built – a lasting peace founded on the intellectual and moral solidarity of humanity.”
“This day enables us to focus on all that unites us, that links us to one another, through our daily joys and cares. But above all, it provides an opportunity to look on the other, on another culture, at the other end of the planet. If, kindred in poetry, theatre artists often anticipate the reality of tomorrow and have a foreboding of the destiny of humanity, they also represent its memory!
The Second World War ended 40 years ago. The world of theatre remembers. Theatre, so often harassed, persecuted throughout the ages, has become the symbol of resistance to all types of oppression; theatre which identifies itself to life, for creation is life, is witness to this renascent life.
From the end of the nightmare a great hope emerged: that of mutual understanding between peoples.”
“Today, as in the past, Theatre must contribute to enlightening our minds, and to giving battle on all fronts against barbarity on our planet. Now, more than ever, it needs to make its presence felt in our societies, caught up as they are in a web of racist and exclusive attitudes and practices; it must make people think and arouse solidarity, all things which contribute to human dignity. Theatre must act as a precursor, illuminating people’s self-awareness and their conscience.”
“I have been in totalitarian societies where people have been imprisoned, have died for access to the arts, and I live in a society where the self-censorship is as ruthless as any imposed from without. The paradox is uglier than we should have to consider.”
“Ethnic fanatics and thugs are casting the world back into its darkest past. People of the theatre who engage their audiences in dialogue about the dramas of the world of today and the dramas of the human spirit point the way to the future. There is another war going on in Sarajevo beside the one we see on television. It is an unarmed conflict between those who hate and kill others only because they are different, and people of the theatre who bring the uniqueness of human beings alive and make dialogue possible. In this war the people of theatre must win. They are the ones who point towards the future as a peaceful conversation between all human beings and societies about the mysteries of the world and Being.
These people of the theatre are serving peace and they remind us that theatre still has meaning.”
“Both the theatre and the international arena demand care and concern, but no less do they demand optimism. Without optimism, mixed with a good helping of realism, no theatre can survive. The theatre, as a microcosm of our society, reflects and sometimes reinvents what we do in the outside world. All human conflict and strife, ambitions and dreams are generously depicted there. The entire world’s a stage, as a rather well-known English dramatist put it, and on that stage, the actor becomes the symbol of man with all his shortcomings and frailties, with all his high hopes and ideals.”
“Theatre subtly permeates the human soul gripped by fear and suspicion, by altering the image of self – and opening a world of alternatives for the individual and hence the community. It can give meaning to daily realities while forestalling an uncertain future. It can engage in the politics of peoples’ situations in simple straightforward ways. Because it is inclusive, theatre can present an experience capable of transcending previously held misconceptions.”
“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.”
“Under trees in tiny villages, and on high tech stages in global metropolis; in school halls and in fields and in temples; in slums, in urban plazas, community centres and inner-city basements, people are drawn together to commune in the ephemeral theatrical worlds that we create to express our human complexity, our diversity, our vulnerability, in living flesh, and breath, and voice.”
There is only one theatre which is surely not needed by anyone – I mean a theatre of political games, a theatre of a political “mousetraps”, a theatre of politicians, a futile theatre of politics. What we certainly do not need is a theatre of daily terror – whether individual or collective, what we do not need is the theatre of corpses and blood on the streets and squares, in the capitals or in the provinces, a phony theatre of clashes between religions or ethnic groups…”
“More than literature, more than cinema, the theatre —which demands the presence of human beings before other human beings— is marvellously suited to the task of saving us from becoming algorithms, pure abstractions.
Let us remove everything superfluous from the theatre. Let us strip it naked. Because the simpler theatre is, the more apt it is to remind us of the only undeniable thing: that we are, while we are in time; that we are only while we are flesh and bone and hearts beating in our breasts; that we are the here and now, and no more.
Long live the theatre. The most ancient art. The art of being in the present. The most wondrous art. Long live the theatre.”
“As the world hangs by the hour and by the minute on a daily drip feed of news reportage, may I invite all of us, as creators, to enter our proper scope and sphere and perspective of epic time, epic change, epic awareness, epic reflection, and epic vision? We are living in an epic period in human history and the deep and consequential changes we are experiencing in human beings’ relations to themselves, to each other, and to nonhuman worlds are nearly beyond our abilities to grasp, to articulate, to speak of, and to express.
This is a time for deep refreshment of our minds, of our senses, of our imaginations, of our histories, and of our futures. This work cannot be done by isolated people working alone. This is work that we need to do together. Theater is the invitation to do this work together.”
“I am speaking to you today, not just to speak, or even to celebrate the father of all arts, “theatre,” on his world day. Rather, I invite you to stand together, all of us, hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder, to call out at the top of our voices, as we are accustomed to on the stages of our theatres, and to let our words come out to awaken the conscience of the entire world, to search within you for the lost essence of humanity. The free, tolerant, loving, sympathetic, gentle and accepting human. And to let you reject this vile image of brutality, racism, bloody conflicts, unilateral thinking, and extremism. Humans have walked on this earth and under this sky for thousands of years, and will continue to walk. So take your feet out of the mire of wars and bloody conflicts, and leave them at the door of the stage. Perhaps then our humanity, which has become clouded in doubt, will once again become a categorical certainty that makes us all truly qualified to be proud that we are humans and that we are all brothers and sisters in humanity.”
Wooden Bridge at the Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden in Lethbridge Alberta
More than ever we need to build bridges of understanding between nations and people and theatre is one of the ways we can do that. And maybe the future of theatre is to be found not just in the performing spaces of basements and churches and theatres but in our ability to share thoughts and ideas across new forms of social media. And maybe the future of theatre, in combination with today’s social media, is one of the ways we can help to promote understanding and compassion throughout the world.
I suppose now more than sixty years after the first International Theatre Day the message is still the same. The echoes of the past reach us in the present and while we can never eliminate violence we can certainly help to reduce the amount of violence in the world.
Survival Skills by Meredith Taylor-Parry won the New Works of Merit Playwriting Contest in 2013 and was produced Off Off Broadway by the 13 Street Repertory Company, in New York City in April 2014.
“You want to write the kind of play where people are going to go home and talk about it, and think about it, and talk about themselves a little bit. You know, my God, if it got people to think about their own mortality a little bit, how could that be a bad thing? We all run around scared to talk about it, but we’re fascinated by it at the same time. The idea that we’re mortal. Just to have that discussion opened up wouldn’t hurt.”
Playwright Meredith Taylor-Parry – Photograph by James Hutchison
Her most recent work, Book Club was developed as part of the Suncor Stage One Festival at Lunchbox Theatre and will receive a world premiere at Lunchbox in February.
I sat down with Meredith, while her four-month-old Beagle Tucker, lay happily nearby chewing puppy toys, to talk with her about Survival Skills and Book Club, as well as her writing process.
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JAMES HUTCHISON
When you go to a play what is it you go for? What is it you hope to get out of it?
MEREDITH TAYLOR-PARRY
I guess I want to be moved emotionally, always. I like Opera. I always write while I listen to Opera. I want to be moved. I like the tragic. I like stories where you watch people getting put through the wringer. Watching characters go through hell and then some. And I like stories and plays with some expression of hope at the end. That’s very important. It doesn’t need to be wrapped up perfectly, but just something.
JAMES
Tell me about the reason you wrote Survival Skills.
MEREDITH
Well, my Dad committed suicide in two thousand and two after being diagnosed with terminal cancer, and I always knew that I wanted to write about it. I never thought about writing a novel – I always thought it would be a play.
JAMES
How difficult was it to put that out into the world? Because that’s a very personal thing.
MEREDITH
It was difficult, but when an experience like that happens to you – or at least my experience is – you’re compelled to tell that story over and over and over again.
And I’ve heard some people say, yeah but some people never want to talk about it again – but that wasn’t me. I was compelled to tell that story to friends – to grief groups –I’m just compelled to share it. I don’t know how many times my mom and I would get on the phone after it happened and we’d end up retelling that day – the actual event – when we found the suicide note – when we called the police – when my brother went out to look at the body that afternoon.
And I originally thought the play was going to open with that scene, but then I went to a Playworks Ink Conference in 2011 and I signed up early and got into Daniel MacIvor’s workshop. And he started the workshop by reading the scene you’d submitted. And he’s a pretty fantastic actor and he did all the different parts. I had my sister there, my brother there, my mother in the scene, and the character that represented me. We were all there and he just read through that first scene from beginning to end and when he finished – it was silent and he said, “That’s a hell of a way to start a play. People discovering a suicide note.”
And I went, “Yeah, yeah I guess it is. I wasn’t really thinking about that.”
He said, “We’re going to end the scene right here where your brother hangs up the phone and I want you to write the next scene.”
And I wrote the next scene and that became the first scene of the play because I took his advice – that is a hell of a way to start a play. But I think I needed to write the suicide scene first because that was the hardest scene to write – bar none – and to go back and remember those moments in specific detail.
JAMES
How much do you credit that workshop with moving forward on the play?
MEREDITH
Huge. He looked at me and said, because I had some humour in there, “Meredith, any play that can bring levity to the topic of death needs to be written.” He said, “I myself am terrified of the medical system. I’m not afraid of dying – I’m terrified about becoming a patient of the medical system.”
And here’s this man who has written all these beautiful plays with all this fabulous experience and wisdom but at the same time he’s a really good teacher too. He really has the right touch. And I think he just knew the right thing to say to help keep me going. He also made us promise, before we left the workshop, to send him the first draft by a certain date. And I did, because it’s Daniel MacIvor, right. I wasn’t not going to do it. I was two weeks late, but it made me finish it.
JAMES
You worked on the play for a couple more years and then entered it into the New Plays of Merit Contest in 2013 and won. What was it like getting the phone call that the play had won?
MEREDITH
That’s what my dream was up to that point. That someone was going to phone me up and tell me that I was good enough to win a contest. And I felt really good about it because it was New York. Because to me that was the place where all the good playwrights go. So, that was a real shot in the arm – no question. I felt pretty good about that – but I was stunned.
JAMES
What was it like to go see your play on stage?
MEREDITH
I vowed that I wasn’t going to be critical of my work because I don’t know if this is ever going to happen to me again. The idea of going to New York to see your play – Off Off Broadway in a little old theatre with a little old 92 year old Broadway performer running it. I mean this theatre had a lot of history. Tennessee Williams’ plays were performed there. And I thought, don’t ruin it by sitting there thinking about all the things that are wrong with your play. It wasn’t perfect, and I still think there are things that can be improved about the play, but I just vowed I was going to go and enjoy it.
JAMES
It’s interesting to me because there’s a certain completion to the journey. From the experience of your father having committed suicide, to writing the script, to winning the contest, to getting it produced. How you would sum up the whole experience as you were watching the production with your family?
MEREDITH
Well the first word that popped into my mind was surreal, and the second thing was how much I enjoyed the performances, and how much the actors brought to it. I just vowed I was going to go and enjoy it and I wasn’t going to worry about my family as far as taking care of them or worry about their reactions to it either. But you know, I also worked through a lot of stuff with that play.
When dad was suspecting a bad diagnosis – this was three days before he completed suicide – I phoned his room at the Moncton Hospital from Calgary. And he said, “Oh they’re going to do some tests and things.” Because at first they thought it might be a bowel infection and a reaction to antibiotics. But there was a moment where he hesitated on the phone and in my mind I wondered what was he was going to say next. To me there was something that he meant to say and tell me. Like he opened his mouth to say it and it didn’t come out and I wondered if it was, “Listen if it’s a bad diagnoses this is what I’m going to do.” But he didn’t say anything, and I heard this kind of breath, or hesitation, and I wondered, and wondered, and wondered about that afterwards.
And then I thought, well what would you have done if he had said, you know, this is not going to go well…would I have suspected…because we knew his philosophical stance on end of life. He always said, “If I ever got a bad diagnosis that would be it.” But it’s a leap in your mind to hear those words and really imagine your father actually doing that.
So I thought, in my state of mind, what would I have done? I probably would have called mom and told her not to leave him for a minute. And then there’s a part of you that would have said, “Okay – whatever you need – I’ll do it – I’ll help you.”
And I did end up inadvertently helping him complete the act by flying to the Maritimes, because when my mother came to pick me up at the airport that’s when he completed. So I felt complicit in that, and that bothered me for a long time, even though it was inadvertent. It was a window of opportunity, and he took it, and I provided that. So, in a way I helped whether I wanted to or not.
I changed the play so that the character who plays me actually does make the decision to fly home to get her mother out of the house so that her father will have the window of opportunity very knowingly not inadvertently.
JAMES
Dramatically that’s a good choice.
MEREDITH
Dramatically it was a hell of a lot better choice than what really happened.
JAMES
Because then the character is active.
MEREDITH
Yes.
JAMES
What do you think your dad would think of this play?
MEREDITH
Wow. I just think he’d be horrified, because he was such a private person. I had to struggle past that a little bit because he’d be so horrified that I laid it all out. But you know what? Whatever form – and I do believe there is some kind of spiritual form that he takes now – I don’t think he has those same opinions any more.
And after he was gone, I pretty quickly said this is more about me than it is about him. This is more about us. And that’s how I was able to write it. I was lucky, because my family wasn’t upset. But dad would have been. I think for sure. But I wouldn’t have had to write it – you know what I mean – unless it had happened.
JAMES
Was it cathartic for your family in some ways?
MEREDITH
Maybe in some ways. I sat right beside my mom and my aunt and I could feel the seat shaking because they cried and cried and they laughed too, but there was a lot of tears you know. I know that my aunt and mom told me they sat up all night in the hotel room talking about it. My brother said, “Man it’s weird to see your life up on stage like that.” But it was probably not as cathartic for them as it was for me
JAMES
What are your hopes for the story?
MEREDITH
I would love to see it produced again, of course. Published and produced. Those are the things that I’m looking for with all my plays. I don’t really want them to just sit stagnant. You want to write the kind of play where people are going to go home and talk about it, and think about it, and talk about themselves a little bit. You know, my God, if it got people to think about their own mortality a little bit, how could that be a bad thing? We all run around scared to talk about it, but we’re fascinated by it at the same time. The idea that we’re mortal. Just to have that discussion opened up wouldn’t hurt.
Premiered at 13th Street Repertory – NYC April 3 – May 1, 2014, with the following cast and crew.
Directed by Leanora Lange
Cast
Kathleen – Aimee Thrasher
Annalise – Kristen Busalacchi
Eliza – Mary Ruth Baggott
Oscar – Jason Kirk
Len – Danny Sauls
Crew
Stage Manager – Alex Bishop
Properties Assistant – Aimee Thrasher
Dramatrug – Kurt Hollender
Producer – Sandra Nordgren
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Playwright Meredith Taylor-Parry
Meredith Taylor-Parry is a playwright based in Calgary, Alberta. Her play Survival Skills won the New Works of Merit Playwriting Contest in 2013 and was produced Off Off Broadway by the 13th Street Repertory Company, NYC in April 2014. Her play Devices received a production in Week One of the New Ideas Festival at Alumnae Theatre in Toronto in March of 2015. Her most recent work, Book Club, was developed as part of the Suncor Energy Stage One Festival of New Canadian Work at Lunchbox Theatre in Calgary in 2014 and will receive a world premiere at Lunchbox in February 2016. Meredith is Co-Artistic Director of Bigs and Littles Theatre Society and also enjoys writing and performing for young audiences.
You can contact Meredith at LinkedIn by clicking the link above or by email at: mtaylorparry@gmail.com
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Survival Skills by Meredith Tyalor-Parry – Synopsis
“He saw a window of opportunity.”
A man diagnosed with terminal cancer commits suicide, leaving his family behind to struggle with the aftermath. Our journey begins 20 years later as Annalise and her sister sit at their dying mother’s bedside. The daughters are compelled to relive with the audience the horrible days following their father’s death when those closest to him came together to mourn and try to understand his choice. The play moves between past and present.
Their father’s decision is a controversial one. It was terribly painful for his wife and children to experience such a sudden, violent loss. But as we watch the sisters sit with their mother we begin to understand the motives behind his action. Is the choice to let death come in its prolonged and often agonizing way any less traumatic for those involved? Should we have the right to choose?
As in any time of family crises, personalities clash and sibling rivalries are revisited. Annalise’s frustration grows as her father is both accused of being a coward and applauded as hero. Finally she reveals an awful secret; her father needed her help. It is only by sifting through the memories that haunt her, that she will find forgiveness.
New Works of Merit is an international playwriting contest developed in 2003 to bring works of social significance to the general public.
13th Street Repertory Company
The 13th Street Repertory Company, founded in 1972 by Artistic Director Edith O’Hara, provides a place for actors, directors, playwrights, and technicians to develop their craft in a caring, nurturing, professional environment.
Welcome to my corner of the world where you can download my plays and read them for free. You can also read my interviews with other playwrights, actors, and directors about their work and creative process.
Way way back in the early days of community cable television myself and a group of friends used to produce a show called Profile. We did exactly what I do in this blog – talk with creative people about their work and process.
My very first guest on Profile was a guy named David Cassel. A quick Google search shows he’s been a busy guy over the last forty-plus years. He was a mime artist. Is a mime artist – as well as a designer, writer, producer, and director.
When I got back into theatre and started writing plays, I also wanted to include the occasional interview on my website with other creative people.
Check out some of my more recent interviews over the past few years with such wonderful and talented individuals as film and television director David Winning, playwright Caroline Russell-King, theatre photographer Tim Nguyen, Artistic Director of Lunchbox Theatre Bronwyn Steinberg, and playwright Kristen Da Silva.
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If you enjoy listening to great interviews with creative people then check out Q with Tom Power and this terrific interview with John Irving. Or this interview from the Dramatists Guild Foundation between playwrights Christopher Durang and David Lindsay-Abaire. Or this raw and uncensored interview from the Writers Guild Foundation with author and screenwriter William Goldman.
