REWRITES
Forever Hold
Your Peace
REWRITES recontextualizes opera music in newly relevant dramatic contexts.
November 25 + 26, 7:30pm
Moberly Arts & Cultural Centre, 7646 Prince Albert St, Vancouver, BC
Written by Vancouver playwright Olivia Etey, the project creates a new work using the opera canon’s most beautiful – and problematic – pieces as building blocks. With an entirely original script and musical elements bravely modified for the dramatic situation, the work will be an imaginative and out-of-the-box experience for opera and theatre fans alike.
This production is generously supported by the Or Festival
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Amy would like to thank her collaborators, Olivia, Taryn, and Nicky for the incredible opportunity to direct this inventive new pastiche for Opera Unbound's Rewrites program! It is a privilege to work with this talented cast and team of artists. Since graduating from the American Musical & Dramatic Academy, New York in 1994, Amy has performed, written and directed for both stage and screen while raising her daughter as a single mom. Amy identifies as bisexual and loves developing complex characters in compelling environments. Some highlights include directing Dracula, The Attic, The Pearls & Three Fine Girls, and her debut play as writer-director, Love, Iris for the Toronto Fringe Festival in 1998. Other favourite shows include Macbeth, Blood Relations, Marion Bridge, and Summer & Smoke. Most recently, Amy wrote and directed her first short film, In Her View and appears on stage this November in Pivot Theatre’s A Late Snow.
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Andrew Wade is an award-winning stage manager, actor, and playwright, and the Executive Director for the Richmond Arts Coalition. A 2011 University of Victoria graduate (BFA in Acting, BA in Writing), he won the 2011 Vancouver Young Playwright’s Competition for The Romantics and has written and performed original works in 27 festivals across Canada, including William vs The World, The Most Honest Man In The World, The Hatter, and Hullaboo and The End of Everything. He stage-managed the critically acclaimed A Vancouver Guldasta in 2018. Wade also co-created and wrote book+lyrics for TITUS! The Light and Delightful Musical Comedy of Titus Andronicus, which received a five star review from the Vancouver Sun. In January he will be stage managing Flowers of the Rarest at Performance Works (www.flowersoftherarest.com)
Insta: @Andrewdewade
Twit: @AndrewActs
Site: www.andrewwade.ca
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D’Arcy Blunston is a sought after artist and collaborator who is able to adapt to a variety of genres and perform roles both on and off the stage. Among her performance credits, D’Arcy was the featured soloist in Emily Doolittle’s A Short, Slow Life (Symphony 21) and Benjamin Britten’s Les Illuminations Op. 18 (UBC Symphony Orchestra). D’Arcy’s opera credits include Erste Dame (Die Zauberflöte), La Ciesca (Gianni Schicchi), and Micaëla (Carmen). She is also a member of the Vancouver Opera chorus.
Other stage work includes theatre and musical theatre in the roles of Psyche/Aphrodite/Hermes in Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses (Motyer-Fancy Theatre), Reno Sweeney (Anything Goes) and Babette (Disney’s Beauty and the Beast). Behind the scenes, D’Arcy has worked as a production manager, stage manager, vocal coach and chorus master, sound operator, and production assistant.
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Giulianna Misasi is a graduate of the Artist Diploma Program and the Bachelor of Music, Vocal Performance Program at Western University. She is also a graduate of the Artist Diploma Program in Voice at The Glenn Gould School within the Royal Conservatory of Music. Beyond post-secondary training, Giulianna performed several operatic roles in Canada and Europe in roles such as Lady Billows (Albert Herring), Fiordiligi (Cosi Fan Tutte), Helene (Hin und zurück), and Genovieffa (Suor Angelica). Most recently, Giulianna performed as Constance Fletcher in The Mother of us All with Opera In Concert and Lady Helga in A Waltz Dream with Toronto Operetta Theatre.
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Hayley trained at both Actors Centre Australia and The Atlantic Acting School in New York. Theatre credits include: Tom Thomson is missing (Vancouver Fringe Festival), Waiting for Garbo (Curious Creations), Emilia (United Players of Van), The End of Straight History (OR Festival), A Coveted Wife of East Van (Vancouver Fringe Festival), Russian Transport (Darlinghurst Theatre), You can have it all (Sekrit Projekt), Fat on Purpose (Mantaur), Bright Those Claws That Mar The Flesh (Hermetic Theatre Company), Fragments Of I Am (The Nest), Curse of the Starving Class (ACA), A Winter’s Tale (ACA), A Man With Five Children (Phoenix Productions) and Over The Moon And Far Away (Taurus Productions). Film/TV credits include: Release (Anomaly Pictures), San Andreas (Village Roadshow), Rough Stuff (Foveaux Street Productions), Blue Mist (Story Rock Star), Fireflies (Southern Star/ABC), Starting From Now (Common Language Films), and Packed to the Rafters (Channel 7).
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Keagan is a Studio 58 Graduate. Living with a love of and passion for lighting. As a Gender-Fluid Non-Binary Autistic designer who loves working with masculine, feminine and other aspects of themselves adding to the creative process. As a designer they paint the performers and their environments with light, working to build an atmosphere that pulls the audience in.
Recent design credits include: Kill the Ripper (Geekenders & Affair of Honor), Circus Gala (Circus3), Crisis on Planet Z ( Monster Theatre), Six of One (Studio 58), Neverland Night Circus (Geekenders), Trans Scripts (Zee Zee & Frank Theatre), Alice in Glitterland (Geekenders), Centurions (The Centurions Project), Awkward Hug (O Albatross), Four Play (Studio 58), and Alma (East Van Opera). They love playing with the emotions of lights, and how lighting effects the tone and reality of what is being poured on stage. Playing with the psychology of lighting and colour theory.
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Olivia Etey is marinating in a sea of reverential gratitude for Taryn Plater and Matthew Kim, the ceaselessly incredible creators of Opera Unbound. Thank you to the magnificent Amy Starkey (Director), Nicky Anderton (Dramaturg) and the entire cast and creative team for their boundless dedication and true Artist hearts. Olivia is a Vancouver-based playwright and the creator of the Or Festival (www.orfestival.com). She graduated from UBC with a double major in Creative Writing and English Honours. Her produced plays include: Foreplay (2015), her musical: The Midnight Serenade (2015), The Hoarder (2016) and Living on The Grid (2017). Olivia’s play Woman Against Gravity (2021) was showcased in the Stage One Festival of New Canadian Work at the Lunchbox Theatre in Calgary. She hopes you enjoy this Jukebox Opera and may the songs remain stuck in a curlicue portion of your brain cells forever.
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Coloratura Soprano Olivia Kang is a creative artist known for her angelic voice and fine acting. She is a graduate of the Digital Emerging Artist Program with Manitoba Opera in 2022. Her digital art song video “A Journey to a Life Journey” is available to watch online. Kang's operatic roles include L’Amour (Orphee et Eurydice), La Fée (Cendrillon), The First Witch (Dido|Aeneas), Fido (Paul Bunyan), L’Architecture (Les arts florissants), Despina (Così fan tutte), and Adele (Die Fledermaus). Kang received her Master of Music in Vocal Performance from the Desautels Faculty of Music at the University of Manitoba where she studied with Tracy Dahl. She received first place at the Manitoba Provincial Music Festival in 2021 and was the recipient of the Winnipeg Music Festival Scholarship.
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Roger Parton studied composition with Dr. Theo Goldberg and with Dr. Wolfgang Bottenberg at Concordia University, as well as piano with Edward Parker and Joseph Bayer. He maintains ties to both Vancouver and Montreal as an arranger and a composer, and his work as contributor and editor has ranged from non-fiction (The Greater Vancouver Book) to film and theatre (Pol Pelletier’s Actor’s Dojo, Montreal). He appears regularly as pianist, coach, and arranger (Berlin: The Last Cabaret), is music director for Vancouver's Opera Lirica, and serves on the board of directors of the Müzewest Concerts Society.
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Praised as a “standout” performer (Edmonton Journal), “particularly radiant in coloratura passages” (Opera Canada), soprano Sawyer Craig is committed to telling stories in vibrant, collaborative, and inclusive ways.
Sawyer holds a Bachelor of Music degree, majoring in Opera Performance, from UBC, and a Masters degree in Voice Performance from the University of Manitoba. In April 2022, she completed an Artist Diploma in Stage Direction at McGill’s Schulich School of Music.
In the summer of 2021 Sawyer began her adventures as a producer. Along with longtime best friend Gwendolyn Yearwood, co-founded Good Mess Opera Theatre, an indie company dedicated to empowering and creating opportunities for young artists.