Bottle Tree News.
December 2011
To look at November news please go to November News 2011
Dec 20
Second City is coming to Kingston Saturday April 28th of 2012. Bottle Tree Productions is bringing in the highly-touted Toronto Improv and Sketch comedy troup for two workshops. Further details will be forthcoming
Dec 20
Bottle Tree Productions performed Cinderella at The Kingston Christian School on Saturday December 17th and at L'Octave on Sunday December 18th. Written by Charles Robertson with music and lyrics by Michael K Myers. Starring John Macpherson as the nerdy Prince Charming and Sara Sturgeon as the spirited Cinderella, the show was a successful conclusion to the 2011 season. For more on Cinderella please go to Cinderella
Dec 19
Evan Guilford Blake's short play "Creatures of Dreams" has just been published online in "Word Gumbo." You can read it at Word Gumbo It's his twentieth published script. Word Gumbo Vol 1, Iss 4 - Dec 2011 - "Silence"
Drc 9
Bottle Tree Productions 2009 One Act Playwriting Competition 2nd place finisher Talia Pura is participating in the Manitoba Theatre Centre's Master Playwright's Festival. This year the choice is the plays of Shaw. She has written an adaptation of the letters between George B. Shaw and Mrs. Patrick Campbell. It is called: Queen of my Heart. It runs at the Collin Jackson Theatre - 2nd stage of Prairie Theatre Exchange, Portage Place. Winnipeg.
Jan 22 - 28. She is also reading the part of St. Joan, in Shaw's Saint Joan, on Monday, January 30, at the Crescent Fort Rouge United Church. It is a fund raiser for PAL. Talia just finished shooting my latest short film, Intel, which will premier at the ACTRA Manitoba Film Festival in Winnipeg, on March 1. Her abstract for a play about the war in Afghanistan has been accepted for the second stage of the selection process, for the Women Playwrights International Conference in Stockholm, Sweden - August 15 - 21, 2012.
Dec 8
Richard Rossi who finished third in the 2009 Bottle Tree Playwriting Competition and who is the author of the bestselling new novel "Stick Man" and the bestselling music CD "Seasons Of My Heart: The Stick Man Soundtrack", and Writer-Director of the films "Saving Sister Aimee," (Academy Award-Considered), "Live At Graffiti's," "Quest For Truth: An Expose of Exorcism and Faith Healing," and "Sister Aimee: The Aimee Semple McPherson Story," all available at Amazon.com has just finished work on his feature film; the Roberto Clemente Movie
Dec 3
Thousand Island's playhouse is currently looking for a new artistic director to replace Greg Wanless. A jewel on Gananoque's waterfront for many years of wonderful productions and packed houses, the lustre faded somewhat but only because of events beyond Greg's control, events such as the war on terror and the 2008 recession which slowed American tourism from a torrent to a trickle. Intermission was even a highlight here. One could sit on the patio overlooking a beautiful sunset with drink in hand. A few years ago, Greg opened a second, smaller theatre to showcase smaller shows, shows that weren't so mainstream, so Canadian writers certainly benefitted from that. Greg's entrepeneurship, deal making, and passion for theatre, accomplished what no one else in the area could, a commercially successful professional theatre. It is hard to imagine that after reading about a post-apocalyptic 'New Normal' that our American friends see in theatre, that anyone will be able to resurrect the theatre company. Whoever takes over Thousand Island's needs incredible business savy. They have to be able to somehow buck world-wide trends. They have to, to borrow from a past highly-successful production at Thousand Island's Man of La Mancha, in which my dad played Sancho Panza, 'tilt at windmills' like Don Quixote.
Dec 2
Bottle Tree Productions has cast its Christmas production of Cinderella with the following:
Cinderella - Sara Sturgeon
Prince Charming - John MacPherson
His Servant - Ian MacPherson
Fairy Godmother - Allyson Foster
Doc Doc - John Farant
Stepmother - Bryden Trapp
Stepsister - Khira Wieting
Stepsister - Daniel Powell
Queen - Meg Morgan
King - Daniel Smith
Ed or Hubert - Ian Lamb
