"Lights Out" Performance

Lights Out is featuring Jennifer Hoar and Richard Beauchamp.

Unease is featuring Alyssa Kostello

Date/Time: November 25 & 26 at 7:00pm (show will be approx. 2 hours).

Tickets: $15/$20 (Students/Regular), call 604-877-0678 or email vyt@shawbiz.ca to reserve tickets.  Tickets will also be available at the door.

See you there!

Alyssa Kostello

Click on the link below for the video of the performance!

“Fallen Heads” Premiere Performance

Playwright: Deborah Vogt
Directed By: Chalene Scott
Cast: Sigourney McAuley, Glenn Crossley, Hannah VanVarseveld, Ryan Scramstad
Filmed By: Sustainability TV

To those who were unable to join us, here is a brief summary of what happened!

When guests arrived at the studio, they had the opportunity to become part of our “Pixel Display”, which is a collection of many individual artistic expressions. Everyone received a small piece of cardboard, and could draw or write whatever they wished on it. The end result looked fabulous.

The Pixel Display in all its glory

The evening was kick-started by our MC, Tetsuro Shigematsu, who, besides having the ability to crack random jokes at just the right moment, also gave a pre-show performance of his own. The performance, “Rising Son”, was a hilarious re-telling of his childhood experience with karate, and definitely started off the night on the right note.

Tetsuro Shigematsu's "Rising Son" Performance

Afterwards was the performance of the Act NOW! Junior Category winning play of 2009-2010, “Fallen Heads”, which beautifully weaves the story of the doom of Easter Island society with modern-day over-consumption of resources.

Playwright: Deborah Vogt
Cast: Sigourney McAuley, Glenn Crossley, Hannah VanVarseveld, Ryan Scramstad
Directed by: Chalene Scott

"Fallen Heads" Performance

We then went immediately into the second performance of the night, the Act NOW! Senior Category winning of 2009-2010, “Lights Out”. In this play., the main character, Maria, learns and accepts that darkness is not always a bad thing, or something to be terrified of.

Playwright: Samantha Landa
Cast: Jennifer Hoar, Chris Coutts
Directed by: Alyssa Kostello

"Lights Out" Performance

After a short intermission, the third show of the night, the Fringe Tour Preview by In the Flesh Theatre, entitled “BOX: Or the Incredible Impact of the Totally Made Up” was performed. An over-stressed office worker re-discovers  the power of the imagination and goes through several fantastical scenarios (and meets equally interesting characters along the way), before realizing that she is much more than just what her job dictates.

Cast: Tracy Varju, Jennifer Hoar, Chris Fader, Chalene Scott, Ryan Bolton, Alyssa Kostello
Stage Manager: Gen Bouchard

Performance of "BOX: Or the Incredible Impact of the Totally Made Up"

The last performance of the evening was given by Dr. Ray Hsu, who ended off the night with a high note by selecting volunteers from the audience and having them all take part in a recorded message to Prime Minister Harper! The video footage of this absolutely jaw-dropping and hilarious interactive performance is below- my words alone can’t justify the epic-ness of what happened;

Dr. Ray Hsu phones PM Harper!

The evening ended off with a short awards ceremony to recognize the winning playwrights of the 2009-2010 Act NOW! Competition, many words of thanks to all our supporters and guests, along with a lot of great food for the post-performance reception. This is the first event of its kind for NOW!, and it was awesome seeing how successful it turned out!

Many thanks also to the following people and organizations who made the event possible, and put in countless hours and effort to create the event as it was:

Event Organizers: Denise Chau, Alyssa Kostello, Janny Ke, Rebecca Gu & Ivan Liu
Technical Crew: Gen Bouchard & Tommy Osmond
MC: Tetsuro Shigematsu
Venue: CBC Studios
Filming: Sustainability TV
Food: Cupcakes on Broadway, Safeway on Davie & Safeway on Broadway/MacDonald

THANK YOU!

YOUTH PLAYS ON SUSTAINBILITY AND INNOVATION PREMIERE AT VANCOUVER’S CBC STUDIO 700

Two festival-winning plays- Lights Out and Fallen Heads- along with the Fringe Tour preview of In the Flesh Theatre in co-production with Human Theatre’s piece, BOX: Or the Incredible Impact of the Totally Made Up, will be performed at the second-annual Act NOW! National Playwriting Festival’s inaugural premiere event.

The senior category winner of the winning plays is Lights Out. Are you afraid of the dark? When Maria is caught in a blackout, she bumps into Jon–literally–and learns to cope with her fear of the dark and reliance on leaving too many lights turned on. Jon teaches Maria about the beauty and sustainability of being surrounded by calm, natural blackness. In the end, will Maria still need a night light?

The junior category of the winning plays is called Fallen Heads. Fallen Heads is a story about the past meeting the present to teach us lessons about the future.

BOX is a story about a woman named Lee, who works hard at a job she doesn’t really want to do. It isn’t until she is put up for a promotion that she discovers what she is truly capable of- what her imagination is capable of. This story is told through compelling physical work and vivid imagery. Surprising transformations reveal a world beyond the everyday, a world of possibilities.

The NOW! Organization is a dedicated team of volunteers across Canada passionate about sustainability and sparking social change through the arts. The Act NOW! International Performance Writing festival is a writing competition on sustainability run by youth, for youth, that engages young people across the nation to learn, evaluate, innovate and act with a splash of creativity!

Graduates of the Acting for Stage and Screen Program from Capilano University in North Vancouver, have created BOX, an original piece using Composition work, Viewpoints and collaborative writing sessions. They’ve been in the development process since last July and have been working with Technical Theatre and Film program graduates from Capilano. Inspired by the idea of people reconnecting with their imaginations, they aim to tell a story that motivates audiences to follow their hearts, no matter who they are.

The show date is May 17^th, 2011 at 7:30 in the CBC Studio 700.

For information on The NOW! Organization visit http://now-org.com/.

For information on BOX visit www.wix.com/inthefleshtheatre/fringetour.

Hang out and enjoy a night of fun plays by youth on sustainability and imagination! Act NOW! National Playwriting Festival’s winning plays for 2010 will be performed along with the Fringe Tour preview of BOX: Or the Incredible Impact of the Totally Made Up. Following will be an award ceremony for the winning playwrights.

Entry is by donation at the door, please RSVP (click RSVP to open a new window for registration) so we can have a better idea of who to expect! Recommended minimum donation is $10; however, any amount that you can give is greatly appreciated.

Where: CBC Studio 700 (700 Hamilton Street, Vancouver, BC; across the road from the Vancouver Public Library- Central branch)

When: Tuesday, May 17, 2011, 7:30 – 9:30pm. Doors open at 6:30pm.

This play was the senior category winner of the 2009-2010 Act NOW! National Playwriting Competition, which this year has morphed into the 2011 Act NOW! International Performance Writing Festival. The spotlight is on, check out the festival for your ideas to shine :]

Credits:
Playwright: Samantha Landa
Actors: Jennifer Hoar, Jeff Pater
Directors: Alyssa Kostello, Tetsuro Shigematsu (Shiggytv, http://www.shiggy.com)
Recording/audio/technical expertise: Tetsuro (Shiggytv, shiggy.com)
Editor: Rebecca Gu
Also, thanks Kathleen Flaherty for her advice.

Thank you again for your support of the NOW! creative education programs. Here’s an update from us!

1) NOW! play performances (February 2010)

NOW! partnered with Katimavik (www.katimavik.org) Vancouver to bring creative sustainability education to elementary schools and Katimavik program volunteers. Under the mentorship of Shawn MacDonald, a playwright and director at the Vancouver Arts Club, the Katimavik Vancouver troupe brought engaging performances of the 2008-2009 Act NOW! National Playwriting Competition junior category winning play “The Essay” to ~400 kids in Richmond, BC: Errington Elementary, W.D. Ferris Elementary, and McKinley Elementary. Thank you Beau Llewellyn and Marco Adamovic from Katimavik for an amazing opportunity to connect with dedicated youth volunteers from across Canada. We look forward to further collaboration with Katimavik!

2) Upcoming NOW What? conferences (May 2010):

• NOW What? Conference – Cochrane Edition

• Resourceful Thinking

3) 2nd annual Act NOW! Playwriting Competition (September 2009 – March 2010)

Entry submission was closed on March 31st, 2010. Decision from our judging panel will be announced on Earth Day, 22 April 2010. Outstanding entries will be posted on our website.  Here are the stats:

23 participants
Average age: 19
Average number of pages: 14

12 communities
Toronto, ON (3)
Markham, ON (1)
Mississauga, ON (1)
Anmore, BC (1)
Richmond, BC (1)
Surrey, BC (2)
Coquitlam, BC (1)
Burnaby, BC (2)
Vancouver, BC (8)
Lanley, BC (1)
Odejaye, Nigeria (1)
Hampstead, QC (1)

19 entries
Senior entries (age 19-26): 8
Junior entries (age 14-18): 11

——

Next Steps:

- putting together the 2010-2011 NOW! team (Join our team)
- exciting collaboration opportunities with educators, students, community leaders, organizations, and institutions to take the impact of NOW! creative sustainability programs to the next level

Thank you again for your time, and happy holidays! :]

Sincerely,

The NOW! Team

Please take check out our fall play performances!

More details to come!

YOUTH SUSTAINABILITY PLAY PREMIERES IN VANCOUVER

Surrey-based youth theatre group debuts 16-year-old’s Act NOW! National Playwriting Competition winning entry to an audience of 300.

Vancouver, BC, Canada – 300 students and teachers at the Charles Dickens Elementary school cheered and applauded to a stunning premiere of the Act NOW! National Playwriting Competition junior category winning play The Essay.

“I was very impressed with the presentation and so were the staff and students,” praised Diane Lezlee Martinson, Vice Principal of Charles Dickens Elementary. “The actors did a superb job in their roles and the students’ attention was held for the entire performance.”

The imaginative winning entry The Essay was written by Olivia Rempel, a 16-year-old homeschooled student from Abbotsford, BC. Competition judges commended her play as informative and “written in a natural, unpretentious way, full of humour.”

The play performance was directed by Trisha Dulku, a grade 12 student at Fleetwood Park Secondary School. Her theatre group, aptly coined the Jai Ho! Theatre Troupe, consists of young volunteers passionate about sustainability: Fleetwood Park Secondary School students Taylor Harrison, Matthew Furtado, Fara Shah, Nesan Furtado, Kristina Dosanjh, and Jackson Chu, and Simon Fraser University World Literature major Ravi Sall. More performances of the sustainability play by the Jai Ho! Theatre Troupe will follow in the fall.

Two months ago on Earth Day, teenagers Mitchell Agostinho and Olivia Rempel won the 2008-2009 Act NOW! National Playwriting Competition, Canada’s first ever national playwriting competition on sustainability for youth. As promised, along with $200 in prizes, their winning plays will be performed across Canada at schools, festivals, community centres, and other locations by local theatre groups from June 2009 through October 2010 to an estimated audience of 10,000. Mitchell Agostinho will direct his own troupe to perform his senior category winning play The Highschool Environmental starting November 2009.

The first of its kind to challenge Canadian youth to evaluate issues in sustainability and devise interdisciplinary solutions, the competition is organized by the NOW! Organization in collaboration with diverse local and national groups.

Adds one of the competition judges, Lars Rose, a University of British Columbia Materials Engineer working at the National Research Council, “This competition is an extraordinary way of combining arts and science, and of expressing environmental concerns in a creative, educational effort; the plays are a must-see for everyone.”

About the NOW! Organization
Founded in 2006, the NOW! Organization is dedicated to bridging people from diverse backgrounds to sculpt creative, holistic solutions toward social, economic, and environmental sustainability. Run entirely by youth volunteers, the NOW! team implements innovative and grassroots programs to inspire youth, pique ideas and discussions, and spark action.

2008-2009 Act NOW! National Playwriting Competition Partners:
David Suzuki Foundation
Let’s Talk Science National Partnership Program
Environmental Youth Alliance
The Otesha Project
Global Agents for Change
Sierra Youth Coalition

Media Contact:
Janny Ke
The NOW! Organization
www.now-org.com
janny.ke@now-org.com
604-339-1251

NOW! in the media