The Wrecking Ball is Swinging – November 16
PRESS RELEASE: The Wrecking Ball swings in Ottawa once again!
Following last year’s sensational pre-election event, this one-of-a-kind co-lingual soirée of political theatre returns to the nation’s capital, in tandem with other wrecking balls swinging through cities across Canada this month.
This time around, we’re inspired by Yann Martel www.whatisstephenharperreading.ca to offer a few reading suggestions of our own. With a little help from our friends, we’ll consider what it really takes to win the hearts and minds of Canadians. And with our colleagues in BC now staring down the barrel of 92% cuts in provincial arts funding, we are spurred to step up to the plate and prove once again the power of art to affect political change.
This year’s writers, directors and performers include Ritallin, Benjamin Gaillard, Mélanie Rivet, Pierre Brault, Laurie Fyffe, Kris Joseph, Patrick Gauthier, Sonja Mills, Norman Armour, Waneta Storms, Kate Smith, Nick di Gaetano, musical guest Glenn Nuotio and fresh from the national slam in Victoria, the Capital Slam Poetry Team. And many more of your local favourites!! (we just don’t know which ones yet…)
About The Wrecking Ball
The Wrecking Ball was founded in Toronto in November 2004 to address a nagging imbalance: too much theatre in our politics, not enough politics in our theatre. There have been eight Toronto Wrecking Balls cabarets to date, and the October 2008 edition saw the WB go national – Wrecking Balls were staged simultaneously in ten cities across the country, in advance of the federal election. An unprecedented mobilization of artists and art lovers.
Writers are given no more than two weeks to come up with material that reflects the current state of affairs. They are free to write on whatever topic they wish: the global, the national, the local, the very local. The plays are then cast and staged at the last minute, and this immediacy is what makes the Wrecking Ball the rollicking theatrical nerve ending that it is.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Box Office opens at 6:30pm
Show starts at 7:30pm
Saint Brigid’s Centre, 314 St. Patrick St. (at Cumberland)
Pay-What-You-Can (no advanced sales) – proceeds to Les Prix Rideau Awards
Tags: Capital Slam Poetry, Kris Joseph, Pierre Brault, Theatre, Wrecking Ball
