The Belfry Theatre’s Spark Festival is the brainchild of Belfry artistic director Michael Shamata. To get more of that festival feel, Shamata transformed what was once called The Festival and had a six-week run into the two-week Spark Festival.
“It didn’t feel much like a festival,” says Shamata. “When I got here, I started to mush it all together into two weeks so it would feel more like a festival.”
How the Belfry decides on what plays at the festival varies. It may come from talking with producers about finding the right time to have their work featured or from companies asking to be a part of the Spark Festival.
“People approach us saying that they’re going to be touring this show or that show [and] would we be interested in including it in the Spark festival?” says Shamata. “There’s lots of interest from across the country for the festival.”
Choosing a work to perform at the festival comes down to a company’s reputation and the reputation of the play itself.
“This year Between Breaths was the first piece that I chose,” says Shamata. “It’s a piece from an acclaimed company called Artistic Fraud based in St. John’s, Newfoundland. It’s about this man, Doctor Jon Lien, who dedicated his life to saving whales.”
The festival features two works from Canadians this year, and there is also a Victoria connection to two of the plays, Busted Up: A Yukon Story and Destiny, USA.
“Jessica Hickman, who lives here in Victoria, is the artistic director of this company in the Yukon called Open Pit,” says Shamata. “They have a piece about the Yukon that I wanted to bring in for a couple of years. I’m thrilled that it’s part of the festival.”
Actress and writer Laura Anne Harris used to work in the Belfry’s box office, and she now lives in the United States. Her play, Destiny, USA, is about her work as a Canadian working as a deaf telephone operator in the United States.
“She incorporates deaf actors on video,” says Shamata. “That is very cool.”
KISMET, things have changed, is another of the plays featured this year. It’s a sequel to KISMET, One to Hundred that ran 10 years ago at Spark. That play was about four actors who interviewed people aged one to 100 asking about fate and how they thought about it.
“Ten years ago, we brought in a piece called Kismet, One to Hundred from a fantastic company called The Chop Theatre in Vancouver. Ten years later they’d found as many of the original people they could find to see what’s changed in the last 10 years. The four actors saw how their lives changed,” says Shamata. “That’s beautiful.”
Shamata recommends people arrive early to get a token for a mini-play prior to the main performance. Chosen by a lottery system, an audience is selected and brought to a specific area of the Belfry.
“The mini-plays might have a capacity of 15, another the capacity of five,” says Shamata. “We have done one where there was a capacity of one.”
Eleven years on, the Spark Festival is about bringing the best of the best of theatre to Victorians. This standard of excellence is why theatre companies from across Canada are knocking on Spark’s door.
“The goal is to bring work from across Canada produced and acclaimed for its content and form,” says Shamata. “There’s just something unique and different about us.”
Spark Festival
Various times, Saturday, March 7 to Sunday, March 22
Various prices, Belfry Theatre
sparkfestival.ca