{"id":18422,"date":"2019-10-23T08:00:05","date_gmt":"2019-10-23T15:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=18422"},"modified":"2019-10-23T09:02:32","modified_gmt":"2019-10-23T16:02:32","slug":"william-head-on-stage-reimagines-the-wizard-of-oz-in-new-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2019\/10\/23\/william-head-on-stage-reimagines-the-wizard-of-oz-in-new-play\/","title":{"rendered":"William Head on Stage reimagines The Wizard of Oz in new play"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Generally speaking, most people would hope to avoid jail at all costs. However, if you love the theatre and love trying new things, then conquering that fear and going to jail for an evening could end up being a pretty unique experience. It\u2019s an experience put on by William Head on Stage (WHOS), which is presenting <i>The Emerald City Project<\/i> at William Head Institution until November 2.<\/p>\n<p><i>The Emerald City Project<\/i> co-director and choreographer Ingrid Hansen has been involved in WHOS for almost two decades but is particularly excited about this production.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_18423\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-18423\" style=\"width: 225px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/the-emerald-city-project-produced-by-whos-and-snafu-photo-by-sam-redmond-2019edited-1_orig.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-18423\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/the-emerald-city-project-produced-by-whos-and-snafu-photo-by-sam-redmond-2019edited-1_orig-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/the-emerald-city-project-produced-by-whos-and-snafu-photo-by-sam-redmond-2019edited-1_orig-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/the-emerald-city-project-produced-by-whos-and-snafu-photo-by-sam-redmond-2019edited-1_orig.jpg 525w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-18423\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">An actor from William Head on Stage\u2019s The Emerald City Project (photo by Sam Redmond).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cThe prisoners at William Head have been working with SNAFU dance company artists for the last couple of months,\u201d says Hansen. \u201cThey wanted to write and create an original play inspired by the characters from <i>The Wizard of Oz<\/i>. They used the book as a jumping-off point and also used the characters as a way to reflect their own lives and experiences. They\u2019ve written an entirely new story inspired by those characters.\u201d<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>This is WHOS\u2019 59th production in 38 years; the organization has come a long way since it was started in 1981 by a group of prisoners taking drama classes at the University of Victoria.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s run and managed by the prisoners, and they make a lot of the management decisions for the company,\u201d says Hansen. \u201cSo it\u2019s a really great challenge for teamwork and autonomy, having power over their own decisions, because they\u2019re also in charge of the company failing or succeeding. Every year, there are people who are getting out and getting released into the community, and they have to pass the baton to the next team of leaders on the inside.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hansen is continually impressed with the inmates\u2019 intense work ethic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is prison theatre all over the world,\u201d she says. \u201cThe creative impact is huge; you can really sense that creativity means so much to this particular team. They put in so many hours of extra work outside of just rehearsal.\u201d<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Hansen has noticed that the theatre brings the cast together in a few different ways.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of my favourite things to see is the way the guys step up and help each other,\u201d she says. \u201cThey coach each other through their anxieties, as well as their fears about performing and about being vulnerable, or potentially looking silly,\u201d she says. \u201cYou see a real kindness, a real generosity. You also see people from different social circles, different groups around the prison, interacting and helping each other out in a way that you don\u2019t often see.\u201d<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Hansen says that the set of <i>The Emerald City Project<\/i> was built in-house by some very skilled inmates.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey have a team of incredibly experienced builders,\u201d she says, \u201cwho said to me, \u2018What do you want for a set? Whatever you want, we can build it!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hansen is especially enthusiastic about <i>The Emerald City Project<\/i>\u2019s<i> <\/i>music.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe music this year is incredible,\u201d Hansen says. \u201cThere are some hip-hop artists on the team who have written their own songs for the show, and we have some live music put together by The Yellow Brick Blues Band, which have fused together hip hop, Cree, Salish, and Anishinaabe singing and drumming with old time rock and roll.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hansen wants the public to know that involvement in WHOS is voluntary.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWilliam Head on Stage is not a mandatory program,\u201d she says. \u201cThe men freely choose to be involved in the process, which gives them a real sense of ownership of the outcome. They are choosing to be a part of this team.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><i>The Emerald City Project<br \/>\n<\/i>Various times,\u00a0until Saturday, November 2<br \/>\n$25, William Head Institution<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/whonstage.weebly.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">whonstage.weebly.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Generally speaking, most people would hope to avoid jail at all costs. However, if you love the theatre and love trying new things, then conquering that fear and going to jail for an evening could end up being a pretty unique experience. It\u2019s an experience put on by William Head on Stage (WHOS), which is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18423,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,242],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-october-23-2019"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18422"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18425,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18422\/revisions\/18425"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}