{"id":19129,"date":"2020-03-04T09:00:37","date_gmt":"2020-03-04T17:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=19129"},"modified":"2020-02-29T12:11:53","modified_gmt":"2020-02-29T20:11:53","slug":"spark-festival-gains-national-attention-with-quality-of-plays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2020\/03\/04\/spark-festival-gains-national-attention-with-quality-of-plays\/","title":{"rendered":"Spark Festival gains national attention with quality of plays"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Belfry Theatre\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t feel much like a festival,\u201d says Shamata. \u201cWhen I got here, I started to mush it all together into two weeks so it would feel more like a festival.\u201d<\/p>\n

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. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPeople approach us saying that they\u2019re going to be touring this show or that show [and] would we be interested in including it in the Spark festival?\u201d says Shamata. \u201cThere\u2019s lots of interest from across the country for the festival.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Choosing a work to perform at the festival comes down to a company\u2019s reputation and the reputation of the play itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year\u00a0Between Breath<\/i>s was the first piece that I chose,\u201d says Shamata. \u201cIt\u2019s a piece from an acclaimed company called Artistic Fraud based in St. John\u2019s, Newfoundland. It\u2019s about this man, Doctor Jon Lien, who dedicated his life to saving whales.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 <\/i>and Destiny, USA.<\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Destiny, USA is one of two works at this year\u2019s Spark Festival that feature a Victoria connection (photo by Drew Monrad).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cJessica Hickman, who lives here in Victoria, is the artistic director of this company in the Yukon called Open Pit,\u201d says Shamata. \u201cThey have a piece about the Yukon that I wanted to bring in for a couple of years. I\u2019m thrilled that it\u2019s part of the festival.\u201d<\/p>\n

Actress and writer Laura Anne Harris used to work in the Belfry\u2019s box office, and she now lives in the United States. Her play, Destiny, USA<\/i>, <\/i>is about her work as a Canadian working as a deaf telephone operator in the United States.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShe incorporates deaf actors on video,\u201d says Shamata. \u201cThat is very cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

KISMET, things have changed,<\/i>\u00a0is another of the plays featured this year. It\u2019s a sequel to KISMET, One to Hundred<\/i>\u00a0that 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.\u00a0\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cTen years ago, we brought in a piece called\u00a0Kismet, One to Hundred<\/i>\u00a0from a fantastic company called The Chop Theatre in Vancouver. Ten years later they\u2019d found as many of the original people they could find to see what\u2019s changed in the last 10 years. The four actors saw how their lives changed,\u201d says Shamata. \u201cThat\u2019s beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shamata recommends people arrive early to get a token for a mini-play prior to the main performance.\u00a0Chosen by a lottery system, an audience is selected and brought to a specific area of the Belfry.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe mini-plays might have a capacity of 15, another the capacity of five,\u201d says Shamata. \u201cWe have done one where there was a capacity of one.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s door.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal is to bring work from across Canada produced and acclaimed for its content and form,\u201d says Shamata. \u201cThere\u2019s just something unique and different about us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spark Festival
\nVarious times, Saturday, March 7 to Sunday, March 22
\nVarious prices, Belfry Theatre
\nsparkfestival.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Belfry Theatre\u2019s 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. \u201cIt didn\u2019t feel much like a festival,\u201d says Shamata. \u201cWhen I got here, I started to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19130,"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":[4,249],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-march-4-2020"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19129","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=19129"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19131,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19129\/revisions\/19131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}