{"id":2612,"date":"2012-03-07T09:00:27","date_gmt":"2012-03-07T17:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=2612"},"modified":"2012-03-08T11:08:08","modified_gmt":"2012-03-08T19:08:08","slug":"play-sparks-discussion-on-homelessness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2012\/03\/07\/play-sparks-discussion-on-homelessness\/","title":{"rendered":"Play sparks discussion on homelessness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes a play is sparked by an idea of creating change. Like Joel Bernbaum\u2019s play, Home Is a Beautiful Word,<\/em> for instance, which came out of talks with the Belfry Theatre\u2019s artistic director Michael Shamata about homelessness and will be debuting at the aptly titled Spark Festival.<\/p>\n

Bernbaum\u2019s verbatim theatre piece was written based on feedback from hundreds of local Victorians on the issue of homelessness.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Joel Bernbaum (right, with actor Kayvon Kelly) is making people think with his new play (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cShamata wanted to address the issue of homelessness because it\u2019s a prominent and important issue in our community,\u201d explains Bernbaum. \u201cWe collaborated on other projects before and when I got my master\u2019s in verbatim theatre we decided that verbatim would be a great way to address this issue and would convey local ideas of homelessness accurately.\u201d<\/p>\n

Verbatim theatre is a type of documentary theatre where plays are created by journalistic interviews directed towards a certain topic.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, one of the most interesting and compelling things about verbatim theatre is that we don\u2019t really know what the play will be about until we go over the content of the interviews,\u201d says Bernbaum.<\/p>\n

Bernbaum conducted interviews with a wide range of people in Victoria. He interviewed people walking down the street, went door to door in a wide variety of residential communities, interviewed lawyers, doctors, senior citizens in old folks\u2019 homes, and students in grades 3, 4, 11, and 12.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a team of transcribers from UVic\u2019s department of applied theatre working on all the data collected,\u201d says Bernbaum. \u201cTheatre has always been a team sport, but it\u2019s been very evident in this project between the interviewees, transcribers, and creative team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bernbaum hopes to convey a holistic view of homelessness in Victoria and is excited for people in that community to see their input on stage and how he presents their ideas to the public.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike any good piece of theatre, I think experiencing the range of perspectives is important,\u201d he says, \u201cbecause the conversation post-play is important to try and take people further down their paths and provoke their thoughts.\u201d<\/p>\n

SPARK Festival<\/strong>
\nMarch 12-25
\n$15-74
\nbelfry.bc.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes a play is sparked by an idea of creating change. Like Joel Bernbaum\u2019s play, Home Is a Beautiful Word, for instance, which came out of talks with the Belfry Theatre\u2019s artistic director Michael Shamata about homelessness and will be debuting at the aptly titled Spark Festival. Bernbaum\u2019s verbatim theatre piece was written based on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2652,"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":[4,70],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-march-7-2012"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t