Reviews – Mixed Company Theatre

What a year it has been for Mixed Company Theatre! In 2015 we worked on several amazing projects including: developing our Inter-Gen Program, creating a new high school tour called Half Full, touring Mixed Messages to high schools and universities across the GTA, building Out of the Illusion – a play with the JustUs Group of seniors from the Six Nations Reserve, delivering workshops to several community organizations including the MicroSkills Youth Centre, and the last show of 2015 – A Day on the Shore – developed in collaboration with Lakeshore residents.

This will be the third year developing our Inter-Gen Program. We have led interactive workshops with participants from our partnering organizations including UrbanArts, Heritage York Members at Historical Lambton House, and Scadding Court Community Centre. These workshops brought together people across generations to create theatrical presentations to bridge the gap between generational and cultural realities, issues, and concerns. In the upcoming year, the project will culminate with the stories of two communities – Weston/Mount Dennis and Alexandra Park/Chinatown – and MCT will build two productions showcased within a Toronto theatre venue. Stay tuned for more details!

In February we workshopped Half Full, our newest high school show to break the stigma on mental health. The process was led by the Mixed Company Theatre playwright Catherine Frid, who developed the script with the input of those who live with anxiety, including students, teachers, and mental health and educational institutions. We also toured our well received production Mixed Messages to High Schools this past May and in Universities in August. We received tremendous positive feedback from the student and teacher audience members in the various schools, and we will continue to reach schools across the GTA this coming year.

With Microskills Youth Centre – the Dixie Road location – we ran workshops with youth to raise awareness of gender and equity issues and the effects of cyber bullying. The workshops were delivered as an after school program to a group of local youth. Other workshops offered this past year were our Summer Professional Development workshop series which included our Introduction to Forum Theatre, Masks of Manipulation, Rainbow of Desire, and Facilitator/Joker Training.

This fall Mixed Company Theatre, in partnership with Scadding Court Community Centre and The G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education at Ryerson University, worked with the JustUs: an amazingly talented First Nation’s Senior group from the Six Nations Reserve. Through interactive theatre and community arts activities, participants explored intergenerational stories, issues and concerns. This forum theatre presentation, Out of the Illusion, tackled the subject of breaking the cycle of violence through the perspective of the senior participants and the voices of their community. Out of the Illusion was well received by audiences at Ohsweken’s Great Theatre and Toronto’s Ryerson University. All were able to unpack current social issues and engage in essential dialogue using forum theatre techniques with local community participants. We hope to continue to develop and share this important production with a wider audience in 2016.

Our final show this year, A Day on the Shore, was supported by the Toronto Arts Council’s Artists in the Library program, and the Toronto Pearson Airport’s Propeller Program. Mixed Company Theatre was this year’s artist in residence at the Mimico Centennial Library. This show was a beautiful mosaic of community building, art making and designing, music and soundscape development, storytelling and live theatre performances. Many of the performers were local residents of the Lakeshore neighbourhood. The script was developed in consultation with local residents, and showcased their shared stories and lived experiences of the neighbourhood. These community members were also involved in every aspect of development of the production, including puppet making, instrument building, soundscape production, costume and prop making, and performing in the show. We were able to capture their joy, the new participants connections made, as well as be witness to the artistic transformation that occurred by being part of A Day on the Shore. It was truly a lovely way to wrap up the year!

We would like to thank our company funders who helped us to realize all of the great work we accomplished this year. Thank you to: the RBC Children’s Mental Health Project, Scotiabank’s J.P Bickell Foundation, the Ontario Trillium Foundation, the Toronto Arts Council, the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Pearson Airport’s Propeller Project, the Catherine and Maxwell Meighen Foundation, the Ontario Government Seniors Community Grant Program, and the Ontario Arts Endowment Fund.

A big thank you also to our community partners who have been amazing hosts and collaborators. Thank you to: Scadding Court Community Centre, Heritage York (Located in the Historical Lambton House), UrbanArts, the Toronto District School Board, the Toronto Catholic District School Board, the Toronto Public Library, Ryerson University’s G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education, Lakeshore Arts, and the South Etobicoke Youth Assembly.

Although MTV is famous for their reality shows geared for teens such as, Jersey Shore, the television network has always been ahead of the curve in presenting relevant topics that impact a wide range of North American youth. Most recently, MTV decided to raise awareness to the issue of cyber-bullying. During the same week that MTV’s movie DISconnected premiered, CNN’s Anderson Cooper introduced a special about bullying. In any current parenting magazine articles depicting tragedies due to bullying are the main feature.

Of the coverage on bullying, MTV’s DISconnected is one of the few resources made for young audiences. Much of the media attention focused on bullying does not examine the impact that Internet, mobile phones, and other forms of technology have in allowing for bullying to go unnoticed.

DISconnected brings insight to the various forms of technology that American youth are connected to. As the movie develops the audience quickly learns the high degree in which youth are connected to each other through technology. The theme that technology is a form of communication that exists at every hour of the day is shown in complex ways. Many of the characters struggle to choose when and when not to communicate with others. The audience learns that a person no longer controls when he or she may be contacted. Technology can be consuming when trying to keep up, and wait for or give responses to others. Characters in the movie must cope when information that they do not want to be public is posted about them. As technology allows for unrestricted communication to be sent out and received constantly, we cannot escape from others contacting us and cannot control if information about ourselves exists on the public online world.

DISconnected successfully presents the way in which we are connected to each other and reveals the ways in which this online connection can cause tension in our offline world relationships. Our online ‘connectedness’ also forces tensions that in fact turn to bullying and harassment. DISconnected allows it’s audience to think about the limits that exist in the online world and what our role is when we are subject to bullying or notice bullying. Although teachers and other authority figures may not have access to monitor cyber-bullying, students are connected to each other and must come to understand the impact that bullying has on it’s victims and aggressors. DISconnected is a great source for youth to begin to understand their role in ensuring that bullying must not be accepted and must be reported.

By Carina Cappuccitti

Carina is a Masters of Education student at York University. She is focusing her studies on the ways that media and popular culture influence young peoples understanding of gender. Carina has a Bachelors degree in Education and Theatre and is so happy that she is able to combine her two passions while interning at Mixed Company.