2016 Participants
(Small town erasure + battle of the sexes + more pizza + dick painting)
More Pizza
Norah Paton
Lab Experience
"What makes a long life inherently more valuable than a short one? More pizza. More orgasms"
Look, we're all going to die. And soon - relatively.
From this starting point - we began an examination of life: of it's value and purpose, and of death: of what it is and feels like.
And most importantly, of why more (pizza, orgasms, time...) is always better.
Through lenses of science and spirituality, ethics and entheogens, we worked over the summer on solving life's great mysteries and failed. It turns out that value and purpose are objective and there's only one way to definite answers on the death stuff.
Instead, we engaged in circular conversations and found a story about drawing a circle.
An incomplete circle - but one that could hold some our most dense and philosophical questions.
Through collaging texts from the summer, we developed the beginnings of a script about the round trip of adolescence with a team of outsiders who mostly don't make it.
Later
Development work continues with the support of aCity of Ottawa Youth in Culture 2016 Pilot Program and is continues in Phase II with 4.669 into 2018.
Norah Paton
Strange Bedfellows
Eleanor Crowder & Sarah Waisvisz with Kevin Orr
Lab Experience
Sarah Waisvisz and Eleanor Crowder of Calalou invited Kevin Orr to play in.
The question: is modern-day rape culture more fraught than gendered reality
was for the Happy Hooker?
Hockey Man meets Xaviera, and Sarah interrogates her real-life cousin,
resulting in stick-handling and verbal games.
Later
Research leads to the real Xaviera, still writing in Amsterdam
Eleanor Crowder
Sarah Waisvisz
Kevin Orr
Dicky Dicky
Ray Besharah & David Benedict Brown
Lab Experience
Dicky Dicky started as an improv troupe. Then it was a sketch comedy duo. Then Ray and Dave started to perform a series of one-off cabaret performance pieces at variety shows and fundraisers. These unconventional theatre pieces seek connection, strive to create vulnerability and presence, and each has at least a tenuous thread to a political or social issues in our world. Ray and Dave sought help from Theatre 4.669 because they were interested in two things: developing the idea into a full-length play or festival experience, and figuring out how to make their material legitimately compelling and entertaining.
Later
Dicky Dicky Dream Factory presented at the Ottawa Fringe Festival 2017. It will be applying for more development grants to keep growing new and relevant ideas. We’ll be applying to national festivals and we’ll continue to seek out one-off performances where our unique perspective is appreciated.
David Benedict Brown
Ray Besharah
Road To No Where
Kevin Da Ponte, Even Gilcrest, Brittany Johnston
Lab Experience
We worked to create a piece which incorporates choral speaking and movement to explore how our backgrounds and ancestries shape our identity. Throughout the piece three characters struggle to reconcile themselves with how their past growing up in a small town has affected who they have become. These characters have left their small towns, which no longer hold anything for them, in search of something bigger, however on these journeys they come to realise the impact the places and people they left behind have had on them. In making this self-discovery, perhaps they will find what they are searching for.
Kevin Da Ponte
Brittany Johnston
Even Gilcrest