Theatre Evolves in Ottawa

At a time when even Hollywood productions and network television shows are fighting a fierce, uphill battle with the digital realm for the iPod generation’s attention span, drawing audiences to live theatrical productions of cutting-edge contemporary plays staged by a new theatre company seems an impossibly difficult challenge. Ottawa’s Evolution Theatre, however, has done just that.

“New media is an important thing and I’m taking full advantage of it to reach new audiences,” says communications director and performer Nancy Kenny. “But there will always be a place for live theatre because people want to experience these stories in this environment.”

Unable to find work after graduating from the University of Ottawa’s theatre program in 2005, Evolution’s founding members - Christopher Bedford and Linda Culbert, along with Kenny – decided to form a company of their own. They launched the new Evolution Theatre with a production of Nobel Prize winner Dario Fo’s We Won’t Pay! We Won’t Pay! at the University of Ottawa’s Leonard Beaulne Studio. There were originally no long term plans, but, living up to its name, the company continually evolved and is now in its fourth year of staging intellectual and innovative plays for Ottawa audiences.

“There really wasn’t that much out there bridging the gap between community/student theatre and the fully professional and well-funded productions at the National Arts Centre and the GCTC,” says Kenny. “There wasn’t a middle ground. But that has changed a lot in the last couple of years.” The change, of course, has a lot to do with upstart companies like Kenny’s own. 

Evolution followed up Fo’s comedy about shoplifting groceries (the price of admission was a donation to the food bank) with a fringe festival production in 2006. The next year, they tackled Canadian mathematician and playwright John Mighton’s Possible Worlds, as well as Guillermo Verdecchia (winner of the 1993 Governor General’s Award for Drama) and Daniel Brooks’s Insomnia.

“Its wasn’t like we were seeking out Canadian plays. It just kind of happened that way,” explains Kenny. “A lot of Canadian contemporary drama is no longer just kitchen sink drama. Our stories go deeper than that, and our contemporary theatre has found new ways of telling those stories.” 

Evolution founders Bedford, Culbert, and Kenny at the Rideau Awards - Photo by Chris Wardell

Last year, amongst a slew of accolades, Evolution was accepted into the GCTC’s production mentorship program, whereby they received tutelage in marketing and grant writing. This May, Evolution presents the Canadian premier of British writer Mark Ravenhill’s controversial play pool (no water) in the Studio Theatre at the Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre.

When asked if the recent economic downturn has hurt the theatre, Kenny responds, “Nothing has really changed. I’m still poor, like I was before. We’re still fighting for arts funding; its always going to be the first thing that gets cut. We’re still fighting to get recognition in newspapers. But people are also still coming out to our shows. Things have actually gotten better lately.” Kenny believes that, particularly during difficult times, audiences are drawn to the sorts of productions Evolution stages: “unconventional plays with a sort of different story structure that you can have fun with.”

Looking to the future, Evolution has embraced Canada’s bilingualism by commissioning an original translation of a Québecois play for 2010. “There is such a huge segment of our Canadian culture that people don’t have access to because they don’t speak the other language. So, for us, it’s great to have French work we can present to an English audience,” says Acadian-born Kenny. “There is a specific mind-set to creating art that comes from people growing up in that context.  It’s an amalgamation of cultures that creates something totally beautiful.” 

Tickets for Evolution Theatre’s (pool) no water at The Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre Studio Theatre 1233 Wellington Street West (Corner of Wellington and Holland) are on sale now. The show runs May 7 to 16.

Related Articles:  The Ottawa Family of Theatres

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Nancy Kenny

May 07, 2009

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pool (no water) Tickets!

For show tickets, please check out our website at www.evolutiontheatre.ca or call 613-236-5196.

See you at the show!

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