Uth Ink
Playwright in the Community Program
February & June 2009
Gwaandak Theatre brought the Uth Ink: Playwright in the Community Program to Whitehorse, in partnership with CBC North, Playwrights Guild of Canada and [murmur]. Whitehorse youth completed 10 short plays inspired by real places in their community. After a workshop with a professional playwright, youth created their plays, recorded them in CBC Yukon studios, posted them online and developed them into site-specific theatre installations marked by green Uth Ink signs. We held a public launch at Baked Café in June 2009 and plays aired on CBC.
The works were: Ghost (Bailey T.), Bald Mountain (Brittany Banks), Dwarf vs Elf (Zeb Berryman), Dragons 101 (Santana Berryman), Here (Wren Hookey), The Other Side of the Fence (Max Parker), Only in Whitehorse (Mikeala Shaw), How Many Mice? (Chloe Turner-Davis), Yukon Stereotypes (Nicholas Terry and Lindsay Webster), and Two Sides of the River (A. Val).
The Uth Ink: Playwright in the Community Program is a youth community arts program that happens in communities throughout Canada. Uth Ink engages youth in the places they live in. It gives a greater sense of ownership of one’s neighbourhood through an artistic voice. Whitehorse participants began by spending a creative evening in Uth Ink’s Playwright Workshop with award-winning playwright Celia McBride on February 25th. Youth then created and developed their own short plays (maximum three minutes), using “community” as a theme, with individual feedback from McBride. Next, using [murmur]’s acclaimed oral history project as an inspiration, each playwright’s short play was recorded in CBC Radio Yukon studios, posted online, and developed into a site-specific theatre installation in Whitehorse. People around the site could call a number and listen to the plays. For example, one young playwright in Ottawa wrote a play that took place in the parking lot across from her house.
Uth Ink - Connecting Communities
The Uth Ink program not only connects young people to their communities, but also connects communities to one another, all across the nation. Five communities participated in Uth Ink’s first year of programming. Besides Gwaandak Theatre, other organizations in the 2009/2010 program included:
Great Canadian Theatre Company and Creative Neighbourhoods – Ottawa, ON
Community Arts & Heritage Education Project – Thunder Bay, ON
Myths & Mirrors – Sudbury, ON
Lakeshore Arts – Etobicoke, ON
Orillia & District Arts Council – Orillia, ON
Carousel Players – St. Catharines, ON
For the Love of Learning – St. John’s, NL
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
Celia McBride is an award-winning theatre artist who has written, directed and performed in many of her plays, which have been produced in Europe, the US and Canada. She is currently the Co-Artistic Director of Sour Brides Theatre (sourbrides.com), a company she shares with Moira Sauer. Celia’s play Walk Right Up was commissioned by the Stratford Festival of Canada and had its premiere during the inaugural season of their Studio Theatre in 2002. In recent years, Celia has made the leap into film, writing and producing with her sister, Clara McBride. Their work has screened at film festivals worldwide. As a creative extension of her performing and teaching, Celia is also a workshop leader, a public speaker and a one-on-one coach. She is a member of the Playwrights’ Guild of Canada and a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada.
ABOUT THE FACILITATOR
Raised above the 60th parallel in Whitehorse, Yukon, Lauren Tuck is a 25-year-old multi-disciplinary artist. Tuck’s musical background ranges from singing in choirs, songwriting and playing piano and guitar. Her talents have also led to theatrical work through experience in stage plays and as an on-air radio personality on local radio station 98.1 CHON FM. No stranger to the arts, Tuck participated in the National Artist Program for the Canada Games in August 2005. Tuck has worked with a numerous production companies, for a year, wrote a music column for What’s Up Yukon and she creates radio jingles. In addition to that, her busy schedule includes emceeing and producing local arts events as producer/artistic director for Yukon’s emerging artist initiative, Brave New Works. She is currently responsible for producing a series of Spoken Word Shows that run monthly at Baked café in Whitehorse. And runs her own production company, Graceful Productions.
ABOUT THE YOUTH FACILITATOR TRAINEE
We are thrilled to have Wren Hookey working on Uth Ink. She is a high school student who definitely has caught the theatre bug. She has studied in the Music, Art and Drama program at Wood Street School. As well, she has been active with Moving Parts Theatre, most recently as stage manager for their production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. She plans to study theatre and film at university.
Playwrights Guild of Canada (PGC) is a national association, which represents the interests of professional playwrights and promotes their work nationally and internationally. PGC is the lead organization on Uth Ink program management.
Robin Sokoloski is the founder and manager of the Uth Ink program. Robin works at Playwrights Guild of Canada, and works with each Uth Ink community from beginning to end.
[murmur] is an innovative documentary oral history project that records stories and memories told about specific geographic locations. They provide Uth Ink’s technical coordination. [murmur] collects and makes people's personal histories about the places in their neighborhoods accessible. In each of these locations [murmur] installs a sign with a telephone number on it. You can then listen to that story while standing in that exact spot, and engaging in the physical experience of being where the story takes place. Gabe Sawheny and Shawn Micallef’s idea has greatly inspired Uth Ink. Gabe and Shawn handle the signage (creation and set up), the website, and work closely with Robin to devise program development.
Thank you to our Funders: The Canada Council for the Arts, Yukon Youth Investment Fund, CBC North, Alpine Bakery