Thought-provoking stage series ends Sunday
KITCHENER — Theatre performers, Matt White and Carin Lowerison, just wanted to get out of Toronto, away from the noise, the pressure, the competition.
“We decided we needed a change of pace,” said White. “We wanted to switch up life, find a different community and try to simplify our lives.” They also wanted to spend less time working at jobs unrelated to the arts just to pay the bills.
“We started out as artists and wanted to go back to the art route,” he said. “We also wanted to challenge the perception of the world, all with the goal of seeing positive social change (through theatre).
“It’s something we were missing in Toronto.”
To that end, the couple founded Green Light Arts, which this week is presenting “In the Centre” a stage series at the Conrad Centre for the Performing Arts, downtown Kitchener.
The series focuses on unique perspectives such as poet/artist/ songwriter, Janice Jo Lee’s “Will You Be My Friend” the author’s exploration of finding a comfortable place within her community as a person of colour.
Ideas for the series began to flow, unfortunately the money didn’t. At least not at first. Just as they had pinned a lot of hope onto a “loose promise” of support, that support was withdrawn.
The problem was, the Conrad Centre was already paid for. They just wouldn’t have the money to pay any performers, though they were not willing to go down in defeat either.
White said they saw the series as an opportunity to “unite and give space to so many cool, thought-provoking, mostly local, artists under one roof, to showcase their talents and produce work that pushes beyond assumptions and ideas about beauty, about culture, and about how we look at the world in general.”
It was a tall order, so they had to scramble, reaching out to their adopted community through a crowd funding campaign and managing to raise more than $8,000, from 95 backers.
So the money was in place, but what about the programming?
Lee was the first artist they approached and she was keen.
“We found a bunch of really eclectic artists and did it all in 54 days,” he said. “What I’ve learned in the past 54 days is that there is no harm in asking.”
The performances began last week and run until Sunday, June 25 with “Will You Be My Friend” a new musical comedy written by Lee and directed by White.
Green Light Arts was designed to bring theatre to audiences looking for something less mainstream and White already knew there was an audience for such theatre.
White said when they moved to Kitchener, the couple met Majdi Bou-Matar and Pam Patel of MT Space, a multicultural theatre company that brings perspectives from around the world. This fall, Bou-Matar will be artistic director of the contemporary multicultural theatre IMPACT 17, running from Sept. 26 to Oct. 1.
That is the sort of theatre White hopes Green Light Arts can offer: theatre that is unexpected and opens public discourse while at the same time, giving theatre artists a stage where they can unleash creativity.
“We certainly want to do this, bringing independent artists into the Conrad Centre,” he said.