Chimera Theatre has already presented five full productions of its own, the first three being written by Artistic Managing Director Andrew G. Cooper. In August 2015, One Day was toured and presented at the Outskirts Festival in Nelson, BC. In April 2015, The Untold Tales of the Brothers Grimm featured six local actors and was supported creatively and technically by an additional ten local emerging artists and theatre students. This production then toured to the Victoria Fringe Festival in August 2015 and was nominated for the Best New Play and Best Comedy awards. March 2016 saw the performances of SuperZeroes, which also featured six local actors and had a total team of eighteen local artists working on the project. In August 2016, a new devised physical theatre adaptation of Euripides' Andromeda titled Perseus & Andromeda was toured to the Victoria Fringe Festival. That production was the runner-up for the Best Show Design Award. In February 2017 Mockus by George M. Johnson included a cast of nine performers, three of whom made their theatrical debut, and was supported by sixteen additional local artists. Half of the show’s performances were sold out.

 

The company also collaborated with Tranquille Tunnel Tours for their annual fall production for The Tranquillian Soldier (2014), Crossroads (2015), The Disordered Mind (2016), and The Witness (2017)  with the latter three being written by Artistic Managing Director Andrew G. Cooper. These site-specific immersive theatre productions take place and tell the true historic stories of Tranquille, an abandoned village and facilities that operated as a Tuberculosis Sanatorium and Mental Hospital for most of the 20th century. Building on these collaborations, the company produced Knights of the Sun: Medieval Tournament Theatre in Sun Peaks with Sun Peaks Tourism for the summer season of both 2016 and 2017. These shows were an immersive, interactive, and improvised medieval theatre experience that featured a choreographed medieval swordsmanship tournament. Other smaller performance pieces have been made in collaboration with BC Living Arts, Kamloops Arts Gallery, and Kamloops Museum & Archives.

 

With a focus on continued education and professional development, Chimera Theatre has also offered a four-part Workshop Series each season, which brings in local, professional artists to educate participants on specialty skills like puppetry, stage management, vocal technique, improvisation, actor movement, and stage combat. This new initiative in the community has been a tremendous success with well over half of these workshops selling out.

 

The Artist-in -Residence program, which was introduced in 2015, offers the opportunity for one artist each year to work and train with our company for a season. The program focuses on helping theatre artists bridge the gap between academia and the professional theatre community.

 

In support of local playwrights and their works, the New Play Series was introduced in 2015 and two new works by Kamloops playwrights receive a workshop and staged reading each season. A third workshop and stage reading was produced last year and another is scheduled for later this spring. This effort was furthered by the introduction of the Playwriting Unit in the fall of 2017. Chimera Theatre’s Playwriting Unit creates an opportunity for a select group of local playwrights to collaborate on a monthly basis throughout the season.