WHAT: A Staged Reading of a play-in-progress by a local playwright.
HOW: Admission is by donation with all proceeds going to support the artists working on the project.

 

ABOUT THE PLAY

Can a clown, a self-anointed fool, change anything besides his costume? Mockus depicts such a clown who provokes a desperate Mayor into trying playful approaches to his city’s social and environmental ills, including replacing corrupt traffic cops with mimes. However, Mockus’s antics, and his success, provoke fear and jealousy. Will Mockus survive, armed only with laughter and love?

NOTE: The idea for “Mockus” came from hearing activist Mary –Wynne Ashford speak about the anti-politician Mayors of Bogota, Columbia, particularly Antanas Mockus, and by the description in her book Enough Blood Shed: 101 Solutions to Violence, Terror and War. Mockus employed creative antics, such as replacing corrupt traffic cops with street mimes and developing a “vaccine against violence” to encourage people to overcome the city’s severe social and environmental ills, with varying degrees of success. Mockus held the Mayor’s office twice, from 1995-97 and 2001-2003. During his second term he turned fifty (he was born in in 1952 and the second term ran from 2001-03).

 

ABOUT OUR NEW PLAY SERIES

With a commitment to the development of new Canadian plays, Chimera Theatre’s New Play Series will be presenting plays-in-progress by new and emerging playwrights. The selected playwrights will be provided with a chance to workshop their script with actors and a director, and have their play presented in a staged reading. This means an opportunity for playwrights to write, rewrite, experiment, and expand their work while providing audiences with a thrilling and intimate night of theatre.

The first of its kind for Chimera Theatre, A Staged Reading will present a newly crafted and workshopped script by a local playwright. The exciting part is that the actors and directors won't receive the script until a week before! Our playwrighting contest closes on October 31st, 2015 and following that we will be selecting which play will be read at this reading.

After the reading, there will be a talk back session with the playwright, actors and director about the script and the staged reading. Admission is by donation with all proceeds going to support the artists working on the project. The entrance will be around the back side of the Sahali Centre Mall (the north side, past the Sahali Liquor Store).

Thank you kindly to the Sahali Mall, who is generously donating their space for the evening.

 

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT

 

George M. Johnson’s “Still Life With Nudes” has won several awards, including the Gladys Cameron Watt Award in the Ottawa Little Theatre’s 67th Canadian One Act Playwriting Competition and the National Playwriting Competition, sponsored by the Regina Little Theatre, which produced the one act version in October, 2009. It was published in Ryga: A Journal of Provocations and in the U.S.A. in 2013 by ArtAge Senior Resource Center. Another play, “Look Up, America,” was short-listed for the Tennessee Williams playwriting competition. A ten-Minute play, “Rest Assured,” was selected in 2011 by Los Angeles’s Little Fish Theatre for their “Pick of the Vine” production, and also for the InspiraTO Festival in Toronto. His Screenplay “The Wonder” was a Finalist in the British Independent Film Festival Competition. Most recently his screenplay “Peace Pledge” received Honorable Mention in the Euroscript Screenplay Competition (London) and was a Finalist in the Script Doctor “Contest of Contest Winners Screenplay Competition” in L.A.. Johnson is Professor and Chair of the English and Modern Languages Department at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British Columbia, where he teaches creative writing and literature.