Works-In-Progress: Cymbeline
Adapted by Katelyn Polischuk and Paige Francoeur.
Shakespeare’s Cymbeline is often dismissed as an “everything but the kitchen sink” play, in which Shakespeare seems to have thrown every trope and device in his arsenal into one singular text. As a result, this play is rarely done. Indeed, the amorphous mass of converging and overlapping narrative threads makes the script near-nonsensical.
And yet, there is Imogen: a character so compelling that Shakespearean scholar Harold Bloom once wrote, “Imogen ought to be in a play worthier of her aesthetic dignity…”. Through this adaptation, Francoeur and Polischuk have attempted to restructure and rewrite the existing text with Imogen cradled at its centre. Subplots have been excised, characters have been removed, and substantial restructuring has taken place, culminating a surprising and original finally.
Painting: Imogen (1888) by Herbert Gustave Schmalz
Measure For Measure
Adapted by Mackenzie Dawson; Kody Farrow; Liam Johnston; Drew Mantyka; Jonathon Pickrell; Katelyn Polischuk; Jordie Richardson; Bob Wicks.
For two and a half years, The Coterie worked to understand and update the 400-year-old text of Shakespeare’s Measure For Measure. Our goal was to create a stageable play seen through the lens of today’s politics, ethics, language, and humour. While not one of Shakespeare’s more famous works, the text contains many of the same hallmarks as his most beloved plays, such as its dextrous wordplay, engaging characters, and intricate moral dilemmas. We have anchored this adaptation of Measure For Measure in themes of hypocrisy and the misuse of power. It is a subtext that already exists within the original, but has been muddied by the clumsy collaging of various drafts, and an unclear exploration of the genre. By approaching the text without preconceived notions of “sacredness”, we have been able to preserve what makes the original text great while creating intentional changes and adjustments that we hope will allow more investment from audiences, and an opportunity for all to examine injustice as it is practiced in the real world around us.
Poster design by Paige Francoeur
Fosco
Season 2, episode 2 of Buttered Ghost Theatre’s Dr. Frightful Presents: A Podcast. Pre-production.
Art by Maureen Schimnowsky
Make It! Episode 75; Exiting the Clone Zone
Season 1, episode 3 of Buttered Ghost Theatre’s Dr. Frightful Presents: A Podcast.
Today on Make It! we will learn how to ethically dispose of the clone of ourselves we made last week!
This method is only safe for clones made from our verified recipe and does not include naturally occurring doppelgangers or shape-shifters.
***Content Warning*** Domestic violence; horror content
Art by Maureen Schimnowsky
The Drowned
The inaugural instalment of It’s Not a Box Theatre’s The Isolata, a series of free web-based audio games. Play this interactive audio drama alone, or with a friend… if you dare!
Some children never grow up. A simple game of hide-and-seek ended Danny’s life when he was seven years old, and now he always plays with whomever asks. In this guided ghost ritual, dug out from the bowels of the internet, you will be invited to reenact that fateful game — so long as you wait until night is at its darkest. Best played with someone you trust inside your home, but you may play alone if you dare. Follow instructions carefully and you just might find the secret Danny is hiding. Will you play pretend to keep a story alive? Or will you let it die?
***Content Warning*** Horror content; child death; drowning; su*cide