Please please please.....

This message from my beloved Dancing Sky Theatre"

 

In 2020 we planned to do a show called THE CURST by Kelley Jo Burke. But 2020 didn’t go as planned and it was cancelled. Now THE CURST is back on our schedule for 2023 Fingers crossed  things go right this season!
#dancingskytheatre #thecurst #hopeful #pandorasbox

— at Dancing Sky Theatre.

CV-19 adds to the The Curst curse

POSTPONED (in a hugely meta way)

This play obviously DID NOT open May 1st.

My letter to the amazing cast of THE CURST, sent when we were supposed to be in rehearsal starting this week--to prepare for our world premiere at Dancing Sky Theatre:

"First of all, a huge thank you to all of you for everything that you've put into the show up to date. 

Secondly a huge thank you to Dancing Sky Theater for giving our artists something in lieu of the salary they were expecting. This is more than some theatres are doing. We have reports at playwrights Guild of artists being asked to return advances, and actors being cut off without a cent.

 

I am not surprised that Dancing Sky chose the decent path.I am just hugely proud to be associated with a theatre that has done so.

This is such a discombobulating time that there seems to be nothing to say except how much I care about all of you. And value what you bring to the work, but more what you just bring to the world.

 

I look forward to a time when we all come together again and make this happen. 

And finally, my sincere apologies for writing a play about artists being chased by bad angels. I knew I was opening the door to some epic bad luck. But I never thought that it would end up in a pandemic.

My bad."

Kelley Jo

From Library Voices: Re THE CURST (a pop as f**k fantasia) POSTPONED

from Michael Scott Dawson of Library Voices:

"A telltale sign that a band has jumped the shark is when they announce that they're going to make a rock opera...

Things have been relatively quiet around the ol' Library Voices camp for the last few months (years) but I'm happy to share that we have been quietly collaborating with award winning playwright Kelley Jo Burke on a new work titled The Curst. The story centres around the fictitious characters that exist within our lyrics. It also features a bunch of new LV songs that likely won't ever exist elsewhere.

The Curst runs May 1-17 at Dancing Sky Theatre and there are only a limited number of tickets remaining. https://ontheboards.ca/events/the-curst/

Just so it's clear, I also wanted to point out that we are not in the theatre piece. They've cast a wonderful group of immensely talented professionals who portray a far more believable band than Library Voices ever could... We do plan to be around though, sipping wine and eating chicken burgers from the gas station up the street. xo"

Last weekend: The Lucky Ones by Kelley Jo Burke at Dancing Sky Theatre in Meacham

We're heading into our final weekend of The Lucky Ones!
Meals are sold out for Sunday May 3, and it looks like only one meal left for Saturday May 2.
There are still meals available on Friday May 1.

Call 306-384-7727, or visit dancingskytheatre.com to book tickets!

Review: The Lucky Ones, Cam Fuller, Saskatoon Star-Phoenix

Flawed characters find each other

A⁺

BY CAM FULLER, THE STARPHOENIX APRIL 21, 2015

Well, it's not The Notebook.

The Nicholas Sparks tearjerker about a lifetime romance doesn't allude to the Inuit creation myth of Sedna.

The Lucky Ones does. Writer Kelley Jo Burke uses the rather disturbing story of the undersea goddess to poetically describe Enid's unique personality and the way she needs to be off in her own world, much to the frequent dismay of her husband, Marty. He's an obituary writer, of all things. She's - I missed it - an anthropologist? A folklorist?

The play begins with Enid's stroke. After many years of marriage, there are still some things that Marty needs to know, and he's not letting Enid duck out on him without some answers. (Burke doesn't load the deck in her favour with sentimentality but does get the emotional hooks into you by the climactic final speech.)

The new play at Dancing Sky Theatre makes many more demands on the viewer than would a shiny-perfect Hollywood movie.

The characters are not easy to warm up to, for starters. Marty (Sean Hoy) and Enid (Louisa Ferguson) are misfits with traumatic pasts.

Marty spent years tending to an ill mother who told him that as long as he made her laugh, she'd live. The day he couldn't think of anything funny, she died.

Enid's background is even more unsettling, a disturbing tale of sexual identity, parental hysteria and what amounts to torture.

It would be nice to actually like them, but Marty's clinging and insecurities put you on edge and Enid's fragility is unsettling.

You have to approach both gingerly.

This being an Angus Fergusondirected play, you can expect pleasing theatricality and artfully simple solutions to portraying difficult things.

Like, how does a person in a coma participate in a conversation? Or what's the best way to depict lovemaking without it turning into sex-ed?

Live music, another Dancing Sky hallmark, is here performed by Ross Nykiforuk, employing a variety of keyboard sounds (including some notes from Supertramp's Goodbye Stranger at a highly appropriate moment.)

But what really stands out is the acting, from the chemistry which is good, to the memory work which is monumental.

It's hard to believe that it's been seven years since Hoy trod the boards. His every-guy-ness is as warm as always.

And Louisa Ferguson's performance is stunningly accomplished, truly one of the best of the season. She invests completely in the role, fully inhabits this difficult woman and fathoms the depths with convincing emotions.

The Lucky Ones may not be a play you reflexively like but it's one that's impossible not to appreciate.

THE LUCKY ONES

Dancing Sky Theatre, Meacham To May 3, Thursdays through Sundays