2011 Serca Festival of Irish Theatre
March 28th, 2011 . by liamThe mandate of the SERCA Festival of Irish Theatre is to celebrate, showcase and encourage theatre created by or about Ireland and Irish people. The SERCA Festival mounts innovative and vivid professional productions of Irish theatre for Edmontonians in the emerging Alberta Avenue arts area. The Festival also offers Irish music and spoken-word art.
This festival will create a context of cultural discourse between theatre and the Celtic community while inviting the neighbourhood and the broader Edmonton community to participate too! The SERCA Festival’s excellence is its actors and staff; through their work with SERCA and Theatre Prospero, these artists have been in the vanguard of bringing fine theatre to this historic neighbourhood.
2010 Festival
The 2010 SERCA Festival was a fully-fledged foray into the world of early summer festivals. In June last year, as part of the Caught in the Act Series, the Festival presented: Maggie Now, Part Two (a Theatre Prospero production); Spokesong (a Prosperous Velospians’ production); Connor McPherson’s This Lime Tree Bower (a Trunk Theatre production); and Connor McPherson’s The Good Thief (a Golden Slumber Production).
The venue was the old Alberta Cycle Building, across from the Avenue Theatre on 118 Avenue. Attendance was excellent for the first run of the SERCA Festival, with over 500 attendees. Other Irish-related events during the Festival included an Irish pub in the foyer, which also was the venue for Irish poetry readings of Yeats and Seamus Heaney, among others. There were readings by local Irish-Canadian poets Fabian Jennings and George Millar, and live Irish/Celtic music. The Festival attracted enthusiastic students and venturesome theatre-goers to a new, must see theatre destination.
SERCA was a critical success. Liz Nichols, Edmonton Journal’s theatre reviewer had this to say about ‘This Lime Tree Bower’ and our pilot project, the Serca Festival of Irish Theatre: “The great Irish tradition of storytelling is in the rosy flush of good health, judging by the production that opens the inaugural Serca Festival on Alberta Avenue.”
Proposed Programme
2011 Serca Festival of Irish Theatre
Old Alberta Cycle Building
9115-118 Avenue
June 28 to July 3, 2011
Stones in His Pockets by Marie Jones presented by Ad Hoc Players
Maggie Now, Parts 1 – 4 written by Jennifer Spencer and read by Prosperous Paddies
Faith Healer by Brian Friel Produced by Michael Clark
Diversions and Delights by John Gay directed by Liz Hobbs
Molly Sweeney by Brian Friel directed by Wayne Paquette of Citadel/Shadow theatres
Mojo-Mickybo by Owen McCafferty, directed by Amy De Felice
Beckett Shorts by Samuel Beckett, produced by Surreal Soreal
For final programme and further information contact:
Mary-Ellen Perley at Theatre Prospero 780-761-2773
or email meperley@gmail.com