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Drama Prof Is Doing the Write Thing
Prolific U of G playwright launches new theatre company in Hamilton
BY RACHELLE COOPER
Drama professor Sky Gilbert is, without question, one of Canada's most prolific playwrights. At last count, he had more than 40 plays to his credit, many pushing the envelope of what constitutes socially accepted topics.
Over the next few months, he's continuing at his usual pace — showcasing a play at a new theatre company he's founded, directing a presentation that's part of the “Shakespeare: Made in Canada” festival, premiering a new play at Toronto's Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, publishing a play and a new anthology with Playwrights Canada Press and launching a novel.
His new Hamilton theatre company, Hammertheatre, will present its first play, Crack, a work written and directed by Gilbert, Feb. 24 at 8:30 p.m. at 126 James St. N., above “The Factory” in downtown Hamilton.
“This project was inspired by the fact that I moved to Hamilton three years ago and have wanted to become a part of the arts scene there,” says Gilbert, who's the former artistic director of Buddies in Bad Times and holds a University Research Chair in creative writing and theatre studies.
“It all came together when the space for the performance was donated by a Hamilton arts patron keen on revitalizing the downtown core around the same time I received funds for new theatrical research.”
Gilbert believes Hamilton has great potential to be a haven for artists from Toronto. “It has a lot of class differences, so it's a very interesting city.”
The workshop pay-what-you-can presentation of Crack examines issues of class, sexism and homophobia through a man sitting in a Hamilton bar who has encounters with three women.
“The play made me think about how class can demonize activities,” says Gilbert.
On March 7, a performance directed by Gilbert for the “Shakespeare: Made in Canada” festival begins at 8 p.m. at the River Run Centre. Three U of G students will perform Rosalind's final monologue from As You Like It as part of “Directing Shakespeare: Modes of Adaptation,” an event that will also include scenes directed by drama professors Ann Wilson and Judith Thompson.
Gilbert's contribution to the evening is part of his new research project called “The Shakespeare Experiment,” which explores Shakespeare performance and the construction of gender.
The Bard's plays were originally performed with teenaged boys in the female roles. Gilbert is taking that one step further by presenting the same scene three times with differently gendered actors appearing as Rosalind — a female student, a male student and a gay male student in drag.
His three-year-long research project will include yearly public performances,a new book on Shakespeare reception and mini-conferences coinciding with performances.
“I hope this project leads Canadians and the world at large to learn more about the possibilities of accepting human difference through one of the most challenging cultural anomalies — femininity in biological men,” he says.
Also on the roster for Gilbert is the world premiere of his newest play, Will the Real J.T. LeRoy Please Stand Up? Opening April 12 at Buddies in Bad Times and running weekends until April 22, it explores the scandal of an American woman, Laura Albert, and her husband, who wrote books as J.T. LeRoy, a transgendered teenaged street hustler with HIV. They successfully fooled publishers and readers until LeRoy's true identity was revealed in 2006. The play is a confrontation between “the real” J.T. LeRoy and Albert.
In addition, Gilbert has two new works being published by Playwrights Canada Press: his 2006 play, Bad Acting Teachers, and an anthology he edited called Perfectly Abnormal: Seven Gay Plays. The seven plays explore ideas about gender and possibilities for human relationships other than those offered by traditional heterosexual marriage.
“The title says it all,” says Gilbert. “Instead of focusing on the ways in which gay culture and straight culture are similar and celebrating our assimilation into straight culture, this collection accentuates the wonderful ways in which gay culture celebrates human diversity and sexual and gender differences.”
On May 2, he will celebrate the launch of his fifth novel, Brother Dumb, at the Gladstone Hotel Ballroom in Toronto.
“I haven't put out a novel in a couple of years, so I'm really excited about it,” says Gilbert, who received a ReLit Award for his fourth novel, An English Gentleman. “It's about a reclusive American writer who lives in the woods and doesn't like people. Everyone has been wondering what he's been writing because he hasn't published anything for 30 years.”
The novel is a fictional memoir of an American literary icon.