Actors in training

YouthWorks celebrates 10 years.
Plus: this year’s Fringe winners

SAYING WHAT’S ON THEIR MINDS:
Participants at 2009’s YouthWorks

by NEIL BOYCE

YouthWorks is a Black Theatre Workshop initiative that began as a training program for black youth. Now celebrating its 10th anniversary, it’s a year-round project for 10–19-year-olds of all backgrounds. Theatre-based, the program covers dance, voice, hip hop and storytelling in an “Africentric but inclusive process” that reinforces ideas of ancestry and ritual so central to black culture.

Tamara Brown, YouthWorks program director, explains their approach. “Whether they need to express themselves through an f-bomb or not,” she says, “we don’t want to shut them down. We want them to tell their stories in their own way.”

Jason Selman, a musician, poet and facilitator at YouthWorks, adds, “The kids who attend are always much more capable than they think they are. It’s challenging, but they consistently impress me with what they have to say.”

“We learn just through doing,” concludes Brown. “Whether it’s acting or spoken word or dance, you know, it’s ‘find your way, say what’s on your mind’. That’s what keeps me inspired year after year. It fires me up, man.”

FRINGE FRANKIE AWARDS

The 20th Fringe Festival drew to a close last Sunday with the presentation, as has been custom for 13 years now, of the Frankie Awards. Fringe sponsors, each with their own jury, look at the fest from all angles and make their picks. Prizes vary, with winners getting cash, script development, a theatre booking or a spot in the following year’s Fringe. Here’s how it went down.

Centaur Theatre’s Best English Production: a hit with audiences and critics alike was Holly Gauthier-Frankel’s Miss Sugarpuss Must Die!

Théâtre Denise-Pelletier awarded Le prix Fred-Barry for Best Production Design to the Rod Serling-influenced Shades of Grey, from company Black Box Montreal. Special mention went to Route 1.

Just for Laughs’ Best English Comedy prize was bestowed upon the hardest working actors at the Fringe, Uncalled For, for their show Hypnogogic Logic. Arlington, Virginia actor David Gaines was runner-up with his multi-character sweat fest 7 (x1) Samurai.

Robin Henderson is an impressive two-for-two in successive Fringes. After grabbing the Best English Comedy award last year, she wins the Cirque du Soleil’s Meilleure création originale for Dance Animal Presents: Freaks of Nature. Special mentions went to Autant s’emportent les gens from Sur la coche, and Shades of Grey.

MainLine Theatre’s The Next Stage Award for a Local English Production went to Joanne Sarazin’s Jesus Jello: The Miraculous Confection by Sheep in Fog Theatre. Hot Pink was runner up.

The Prix Flexi dance award presented by Studio 303 was given to Geneviève Gagné and Emily Honeggar for their duet Free Fluid Feminine, part of the recurring Fringe dance showcase Piss in the Pool; special mentions went to Andrew Tay for his piece Ghetto Love (also featured in Piss in the Pool) and to Dance Animal, “for their contagious positive energy.”

The Chapters Best English Text winner this year was SEEKING..., written by Vermont fringers Chris Caswell, Marianne DiMascio, and Geeda Searfoorce, while Meilleure texte en français went to Edouard et Charlotte, by Anne Trudel and Pierre-Luc Léveillé.

Finally, the Spirit of the FRINGE Award was given to Belzébrute (creators of Shavirez, Gypsy of the Sea), with special mention going to LoveCraftWerk, who made this year’s stoner favourite, There Will Be Lasers.