Upcoming Toronto Film School Showcase Features Video Game Launch and Free Stage Production of Metamorphoses
Whether you are an actor, filmmaker, writer or video game developer, entertainment, at its core, is all about an audience.
“The work can’t live in a vacuum,” explained Hart Massey, the Co-Coordinator of the Acting for Film, Television and the Theatre Diploma program at the Toronto Film School. “It has to be put on display in front of an audience… you do this work so that an audience can watch it or take it in and think about it or react to it.”
To that end, the Toronto Film School hosts a showcase of student work each semester.
“All of us in the entertainment world need to understand how an audience is reacting to the work and that is the purpose of showcase week,” Massey said.
This term the showcase takes place March 16 to 21 and will feature work by acting students, film-producing students, writing students and, for the first time, video game students.
During the showcase students present some of their work, whether it be a monologue a writing student penned, a short film or an acting performance.
The showcase is designed to benefit both the presenting students, other students at the school, family, friends, faculty and the general public who might be interested in attending.
“The benefit for the student is that they get an audience, which in acting it is the most important thing,” Massey explained. “Watching an audience react to your work, being able to sustain focus in front of a live audience.”
For students not presenting during the showcase, Massey said, it gives them an opportunity to see their peers and see what they might be encountering in their future studies at Toronto Film School.
An interesting new element to the showcase this year will be the launch party for a video game that was born out of a collaboration between Toronto Film School’s Video Game programs, Acting and Writing programs.
“It is so cool,” Massey said. “I am really looking forward to seeing it.”
The showcase week culminates in the stage production by Term 5 Acting students.
Sue Miner, a professional director and instructor at Toronto Film School is the directing the Term 5 production of Metamorphoses by Mary Zimmerman.
Fourteen students will stage 10 stories based Metamorphoses, an epic Latin narrative poem by the Roman poet Ovid.
“This is a very physical show,” Miner said. “It goes to all sorts of different imaginative places. There is a ship wreck, and there is a drowning and they go down to the underworld, they go down to Hades and there are all sorts of wild things that happen.”
There are four different show times: Friday, March 20 at 8 p.m. and Saturday, March 21 at 3 p.m., 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. at the Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie at 304 Parliament St. in Toronto.
All other showcase events take place at the Toronto Film School’s Dundas Campus on the 7th floor of 10 Dundas Street West.
Admission to all events, including Metamorphoses, is free.
Showcase Schedule:
Monday, March 16
- 1 to 2 p.m. – Writing 2A in Room 402
- 2 to 3 p.m. – Writing 2C in Room 402
- 3 to 4 p.m. – Writing 2B in Room 402
- 6 to 8 p.m. – Short Films 6C in Studio 2
Tuesday, March 17
- 4 to 5 p.m. – Movement 3 in Studio 2
- 5 to 6 p.m. – Movement 4 in Studio 2
- 7 to 9 p.m. – Short Films 6A in Studio 2
Wednesday, March 18
- 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. – Acting 3 in Studio 2
- 2 to 4 p.m. – Camera Acting 3 in Studio 4
- 4 to 5 p.m. – Acting 4 in Studio 4
- 4 to 7 p.m. – Video Games Launch in Studio 2
- 7 to 9 p.m. – Short Films 6C in Studio 2
Thursday, March 19
- 4 to 6 p.m. – Voice 3 in Studio 3
- 6 to 8 p.m. – Acting 2C in Studio 3
Friday, March 20th
- 1 to 3 p.m. – Acting 2B in Studio 4
- 3:30 to 5 p.m. – Acting 2A in Studio 4
- 8 p.m. – Term 5 Play “Metamorphoses” at Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie, 304 Parliament St. (Parliament & Dundas)
Saturday, March 21
- 3 p.m., 6 p.m., and 9 p.m. – Term 5 Play “Metamorphoses” at Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie, 304 Parliament St. (Parliament & Dundas)
Tickets for the play can be reserved at https://bit.ly/1CaO58j
For more information about the Toronto Film School and its programs visit www.torontofilmschool.ca
