Kay Meek Play Reading Series. Curated and hosted by Nicola Cavendish and Elaine McHarg. Eight plays in six days, Jan. 15-20. Each night a different play is read by a cast of professional actors followed by a talk–back and discussion with the playwright. For more info visit kaymeek.com.
Despite a lack of props, costumes or any on-stage action, audiences can rest assured they’ll be enthralled during Kay Meek Centre’s second Play Reading Series.
That’s the message curator and host Nicola Cavendish wants to get across in the lead up to the six-day series that will see eight plays read by a cast of professional actors based on in-progress works from well-established and new playwrights.
“It’s about giving playwrights an opportunity, which is so rare, to actually have their plays heard by a public,” Cavendish explains.
Works selected to be read at this year’s series are described as touching upon themes of family, loss, love and awakening. Following each play’s reading a talk-back and discussion with the Playwright will take place.
For those unfamiliar with play readings, Cavendish describes them as an essential part of the playwriting process where the creator gets to hear their work read aloud and assess what’s working – and perhaps what’s not – at that point in the creative course.
Having pros reading the works-in-progress helps too, she says.
“Because they’re professional actors they bring it to life with their voices. They’re not just reading them flat off the page, they really get into the emotional content, they really relate to the person, the other character they’re talking to,” she says. “They create the world richly because they know what they’re doing, because they do that all the time for a living on stage.”
For the audience, who are forced to rely on their imagination to help bring actors’ words to life, Kay Meek’s Play Reading Series will leave spectators “utterly engaged,” Cavendish says.
She talks highly about all the plays on the docket, noting works such as Certified by local comedian Jan Derbyshire and We Could Be Clouds by Gary Mok that are set to be read.
“We’ve got a really well-established standup comedian who’s written her play called Certified, and it’s her personal monologue piece about becoming certified. It’s a look at mental illness, and it takes incredible courage,” she says.
One of the plays being read this year is by an extremely seasoned writer who just so happens to be green when it comes to writing plays.
Closing out the series Jan. 20 is Max Wyman’s Bluebell Time, a one-act memory play featuring two characters (one of which Cavendish happens to be reading for).
The former longtime arts critic and cultural commentator for the Vancouver Sun, as well as author of numerous books on the arts in Canada, is no stranger to writing, but admits creating a play has been a totally new challenge for him.
“It struck me a year or so ago that I had never done any writing for voice,” he says. “I always like learning new skills as a writer and I tell you, it’s a totally new skill.”
He goes on: “Writing for voice is totally different. You lose any need for decoration. As soon as you start throwing in adjectives or adverbs it becomes stilted and unnatural. You have to bring a different ear to what you’re writing, which I find fascinating.”
Wyman describes his first public foray into playwriting as a personal but not autobiographical piece. It’s a play about a mother and son in England during the 1930s and ’40s and then further into the 20th century.
“It’s a bittersweet tale,” he says. “I hope (the audience) will walk away with just an amplified understanding of how people are, of how people live together.”
Cavendish adds that it’s important to nurture the audience during a performance as well as the playwright-in-process, and reading Wyman’s play will do both of those things.
“Max is the just the most extraordinary nurturer himself. He was so well-known by myself personally and the theatre community as being someone who reviewed rather than critiqued with knives,” she says.
Last year was the Play Reading Series’ inaugural showing. A strong reception and word of mouth prompted Cavendish to curate and host a second series this year.
Asked why people should come out to hear this year’s set of plays read out in all their emotional fervor, she insists that audiences, having experienced a reading, won’t want to leave their seats.
“I would say … they would feel and find the heart that West Vancouver is looking for in that little studio theatre.”
