Cock by Mike Bartlett - Theatre By The River

At only 34, Mike Bartlett's writing has been produced by some of the top theatres in London on top of seeing productions around the world, after emerging from The Old Vic New Voices programme in 2005. Cock premiered in 2009 at The Royal Court, a theatre famous for "breaking" new playwrights (you know, like Caryl Churchill, Tim Crouch, & more). The story is one of a man at odds with his feelings; John is in a relationship on the rocks, and has an affair with another partner. His first partner is a man, the second, a woman. But what matter?

Bartlett's play challenges us through John's seeming indecision; why must a decision be made about WHO to love based on some ideal? Why do we feel this necessity to pigeon-hole people into descriptive boxes? Truly, why does it matter who we love? Bartlett won the coveted Olivier award for this intellectually stimulating yet visceral play.

Winnipeg's Theatre By The River, under the direction of Rodrigo Beilfuss, bring this beautifully written and challenging piece of theatre to Winnipeg audiences in only the second Canadian production (Toronto beat us by a few short months...).

This is a different kind of theatre. One that doesn't rely on sets or props, or anything - simply words and their power
. Challenge yourself. Prepare to think, and try something new.

Cock runs in rep with another of Mike Bartlett's plays, Bull (same cast, different plays, different nights) through October 4th at the Platform Gallery.

For tickets head over to Theatre By The River's website.

16,000 views. . . and upcoming adventures

How exciting to see that 16,000 people have viewed (lurked) this page. Someone other than me knows it exists, even if by accident!

I suppose some folks have taken notice, anyway, because I've had some great developments recently.

First, I was horribly busy over the winter, and didn't share the link to my very first published academic piece by Brunel University's Body, Space, Technology Journal! The piece was an artistic statement about my play Dear Mama performed at Sondheimfest in early 2013. You can navigate to the Journal's page here: http://people.brunel.ac.uk/bst/vol1201/kendrajones/home.html

Second, I have recently joined Theatre By The River (http://www.theatrebytheriver.com) as a member of the Artistic Company. My first adventure for the company was to host a panel discussion about their upcoming production of Mike Bartlett's Cock and Bull, being performed in Repertory this fall. We've got loads more in the works, so stay tuned for info about a project in the late fall and things into 2015.

Third (and final for now), I'm very pleased to be joining the review crew for CBC Manitoba's coverage of the Winnipeg Fringe Festival! I'm definitely looking forward to sparking conversations and debate about the shows in this year's fest from a more formal point of view. That does mean, however, that the majority of my reviewing will be found over at the CBC site rather than here. Keep an eye out, I'll link to them, too.