Loosely based on Mary Shelley’s horror story Frankenstein, Vancouver’s Miscellaneous Productions explores the issue of bullying in the upcoming new music theatre work, Monsters.
While Monsters will not premiere in Vancouver until October, the company will present a free open rehearsal and community forum at the end of the month as part of its creative process.
In Monsters, 14 Vancouver youth explore the concept of ‘monsters’ by integrating stories with the performers’ personal experiences of bullying or being bullied. The play is both an internal and external exploration as it refers to both the monsters they have encountered, and the monsters they find within themselves.
“Miscellaneous Productions’ Monsters is important because it is geared to youth age nine and older, and explores the issue of bullying which is confounding school principals, teachers, students and parents,” says Miscellaneous Productions co-founder Elaine Carol .
Designed for children and performed by youth, Monsters explores how and why a community creates and supports a ‘monster’, how collusion functions, and how many of us are unaware of just how damaging bullies can be.
“In this era of international bullying, in which dictators and mass murderers are glorified, it is crucial that we employ art to examine our complicity, educate children and youth so that they can find healthy ways of expressing themselves, and find ways to resist,” continues Carol.
Miscellaneous Productions is a Vancouver-based non-profit society using the performing arts as a means for social change and personal transformation in culturally and socially diverse youth. It empowers them to be fully participating citizens. Dubbed ‘Glee with Grit,’ Miscellaneous Productions is the only performing arts-based, youth-serving organization of its kind in Canada.
The Monsters open rehearsal and public community forum will take place at the Faris Family Studio Theatre in the Scotiabank Dance Centre (677 Davie St, Vancouver) on Friday, April 28. Admission is free. Visit https://miscellaneousproductions.ca for more information.