Lights, camera, action! Over a year later, theatre returns

After over a year and a half of being apart, the Art Out Loud mini-performance festival aims to safely bring the community together for an interactive experience.

“We’ve been apart for so long so this is the beginning of coming back together,” Theatre artist Sierra Haynes said. “The theater is a place where people congregate and learn and grow and feel together.

“I’m so glad that we’re actually having the ability to come back together. Even everyone just setting up today’s event was a magical thing in itself, because we’re all finding purpose again. You know, making something for other people to come enjoy and think about, and I think that’s what we all strive to do as theatre artists.”

The festival offered a variety of art installations in partnership with the Narrative Design Collective. The interactive exhibits inform people about what it’s like to be in theatre.

The Globe Theatre partnered with over 65 theatre makers to make the event happen.

Setting up one of those installations known as the Puppet Theatre, was John Cody.

“This is the first event in Regina now in about year and a half that’s been able to be done,” Cody said. “It’s a great way to make art, to make structures, to build and then also be in the park and be around people. It’s wonderful and overwhelming just to be able to work again.”

Since the pandemic hit, artists from across the province have been unable to go to the stage, leaving them busy making theatre in their homes.

“We’ve been doing a lot of audio projects,” Haynes said. “If you come to the park, you can bring your phone, bring your headphones, earbuds, and we’ve got QR codes all over the park telling a bunch of different stories.”

One of those audio projects was made by Haynes herself called The Alex Blake Connection.

“(My piece) explores a relationship between two people who end up being at long distance, but it’s in a time when we didn’t have video chat,” Haynes said. “We didn’t have texting, but we only have voicemail. So you actually listen to these two character’s voicemail messages through their message manager trying to connect with each other. When that becomes more and more difficult. So we ask the question, do relationships change, do they evolve, or do they fall apart?”

Haynes explained that most of the pieces in the mini-performance festival surround the idea of connection.

“We’ve all been lacking connection or trying to reinvent or re-understand what connection has been for us over this period of separateness,” Haynes said. “Now, we’re trying to invite people to come back together through theatre, which is really what theatre is all about bringing people together and bringing people together over the work that we’ve all been doing on our own.

“It’s been a long, cold, hard year for the theatre and it’s been difficult to watch some of my colleagues lose work, and see amazing pieces kind of get put aside. So I’m really, really thankful that the Globe has made a space for those creating work to be able to have a chance to show it off.”

Art Out Loud will carry-on throughout the weekend and attendees can enjoy the festival at their own pace. A jam-packed schedule of entertainment is posted Art Out Loud’s Website.