The Other Theatre Presents LOVE U LOVECRAFT [LAB] at Bain St. Michel, Now thru April 20

Channeling a little bit of horror, a little bit of fear, The Other Theatre returns to its creative roots with a new collective work inspired by the weirdness of H.P. Lovecraft, directed by Stacey Christodoulou. Playing in English and French at Bain St. Michel from tonight, April 16-20, in collaboration with Infinitheatre.

A young girl's mysterious disappearance, a mother's broken memories, prophecies, secret gardens, games in the forest - stories of the unknowable and the unnameable. As part of its creative process, The Other Theatre invites audiences to a week-long public lab, into a world out of time and out of joint. All tickets are pay-what-you-can.

For Christodoulou, director and Artistic Director of The Other Theatre, once you start H.P. Lovecraft, you never want to stop. "The godfather of modern sci-fi, Lovecraft anticipated all the fantastical elements that would become staples of modern film, television and fiction. If you have seen the television series The Twilight Zone, you will have seen elements of Lovecraft; if you have seen the film Alien, you will have seen an adapted story of Lovecraft. If you have played videogames involving haunted Victorian houses and jelly-fish monsters, Lovecraft was their inspiration." She continues, "Enki Bilal's graphic novels, such as Arkham Asylum, owe a huge debt to Lovecraft. If you have read any science fiction novels that talk about aliens, the time/space continuum and human evolution, Lovecraft's ghost is there as well. There is a long tradition of artists using Lovecraft's themes to create their own stories, to explore the weird preoccupations in the human psyche. (We're looking at you, Stephen King! David Lynch!) Add The Other Theatre to the Lovecraft fan club."

After directing Shakespeare, straight drama, political work and installations, Christodoulou thought it was time to do another collective project, "I wanted to create a more experimental piece with poetic text, lots of movement and a theme that spoke to our subconscious rather than any overt political preoccupations. The world of Lovecraft is populated by small towns, strange characters, dark forests, rituals, weird ancestries and dreams that are portals into other worlds - both subconscious and supernatural."

Inspired by all of this, the company began researching, gathering images, and started to spin a story. Their goal is to create an experience, a collage of associations rather than a narrative; similar to the dreams people have before dawn breaks and the world is clear, new and rational. What audiences will see is the fruits of their collaboration. Christodoulou explains the idea behind this presentation, "The lab will be a fleshed out proposal with set, lights, music, movement and text. We will then use the time between the lab and the final presentation in November to tweak an already existing artistic process."

With: Anana Rydvald, Sarah C. Carlsen, Dean Makarenko, Alexandra Montagnese and Cedrick Roy. Set design, Amy Keith; costume design, Marija Djordjevic; and lighting design, David Perreault Ninacs; The stage manager is Alyssa Harms-Wiebe and production manager/technical director is Richard Piquet.

love u lovecraft [lab]; a collective creation will be presented by The Other Theatre, in collaboration with Infinitheatre at Bain St. Michel, 5300, rue St-Dominique (corner Maguire), running tonight, April 16-Sat. April 20 at 8pm. All tickets are PAY WHAT YOU CAN. Reservations: (514) 987-1774 ext. 104.

H.P. Lovecraft (inspiration)
Howard Phillips Lovecraft was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction. Although Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, he is now commonly regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th Century, exerting widespread and indirect influence, and frequently compared to Edgar Allan Poe.

Stacey Christodoulou (director)
Stacey Christodoulou is the founder and Artistic Director of The Other Theatre.
She has directed all of the company's theatre works in the last twenty years and is currently collaborating with architect Enrique Enriquez and filmmaker Tamara Scherback on a series of installations where the public is choreographed through ipods. Upcoming work: Etiquette 4 Lucid Dreaming (mp3 installation) for IDEAS CITY, curated by the New Museum in New York, in collaboration with Project for Empty Space. Stacey Christodoulou is a graduate of the University of Toronto's Theatre Programme and has studied at l'école de mime Omnibus, Anne Bogart's Siti Company and New York's LaMama Theatre.

For more about love u lovecraft, visit othertheatre.com/love-u-lovecraft-lab/, and for more about The Other Theatre, go to www.othertheatre.com/about/.

Photo: Yorgos Giannelis

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