Spotlight on Faculty: Shawn Kerwin

Shawn Kerwin joins us to share her experience of her 2017-18 sabbatical, which saw her designing two important works in Newfoundland with director and York alumna Jillian Keiley, and participating as a full-time student in the “Institute without Boundaries.” Shawn shares stories of the 2 shows, and of her time in the IwB, and how they’ve changed the way she thinks about design.

Spotlight on Faculty: James McKernan

Professor James McKernan, is a scenic carpenter and a professor at York University. He’sbuilt over 200 hundred shows which include: films, live theatre and dance, trade show displays and custom items for performance pieces. Along with his BFA in Theatre Production from York, James received a B.Ed. from OISE at U of T and started teaching at an arts high school in the GTA; from there he got my job at York. He still builds shows to support research, dabbles in sound design and production manages the odd show. Really, he just likes solving problems.

Spotlight on Faculty: Heather Fitzsimmons Frey

1) Who are you? My name is Heather Fitzsimmons Frey and I am a Banting Post-Doctoral Fellow at York.  I’m working with Marlis Schweitzer in Theatre Studies in Art, Media, Performance and Design. One of the reasons she is a great mentor for me is that we are both interested in performance-based historiography—that is, the …

Spotlight on Faculty: Marlis Schweitzer

1. Who are you? I’m Marlis Schweitzer, and I’m a theatre and performance historian and love spending time in archives looking at scrapbooks, photographs, letters, and other documents from the nineteenth and early-twentieth century. The weirdest “object” I’ve encountered during my time researching at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC was a well-preserved piece …

Spotlight on Faculty: Teresa Przybylski and Shawn Kerwin (audio)

Faculty members Teresa Przybylski and Shawn Kerwin met with Eric Armstrong to record an audio interview about their design work for The Stratford Festival’s 2017 season. Kerwin is designing Euripides The Bakkhai, directed by York aluma Jillian Keiley, while Przybylski is designing The Madwoman of Chaillot, by French playwright Jean Giraudoux, directed by Donna Feore.

York U Theatre Alumni at the Doras

The Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts’s Dora Mavor Moore Awards are presented annually to honour outstanding theatre, dance, and opera productions. This year’s gala takes place Monday June 27 at Harbourfront Centre. York University students, faculty and alumni received over 24 nominations, recognizing their remarkable talent and contributions to Toronto’s vibrant arts scene.

The acclaimed double bill Botticelli in the Fire & Sunday in Sodom, a Canadian Stage production collaboration with the Department of Theatre racked up seven nominations, including Outstanding Production and Outstanding Direction for Matjash Mrozewski and Estelle Shook, who took the helm as part of their MFA in Directing in Collaboration with Canadian Stage.

Professor Teresa Przybylski received two nods – Outstanding Scenic Design for Hedda Gabler with and Outstanding Costume Design for The Death of the King.

Click here for a list of York University connected nominations.