Theatre @ York gracefully tackles bespoke David Yee play “Love in the Time of Werewolves”
Theatre @ York returns to the traditional way of theatre-making with playwright David Yee’s new play, Love in the Time of Werewolves. Maggie Basset Award-winning director Diana Belshaw led 30 upper-year and 100 first-year crew members alongside 15 Theatre @ York Acting Conservatory students in designing, producing, and realizing the production.
Love in the Time of Werewolves is a farce about the politics and chaos behind the scenes of a community theatre group attempting to get through Tech Dress of an epic new play. Love affairs, internal squabbling, grievous bodily harm, re-casting and a potentially dangerous intruder all stand between this production and greatness.
“There can be no greater gift to an actor than to perform in a role which has been tailored to them, nor for a class to premiere a new play by one of Canada’s most acclaimed writers,” says Belshaw. “It is particularly timely after the isolation of the last two years to be working on a play about the most collaborative of art forms, the theatre.”
Yee wrote Love in the Time of Werewolves specifically for this cohort of Theatre @ York students. Developed through a “bespoke” process, where Yee and project director Nina Lee Aquino worked with the fourth-year Acting Program students last winter, the play was written to give the performers an opportunity to play roles that more closely fit their ages and identities.
The production ran from November 20 to 26 as part of Theatre @ York’s live season. Future performances include Intercut (February 9, 2023) evening of readings of screenplays written by Screenwriting students, performed by Acting and Devising students; the 31st playGround Festival (February 14-17, 2023) with a collection of new student work; Devised Theatre Festival (March 14-18, 2023) featuring brand-new plays created by graduating Devised Theatre class; Dance Nation (March 26-April 2, 2023) by Clare Barron and directed by Anita La Selva; Scenes by Design (March 29-April 1, 2023), a curated gallery of Production and Design students’ work; and the MFA Performance Creation candidates’ Thesis Shows (date TBD).
