UNews - Meg Braem

Drama Mainstage presents Blood: A Scientific Romance

caroline.zentner — Wed, 05 Feb 2020 18:12:15 +0000

The third production of the Drama Mainstage 2019 – 2020 season opens with a twisted tale about loss and love. Blood: A Scientific Romance by award-winning playwright, Meg Braem, runs February 11 – 15 at 7:30 p.m. on the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Theatre stage. Filled with visceral imagery and haunting dialogue, Blood: A Scientific Romance is a captivating play featuring a rich cast of characters directed by guest director, Kelly Reay.

Jessica Syratt (left) and Daylin Chase

Twin sisters Poubelle and Angelique are bonded in both biology and shared tragedy after a car accident leaves them orphaned along a prairie highway in a pool of blood. But the young twins are brought home with Dr. Glass after their remarkable recovery, and quickly find themselves the subject of endless experiments. In a quest to study Poubelle and Angelique’s undeniable bond, Dr Glass’ questionable practices are soon scrutinized by a young doctor who might be the twins’ only hope for a normal life.

Canadian playwright, Meg Braem, has spent her career in Alberta, and is currently the Lee Writer in Residence at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta’s Department of Drama. Blood: A Scientific Romance has received many accolades, including the winner of the 2011 Gwen Pharis Ringwood Award for Drama and the Alberta Playwrighting Competition, and a nomination for the Governor General’s Award.

“I produced the world premiere of Blood in 2011 at Sage Theatre in Calgary,” says director, Kelly Reay. “We were dazzled by the language and the abstract, poetic storytelling. We had worked with Meg on a number of other projects and Blood was another exciting opportunity for us to work with her. The play is very compelling and a great showcase for these young actors to sink their teeth into. I’m excited to be working with the script again at the U of L.”

The themes of Blood: A Scientific Romance draw from the tight bonds of the two sisters.

"Blood is a play full of heart and love. It's also very haunting, with elements of early melodramatic storytelling," says Reay. "I expect audiences' imaginations will be taken to some very visceral places."

Tickets for Blood: A Scientific Romance are available at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Box Office, Monday – Friday (12:30 pm – 3:30 pm), by calling 403-329-2616 or online ulethbridge.ca/tickets. Tickets are $18 regular, $13 senior and alumni and $12 students. Themes are mature with scenes depicting graphic medical procedures.

Creative writers crowned as competition winners

trevor.kenney — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 21:43:58 +0000

Thanks to a generous alumnus, ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge students have the opportunity to flex their creative-writing muscles and possibly win fame and fortune. The annual Striking Prose short story competition and Play Right Prize playwriting competition, sponsored by alum Terry Whitehead (BA '94), are proud to announce the 2014 award winners.

Contest winners, from left, include Czarina Zoleta, Liam Monaghan, Travis Robinson and Chelsea Woolley.

Taking the first place prize in the Striking Prose category is Travis Robinson for his short story, The Contest, in which a radio contest captures the attention and imagination of a small town. This was the only award presented this year for Striking Prose.

A three member jury consisting of Dr. Jay Gamble, Dr. Kiki Benzon and Dr. Heather Ladd critiqued the story by saying that through carefully building suspense, the author shifts perspectives between a number of average men and women, finally showing his audience that the extraordinary is never far from the ordinary. The strength of this story was its shifting focalization and whirling perspectival shifts. They also indicated that a contest where something is won and something is lost is the uneasy irony of this finely observed short story.

First place for the Play Right Prize went to Czarina Zoleta for her play, In Another Life, which the jurors unanimously agreed on because the script moved them so strongly.

“There are beautiful relationships between characters in this script and the structure creates strong dramatic tension,” says Zaborsky on behalf of fellow jurors Jacqueline Russell and Meg Braem. “We thought it was subtle in its poignancy. All three of us were moved by the story. It also managed to successfully create believable alternative worlds.”

Because the quality was so high, this year’s Play Right Prize jurors found it too hard to decide on second and third place winners, so two second prize awards were presented to Liam Monaghan for Mad Little Gods and Chelsea Woolley for Goose, respectively. This was not Woolley’s first award for the Play Right Prize competition. In 2012, her play 1000 Names won second place and was produced in the 2012/2013 TheatreXtra season.

Monaghan and Woolley split the second and third prize awards, receiving $500 each. The jurors said that both plays captured great character voices and showed a wonderful use of conflict. Of Mad Little Gods, they said that the juxtaposition of Christmas hymns with the darkness of the tragic subject matter was a strong choice that creates a discomforting tension for the audience. The character voices in Goose were strong and clear, and Goose is a very likable character that has the audience immediately on her side.

Both winning entries receive a $1,500 prize, one of the most lucrative awards in the country for a student competition. The $5,000 in prize money is generously donated each year by alumnus Terry Whitehead, the competition aiming to encourage excellence and development in student playwriting.

The winning play and short story each receive a public reading on Thursday, Mar. 27at 7 p.m. in the David Spinks Theatre. Admission is free and everyone is welcome to attend.

Flavours of ancient Greece to tantalize audiences of Exia

trevor.kenney — Fri, 15 Nov 2013 22:40:28 +0000

Sink your teeth into one of the juiciest dramas of the Drama Main Stage season. Spicy, sensual and tantalizing, Exia, written by Governor General Literary Award nominee and Theatre and Dramatic Arts faculty, Meg Braem, promises to satisfy all audience appetites.

Exia, by Meg Braem, plays at 8 p.m. nightly in the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Theatre, Nov. 19-23.

Playing Nov. 19-23 in the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Theatre at 8 p.m. nightly, this premier production transports patrons to a sumptuous scene in Ancient Greece. Chrysothemis and Elektra have returned home to discover their father, King Agamemnon, murdered by their anorexic and withdrawn mother. Through the power and fragrance of her gastronomical talents, Chrysothemis attempts to bring her family back together.

“Exia is about murder and revenge, but it’s also about young love. And although it’s based in the tradition of Ancient Greece, is very contemporary – very sensual and touching,” says Gail Hanrahan, director.

Shortlisted for the 2013 Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama for her play, Blood: A Scientific Romance, playwright Meg Braem gives credit to the students in her Canadian Plays and Development class two years ago for helping develop Exia.

“This play is truly built out of the university, and incorporates the voices of our students,” she says. “It is about youthful characters and incorporates the themes and beauty of young love. It was through the work done in class with our students that we captured that spirit in the script.”

Exia, derived from the word orexis, or appetite, promises to satiate audiences with a feast promising to enthrall, excite and thrill.

Tickets are available at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Box Office (Monday to Friday, 12:30 to 3:30 p.m., 403-329-2616). Tickets are priced at $18 regular, $15 senior, $12 students and are also available for purchase online: uleth.ca/tickets.

Drama professor Braem up for Governor General's Award

trevor.kenney — Mon, 28 Oct 2013 21:50:31 +0000

Meg Braem, a Calgary-based playwright who teaches in the Department of Theatre and Dramatic Arts at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge, has been shortlisted for the 2013 Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama.

While busy preparing a new play for its premiere on the U of L stage, Braem will find out on Nov. 13 if she is selected for her play Blood: A Scientific Romance.

Theatre and Dramatic Arts professor Meg Braem is ready to premiere her newest work, Exia, Nov. 19-23.

Braem’s nomination serves as an inspiration to current drama students and aspiring playwrights at the U of L.

“Having Meg as a teacher is a great opportunity for our students to work with an active playwright who is willing to share her knowledge and passion for new Canadian plays,” says Faculty of Fine Arts Dean,
Dr. Ed Jurkowski. “This nomination further reinforces Meg’s ability to produce high-calibre work that is nationally recognized. We congratulate Meg on her nomination, and look forward to seeing her newest play, Exia, on our stage beginning Nov. 19.”

Braem says being notified of the nomination, a first for the U of L and for a Faculty of Fine Arts (drama) faculty member, was a nice surprise.

“This is so validating for my work and remarkable to have my play among the amazing plays nominated," she says.

Blood is about twin sisters who are bonded in both biology and shared tragedy after a car accident leaves them orphaned. After their remarkable recovery, they are brought home only to be subjected to endless experiments to study their undeniable bond.

“In this play, I’m really exploring human connection,” says Braem, a twin herself. “During the writing process I did extensive research about emotional intelligence and the experiments on twins by
Dr. Josef Mengele, as well as the Dionne Quintuplets.”

This is not the first honour for Blood, which also won the 2009 Alberta Playwriting Competition, 2009 Playwrights Guild of Canada Post-Secondary Playwriting Competition, and 2011 Alberta Literary Prize. Her other plays, The Josephine Knot, Potentilla and The Year of Falling Downhave also garnered awards.

Braem completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts in acting at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Victoria , where a desire to have more control led her to start writing and acting in her own plays at Fringe Festivals.

“I always wanted to write,” she says. “It just feels right.”

She then completed her master's degree in playwriting at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Calgary.

“Blood was my master’s thesis project. My supervisor Clem Martini was great, and a wonderful support as I figured out this story and how to write it.”

Braem’s newest work, Exia, will be premiered at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge, Nov. 19-23.

“While Blood was written in a more traditional way, with lots of drafts and then working with a dramaturge, Exia was a more collaborative process with U of L students that I taught in the New Plays Development course,” she says. “The process was amazing and the students’ creative input really added to the final product.”

Active on the professional theatre scene, Braem has had productions/readings at Alberta Theatre Projects (ATP), Theatre Calgary, Sage Theatre, The Gateway Theatre, Urban Curvz, Atomic Vaudeville and the Belfry. She participated in the 2013 Banff Playwrights Colony and is a current member of the Citadel Theatre’s Playwriting Forum.

In addition to Braem, the Governor General Award nominees include: Fault Lines: Three Plays by Nicolas Billon (Toronto); The Swearing Jar by Kate Hewlett (Stratford, Ont.); Frenchtown by Lawrence Jeffery (Niagara-on-the-lake, Ont.); and Shakespeare’s Nigga by Joseph Jomo (Toronto).

The winner will be announced on Nov. 13. An award presentation will take place in Ottawa at Rideau Hall on Nov. 28.

Whitehead gift gets creative juices flowing

trevor.kenney — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 21:09:32 +0000

Thanks to generous ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge alumnus, Terry Whitehead (BA '94), students have the opportunity to flex their creative writing muscles and possibly win fame and fortune.

Whitehead provides $5,000 in prize money to support the annual Play Right Prize and Striking Prose competition to encourage excellence and development in student playwriting and short story writing.

When the 2012 winners were asked why they participated in this competition they all answered the same way – because they love to write.

Pictured here are the winners from the Play Right Prize and Striking Prose competition. Back row from left are Cole Olson and Christopher Wallace. Front from left are Lori-Ann Steward, Kristine Saretsky, Makambe Simamba and Chelsea Woolley.

The first place prize in the Striking Prose category went to English major Kristine Saretsky for her short story The Persephone Games. The three member jury, made up of Department of English faculty, Dr. Kiki Benzon, Dr. Maureen Hawkins and Dr. Jay Gamble, conclude Saretsky's story is a moving read that is part mystery, part dream and entirely entrancing. What is left unsaid defines the story and is most terrifying.

First place for the Play Right Prize went to Makambe Simamba, a BFA Drama major, for her play MUD, which speaks to contemporary Canadian issues in a powerful and poetic way. The jury included Meg Braem, an award-winning playwright and drama faculty member; alumni Andy Jenkins (BFA '07), Empress Theatre's summer program director; and Estelle Shook, the former artistic director of British Columbia's nationally acclaimed Caravan Farm Theatre. With a record number of submissions, the jurors were impressed with the high degree of imagination demonstrated by the student playwrights.

Both first prize winners receive $1,500 and the opportunity to share their winning entries at a public reading on Thursday, Mar. 15 at 7 p.m. in the David Spinks Theatre. Admission is free and everyone is welcome to attend. The evening includes a reception and cash bar.

Second place in the Play Right competition went to Chelsea Woolley for her script 1000 Names, which had rich, vivid characters and timeless potent themes. Third place went to Cole Olson for his play Patriarch, a work that takes a personal and intimate approach to the classic family drama. They receive awards of $750 and $250 respectively.

Because the quality was so high, this year's Striking Prose jurors found it too hard to decide on a second and third place story, so two second prize awards were presented to Christopher Wallace for his story Alex and to Lori-Ann Steward for her submission Marionette.

Wallace and Steward split the second and third prize awards and each receive $500.

This story first appeared in the March 2012 issue of the Legend. For a look at the full issue in a flipbook format, follow this link.

UNews - Meg Braem

Drama Mainstage presents Blood: A Scientific Romance

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