Vancouver Theatre New Play Workshop Asks, 'Where Is The Line?'

Where is the line? This is the central question of a trilogy of short plays to be workshopped at JBA Studios brand new Black Box Theatre (https://jebbeach.com) Nov 29th to December 1st, 2019.

Be it between Hollywood co-workers in #YOuTHREE, a maestro and his aspiring prodigy in DISCORd, or a pair of couples performing social-norms to their own ruin in SMiLE. The question remains throughout... Where. is. the. line? The three short plays (15-20mins each), will run back-to-back. They are written & directed by Jax Smith & Helene Taylor, and will be performed by: Ashley Alexander, Jeb Beach, Robyn Daye Edwards and Alexander Krstich.

"Our work explores the hidden toll of emotional labour, and the negative effects of rigid gender-roles on both sexes" says, writer & director, Jax Smith. Her co-writer / co-director Helene Taylor agrees, "It's at times cringe-worthy, at others heartbreaking, but these playlets draw from our own life experiences as women, and caregivers to loved ones in our mid-30's and early-50's."

Raw and exposing, the work explores grief, mental illness, and the subtleties of sexual-harassment through acerbic hilarity, discomfort, and acute observation. The audience will be invited into an intimate scaled back, minimalist setting wherein, a cast of four dressed in black navigate first a funeral service, then a cafe and finally a cocktail party.

Tickets are by donation, with 50% of proceeds being donated in honour of Dante De Cubellis to the Movember Canada Foundation, for men's mental health and suicide.

EventBrite link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/theatre-workshop-a-triptych-of-imparities-youthree-discord-and-smile-tickets-78214019237

#YOuTHREE is an acerbic bold response to those who nod to the #metoo movement and yet need their paycheques from the perpetrators. Three employees of a smarmy Hollywood executive attend his funeral and learn, not only the dead harbor secrets. Written by Helene Taylor.

DISCORd explores the work dynamic and power play between boss and underling. A prodigy pianist becomes unhinged when she interviews with a sexually predatory music director and is seemingly given her dream at the expense of her deceased mother's legacy. DISCORd has garnered several laurels in its original form, as a short-film script including: Top 25 Table Read My Screenplay Austin, Semi-Finalist Screencraft Film Fund, Semi-Finalist Script Short Screencraft, Short-list Filmmatic Film Festival and is an official selection of the Cindependent Film Festival. Written by Jax Smith & Helene Taylor.

SMiLE is personal. It reaches into our most intimate relationships; some lost, some nearly-lost, all precious and painful. The male characters of this piece are crafted from our mutual experience of caregiving to very opposite-presenting depression. With one of us having lost her husband to depression, the subject-matter is sensitive to say the least. But one that is needed in these times when, "Eight men die by suicide in Canada every single day" (Craig Martin, global director of Mental Health & Suicide Prevention for the Movember Foundation). Written by Jax Smith & Helene Taylor.