COVID-19 may have temporally closed the curtain on live entertainment, but Langley’s Dark Glass Theatre isn’t deterred by the measures – instead launching a one night only live-streaming production of Trespass: Unmasked.
Founded in 2016, Dark Glass Theatre’s mission is to tell stories that enable people to see, face to face, people we might not otherwise meet, thereby decreasing judgment, increasing compassion, and fostering empathy.
The company’s first-ever online storytelling event will feature true, personal stories of reconciliation, love, betrayal, hope, and forgiveness on Friday, May 15.
Founder Angela Konrad said Dark Glass has featured Trespass all over the Lower Mainland for the past three years, with the stipulation this time around that participants base their story on the words “trespass” and “unmasked” or a reoccurring quote from Martin Luther King;
We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive, is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us, some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.
“We wanted to acknowledge the time were in, but not get sucked down the rabbit hole of talking about COVID,” Konrad said about this particular installment.
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Because the event is online – storytellers taking part in Trespass: Unmasked come from all over.
Participants include Robert Salvador (Surrey), Kaitlin Williams (Vancouver), Shayna Jones, (Kaslo), Jacqueline Marie (Kelowna), Kyla Ferrier (Calgary), Joel Ballard (Vancouver), and Sarah Joanou (Chicago) and will be hosted by Konrad in a pre-recorded, shaped and curated format.
Konrad said she had worked with each of the performers in the past and decided to host Trespass in an online format to both give artists a place to work and provide theater lovers with a new experience.
“I have strongly mixed feelings about online theatre because breathing the same air as an audience having a communal live experience is to me what makes theatre,” Konrad told the Langley Advance Times.
“But with Trespass, it’s like a friend telling you a story – it can work because we can invite storytellers and audiences who can’t be here,” she explained.
Konrad said viewing is by donation and half the proceeds of this event will go directly to the storytellers who have been financially affected by COVID-19.
“Theatre artists are uncertain about their future and theatre will be the last thing to go ‘back to normal’,” Konrad noted.
Until a shift towards a new “normal” happens, Konrad hopes to create the feeling of a roomful of friends, connecting across miles.
“Through Trespass, people can picture someone else’s journey or learn a lesson without having to have gone through it,” she said, adding that in the end – despite the separations – theatre and even the coronavirus pandemic are all about human connections.
To make a donation and receive a viewing password, people can go to www.darkglasstheatre.com
The performance starts at 7:30 p.m.
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Email: ryan.uytdewilligen@langleyadvancetimes.com
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