Burnt Thicket Theatre
- Categories:
- Multiples
- General info
-
Burnt Thicket Theatre is an independent company producing live and digital theatre that brings awareness to real issues in our community on Treaty Six territory, planting seeds for positive social change. Our vision is a world of hopeful people who know their immeasurable value in the midst of brokenness and who work together towards a shared future marked by justice, equality and love. Our mission is to tell stories that kindle hopeful change in people’s lives.
With over 250 performances to date in 27 cities across Canada, Burnt Thicket Theatre began in 2007 as an artist collective in Calgary. Founding artistic director James Popoff and current artistic director Stephen Waldschmidt created Hockey Dad: A Play In 3 Periods, which toured across western Canada, inviting audiences to family reconciliation. In producing the world premiere and cross-Canada tour of She Has a Name by Andrew Kooman, we moved people to join the work of abolishing modern-day slavery with performances in 13 cities from Halifax to Victoria. After prairie tours of Solo Joe and our first living room show Twinkle, we became a charitable society in 2013. Our world premiere tour of We Are the Body by Andrew Kooman called people to advocate for prisoners of conscience. The company offered theatre education for youth and presentation of other companies’ shows before transitioning to our Saskatoon home in 2017.
Every Brilliant Thing offered audiences a powerful comedy about depression, suicide and gratitude, with multiple tour presentations including Regina’s Globe Theatre, Saskatoon’s Live Five Theatre and Winterruption Festival, Calgary’s Fire Exit Theatre, and an 8 week run at Alberta’s Rosebud Theatre. My Little Plastic Jesus by Tim Bratton is our most recent commissioned live world premiere, which will continue touring to living rooms across Canada in 2023. Since COVID-19 we created two original fiction podcast series. The first, Tied In Knots, presented 5 audio plays that embrace the challenges of marriage. Our second, We Treaty People, is now playing on all podcast platforms (and as a radio broadcast on CFCR), with 18 episodes of audio plays and interviews created by 49 artists exploring the question, “What does it mean to embrace all our relations?” In 2023 we produced the SK premiere of Krista Marushy’s award-winning play Evergreen, an intimate thriller which wrestles with loneliness, faith and the risks of love. We recently presented New Blood: A Story Of Reconciliation at Persephone Theatre, an epic show with dozens of performers blending the music of Peter Gabriel and Blackfoot tradition.
Burnt Thicket Theatre